JDB, you're gonna love this one!

Jay D'Bee,

I just heard that Johnny(sp?)Cochrane(sp?)(Remember Oj's Dream Team?) is representing the gentleman who was attacked by a shark recently in the Bahamas. The site was Freeport on Grand Bahama. Who will be the defendant(s)? Dive shop(s) that offer shark dives in the Bahamas!

Now, this ought to be exciting.

There is a fellow named Diamond who lives, I think, in Florida and he has tried to stop shark dives there. I think he is expecting to be a plaintiff's witness. Oh, and he purports to have been diving for ca. 30 years; so he is one of us, not some anti-scuba nut.

Walter, this would be a good spot for you to add some wisdom. I have only been on shark dives in the Bahamas--seen lots of other sharks on lots of other dives, though--and never felt "threatened". But I do not know if there is any correlation between shark dives and an increase in unprovoked attacks on swimmers, surfers, divers, etc. Have the shark dives in Florida led to an increase in "incidents"?

The good DocVikingo gave us a primer on shark attacks, but it did not address the specific statistics I am curious about. Doc, are you out there?

By the way, the jurisdiction, it seems to me, will have to be the Bahamas and those islands rake in a lot of dollars from shark dives. So, it might be a tough slog for Johnny. However, who knows what he might pull off?

Hmmmmm, wasn't it you, jdb, that started this whole legal thing? What could possibly have had in mind?

Oops, the grandson is going through the roof--gotta go.

Joewr

I think I heard that they were going to sue the life guards at the beach for not responding fast enough and for not rushing into the water with a shark that was attacking a human.

Can you blame them.

Chad

Joe, there is no evidence one way or the other specifically relating to sharks. There have been no scientific studies made. Personally, I believe sharks will behave similarly to other large predators. I could be wrong. We know when we feed bears and alligators they associate humans with food and sometimes attack people who are not feeding them. Do we know sharks will react the same way? No. Is it a logical assumption? Yes. What do we know? We know sharks can associate the sound of the boat engine with food. The recent attacks we've seen in the news were not near any of the shark feeding locations and did not involve divers, so they can not be related. If it turns out that sharks behave like bears and alligators it will be divers who are not on a feeding dive, but are in the same area where feeding dives take place who will be bitten as a result. The jury is still out on this issue, but personally, I'm philosophically opposed to feeding dives.

There was a very heated discussion on the merits of this particular lawyer this past week on the Diverlink board. If you are interested, check it out. That discussion centered more on ethical behavior of lawyers rather than do feeding dives cause attacks.

WWW™

I have even seen domesticated horses bite people who did not offer food. I talked with a person at an aquarium that has sharks in it. This person told me that the animals in the aquarium know when it is feeding time and when its not. I have noticed the same behavior in farm animals. All through the state park system we see animals become accustomed to humans through us feeding them. I've seen the same thing with fish in quarries that I dive in and ponds that fish are raised in. I think that it is logical that sharks can become preconditioned to expect food when people are present.
Having said that; I wonder if the reason we have all these "attacks" is due to a depletion of food resources and the sharks are coming closer to shore in search of food or at least if they are hungry enough that they a braving a people crowded area which they may have stayed away from in the past?

As for Johnnie Cochran--his behavior is very similar to a hunting shark. He is hunting down victims for his own personal satisfaction. In this case the victim will be the hotel/resort insurance company.The injured swimmer is merely the vehicle that will get Johnnie's hand in the deep pocket.
If he does sue the lifeguards for real it is only because they will insurance also(read that a deep pocket).

Any rescue/lifeguard trained person is or should be taught that you never risk your life un-necessarily to save another. That was burned indelibly into my brain and constitutes a professional opinion. "A dead medic is no good to anybody" is a direct quote from my training. Granted trained rescuers etc can take a higher level of risk in some situations especially when they have specialized equipment and so we take for granted that they are herocically and blindly throwing caution to the wind in executing a rescue.

Off the soapbox for now

jbd

Who would ask an emergency medic to deal with the downed electric line that is injuring the guy lying on the ground??? If they had a boat (which they SHOULD have), then I might find fault, unless they were just too impatient for the lifeguards to break it out. Too bad there weren’t any dead whales to walk on…

Let's see, is a minimum paying job worth my life? Nope... Is an atavistic encounter with the ocean's most feared predator in a feeding frenzy worth it? Nope... I think a lifeguard's duty ends with saving drowning people and those who are "in over their head"... not battling "sea monsters" of any type.

Fellow Divers,

I do not want to ignite another round of debates on shark feeding dives. I will just say that I am not as opposed to them as Walter and JDB. But I certainly do understand their positions.

One of the aspects that is interesting to me is the following: what if we had "Lion Walks"?

That is, would anyone out there be willing to have a guide spread fresh meat amongst a pride of lions and then walk amongst those lions protected by nothing more than an Ernest Hemingway "Africa" suit? I suspect not!

But, I have done shark dives, the oceanic equivalent of that "walk",and not been attacked. And I know that they are done daily without having the human participants being attacked.

So, from a strictly intellectual point of view, it is interesting to me that ocean predators seem to view us differently than land predators do.

I wonder why? I have heard all the speculation about this, but I really have not seen any controlled scientific experiments that verify those speculative thoughts. So, it remains an intellectual puzzle to me.

Well, I divert from the original gist of this thread. Thanks, Walter and JDB (and, of course, our resident day-maker, NetDoc), I appreciate your thoughts and experiences. Let's see what happens down Bahamas way.
Can I ask you guys to keep your eyes open on the subject and let us know what you read or hear?

Thanks,

Joewr (the unadmonished)

When Johnny Cochrane gets done representing Mr. Diamond, maybe he can sue for the 3 (so far) surfers in Daytona Beach where it is said "so many sharks had congregated they had to jump over them." "They" are or were entrants in the Conference of the National Scholastic Surf Association.

of shark feeding(or any wildlife feeding for that matter) I do think that the shark feeding dives have done alot to re-align peoples view of the shark. We as humans have a tendency to humanize any animal we get to know well or de-humanize what we don't like. We feel less threatened by what we are familiar with.

As for the difference between lions & sharks view of us quite possibly that is because we are natural competitors with land based predators while the sharks may not feel threatened by us? Purely specualtion on my part.

For the most part I think the media will ignore the lawsuit aspect of this shark attack.

but I believe a lion would attack a seal or squid or other marine animal that happened to "stroll" by--even though they are not "natural competitors". I just plain wonder??? What controls the "attack urge" in top-of-the-food-chain ocean predators vs. land predators. Is there some very fundamental difference in "thought" patterns due to very different environments?

Well, this is probably not going to get us anywhere....

Don't know, jdb, there might be some slow days in the news now that Bill Clinton is not President. Although Cheney will probably have two or three more "minor" heart attacks... And, there are always Oprah and Larry King.

Joewr (recovering for a few minutes from the storming of the beach by grandson)

.... despite the main gist of the thread I have found all your comments to be very thought-provoking and extremely amusing! That's what I love about these boards...

Keep it up y'all... and Joe - have you considered a leash for Dennis the Menace?? (haha)