Florida Shark Feeding Ban

"Letter to: FFWCC, FFWCC Staff, Representative Charlie Justice

From: Spencer Slate, President, Florida Association of Dive Operators

Subject: Interactive Marine Encounter proposed ban

Date: 24 Sept. 01


Dear FFWCC, FFWCC Staff, Representative Charlie Justice,

September 2001 will be a time to remember; a very sad time to remember. On September 6th and September 11th, a crime was committed against the citizens of America, the free world, our freedom of choice, and our constitutional rights. While the events of both days are very far apart in the magnitude of the crime and effect on the American people, both acts have made changes in American’s daily lives in a very negative and lasting way. On 11 September a murderous, cowardice, inhuman and despicable act of war was perpetrated on the citizens of the United States and the world. This act can only be compared directly to the regime and motives of the Third Reich. Those responsible for the attacks hate America, they hate democracy, and they hate our way of life and our freedom. They want to destroy our constitution; our daily way of life, and everything that our forefathers fought and died for to make our country the great nation it is today. Our country must and will bring deadly and lasting action in kind to those responsible and the world will be a safer, better place to live. The horror of 11 September will live on forever in the hearts, minds and souls of the human race. We must, and will eradicate all those responsible, so we who live in freedom can continue safely to do so in our daily lives.

On 6 Sept our constitution was attacked, our freedom of choice and for many our freedom to make an honest living and support our families was changed forever. On that day you, the FFWCC voted to ban interaction marine encounters by dive operators in Florida. The effect of your decision, if it does become law, will immediate and forever change the way millions of Americans and visitors to our state from all over the world, make daily decisions. A needless ban on the rights of choice we Americans have fought and died to make, go to the heart of what we stand for. To quote President Bush in his inspiring address to our nation on 20 Sept., “We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them.” I submit to you, Commissioners, your sacrifice of our way of life, by voting for the ban on 6 September was a threat to the freedom of every American. We will not stand by and let this ban happen any more than we will let those perpetrators escape punishment for the heinous crimes of 11 Sept. With the exception of Mr. H.A. Huffman the one dissenting vote against the ban, you are guilty of directly attacking our way of life.

Having spent hundreds of hours of my time attending the FFWCC meetings dealing with the interaction marine encounter issue over the past 3 years and gaining respect for the commission on their understanding of our rights and the willingness to work with us in achieving a workable solution I was appalled at your instant and surprise decision to ban our underwater activity. Considering all of you to be intelligent people the decision to ban interaction marine dives across the board so suddenly sent a clear message that you care nothing about American’s freedoms but simply wanted this issue “off your plate”, as was aptly described by board member John Rood. Further, your decision demonstrated that there is no backbone within the commission to stand up to honesty, fact, decades of experience and what is right, but to bow to politics, the media frenzy and the uneducated public. Again, I applaud Mr. Huffman, he has the ‘guts’ to speak his mind and vote for Americans and our right to our free choice. Your decision made it clear to all that you have no intention in solving the ‘real’ problems surrounding public safety and the shark bite issues that have gone on worldwide since man has inhabited the earth.

You are keenly aware from the days of testimony, video presentations, and personal experiences of dozens of professionals, scientists, and lay persons around the world that the real issue is not divers feeding 20-25 sharks; but rather beach fishing, pier fishing, boat fishing near shore, spearfishing all coming in contact with the millions of beach goers each and every day statewide. But you chose the path of what you thought was least resistance, and sacrificed what you think is a small group of divers who have built their businesses on the fun and educational enjoyment of interaction marine encounters. Well my friends our war has also just begun. You have assured that this issue, and the millions of divers and dozens of scientists worldwide, will never go away. This proposed ban will continue to be ‘in your face’ until it too is resolved for the benefit of America, its constitution and its citizens. You, above all, have no right to deny American citizens of their freedom of choice! This is not Afghanistan this is America!

I do feel sorry for you commissioners and all involved in your decision. Being a man of character, ethics, honesty and belief in always doing the right thing for my family, my country, and myself; I know you are in personal turmoil. You know you made the wrong decision for America and for American freedom. America knows you made the wrong decision, and like the decision to punish the perpetrators of the heinous crimes committed on 11 Sept., we will fight back and like the end result of America’s war we will prevail. The right outcome, the honest outcome, the just outcome will prevail.

Cc: The World"

Good lord, the FWCC must think the feeders are insane.

How to win friends & influence your enemies.

DocVikingo

You know Doc...

You don't have to read between the lines with THAT prescription!!! Good luck!

I don't beleive I would ever be part of a shark feed... But I KNOW I would never ban someone's right to do that! To the Representatives of our state and the regulatory bottom feeders, I have but one thing to say

Sharks and shark feeding dives are NOT THE problem... Stupid!!!

:tease:

Doc,

Thanks for posting Slate's letter. I had heard it was "bad" but I was truely amazed that this was the response. I personally wasn't a supporter of feeding but didn't see much sense in the ban either. This "over the top" revilement does noone any good.

Sorry to break any bubbles,but the last time I read the contitution I saw no mention of right to feed sharks.No matter your opinion,the fact is that it is not a good idea.This according to every animal psycologist that I've ever heard.To associate humans with food is a foolish and irresponsible thing to teach a shark ,a squirrel,a bear or an aardvark.I really get it up to my ears when someone who goes off all the time about minimizing our impact on the ecosystem but doesn't include their own ecolgically invasive or insensitive behaviors.No matter that the incidents that do happen aren't ever brought up,why would anyone want to take the chance that this behavior could encourage less fear or more agressiveness.If you don't think this is possible,listen to these idiots brag that the sharks now have been conditioned to show up at the sound of the boat motor.

Tony,tony,tony,tony..............Now, it has been added to the one more thing that you,your kids,your kids kids.....on and on and on can not do,ever!

Next it will be lobstering, while scuba diving because you might hurt the reef.
Then it will be spear fishing,because you are taking away the sharks natural food.
Then it will be scuba diving at all because you might hurt the reef.

Where does it stop?

I dont know...but I know where it could of!

Sorry,but as a fellow bearhunter I'll have to stick by the signs that say "Please don't feed the bears"There is a difference between government invasiveness and commonsense protection for those merit protecting.

come on this is the problem...I have been on shark dives and this has nothing to do with why people are getting bit!

And its, dont feed the bears where you dont want them, baiting bears"feeding them" is very much legal.

The last time I looked sharks arent being fed in 2 feet of water with no visability!

I applaud your writting your views are simular to my own thank you for taking the time and effort in writting that letter and getting out.

Originally posted by Bear Hunter
Next it will be lobstering, while scuba diving because you might hurt the reef.
Then it will be spear fishing,because you are taking away the sharks natural food.
Then it will be scuba diving at all because you might hurt the reef.

Where does it stop?

I dont know...but I know where it could of!

Click to expand...

We're really lucky to have scuba diving largely self-regulated. While I don't think that there's any danger of having scuba diving getting outlawed the way they are outlawing shark feeding, this could be a chance for the government regulators to get a foot in the door with regulating the diving industry.

I, for one, don't want to have to take some government-sanctioned class in order to be allowed to get an air fill. I don't want to have to pay some kind of an annual renewal fee on a "diving license". We have PADI, NAUI, SSI, YMCA, etc., and we may debate which is best on this board... but having those choices is part of what makes diving what it is. If we like having a self-regulated industry, we need to watch what happens in the wake of this shark feeding debate to be sure that the final decision (which I'm afraid is already a foregone conclusion) isn't used as a precedent to move toward tighter regulations on our sport.

(Wow, that's a lot of big words for this hour of the morning...)

Julie

Hi Fishkiller,

The above letter to the FFWCC was not written by me. It is from Spencer Slate, President, Florida Association of Dive Operators.

I have written several pieces on the issue which I dearly hope are more balanced & temperate than Mr. Slate's letter. You may find them in the Oct '00 & Sep '01 editions of "Undercurrent" http://www.undercurent.org. Below is the Oct '00 article. Of course, on Sep 11 of this year a ban was again instituted, spurring Mr. Slate's complaint.

From the October, 2000 issue of "Undercurrent":

"Despite 30 years of commercial marine-animal feeds across perhaps 40 countries and more than 200 operations, there are plenty of people who want it stopped. At stake is a big industry. It’s reported that the 30-odd feeding ops in the Bahamas generated $65 million last year, and that stingray feeds are responsible for half the diving dollars spent in Grand Cayman.

The controversy most recently flared in Florida, where the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC) in February voted unanimously to have staff develop a rule to ban fish feeding for a host of reasons. Immediately, moneyed interests in the dive industry — PADI, DEMA (Diving Equipment and Marketing Association), and some dive publications — got organized to overturn the ruling. Their opponents were a financial cut below them: spearfishing interests and local and national environmental groups.

On September 7, after the FWCC listened to these groups, they ignored their previous ruling and refused to ban fish feeding, urging the sides to work together and come up with a plan for consideration in May. Afterwards an article in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Times called the decision “a colossal cop-out or a cave-in to special interests.” Regardless, it was certainly a victory for the diving industry.

The Arguments For and Agin
Risk to humans and marine creatures: Pro-feeding groups point out that, with more than a million shark-feed dives, there has yet to be a fatality. Anti-feeding factions say this ignores the divers who have been injured, sometimes seriously, because of feeds. The pro-feeding side has been disingenuous if not deceptive in its remarks. For example, Richard Finkus, a Florida dive shop owner who has taken hundreds on feeding dives, told the Commission in July that, “if done in an organized and responsible manner, these dives are 100 percent safe with no harm to animals, the environment, or to divers or snorkelers.” Yet, more than ten years ago Doug Perrine, a marine biologist and photojournalist, reported that many divers feeding fish, or even diving at organized feeding sites, have sustained lacerations of faces, hands, arms, torsos, and even loss of fingers.

According to the July, 1998, “Shark News 11,” published by the Florida Museum of Natural History, more than a dozen injuries have occurred on shark dives in the Bahamas. While impossible to get accurate figures on injuries — operations engaged in feeding are vigorous in their damage control — there are verifiable incidents.

Jeff Torode, co-owner of South Florida Diving Headquarters and a proponent of feeding, sustained a serious hand injury while feeding eels. A Boca Raton man diving near a feeding area, but not himself feeding, had a large moray bite him on the leg. After a supervised grouper feed at Walker’s Cay, a regularly fed barracuda bit a diver’s fingers as he made the sign for shark, requiring 15 stitches. And, in an item that speaks to molestation of human and marine creature alike, the September Skin Diver contains an interview with Key Largo’s Spencer Slate. When asked his craziest stunt, he replied: “The time Perry, the moray eel, bit me. I was so mad that I punched him in the nose. He responded by biting me again, only this time caused 17 stitches worth of hurt, and it was caught on tape.” Slate admits to being bitten over 50 times across the span of his feedings, but jokes that: “We always sell more video tapes of the dive on days I get bit.”

An indeterminate number of divers in the Bahamas have been injured during shark feeds, including a German woman who was bitten on the head at a shark feeding site on a non-feeding day. More than a dozen attacks on feeders in the Bahamas have occurred, including a DM who was seriously bitten on the arm and leg. In the Maldives an operator who feeds by hand and mouth has been bitten four times by sharks, once so severely he was evacuated to the U.S. for treatment.

While there has been no documented fatality, George Burgess, a noted University of Florida shark researcher, has opined, “Sooner or later, some tourist will suffer a very serious injury or die during one of these operations. It’s not a matter of conjecture. It will happen. It’s just a matter of time.”

While most feeding is unregulated, in many locations it’s restricted or prohibited, including the Egyptian coasts of the Red Sea, many locations in Hawaii, and several National Marine Sanctuaries. In the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, shark feeding is prohibited. Fish feeding is allowed, but only under permit and tight restriction.

Alteration of long-term behavior: The pro-feeding camp contends that marine animals are opportunistic feeders, and the small amount of food offered does not foster dependency. But they offer no evidence.

The other side has some science. In a paper to the FWCC, Dr. William Alevizon, scientific advisor to Florida-based Reef Relief, comments that land-dwelling opportunistic predators such as bears and marine counterparts such as dolphins, conditioned by regular feeding, lose their natural wariness of humans and become aggressive toward them. Bear feeds have long been banned in national parks, and dolphin feeds have been banned by the National Marine Fisheries Service for this and the additional reason that fed dolphins eventually stop discriminating safe from unsafe feed sources. That’s why they get trapped in shrimp trawling nets. Dr. Alevizon suggests that piscine opportunistic feeders, like sharks, might react similarly.

Of course, any diver knows that when sharks congregate at the sound of boats approaching, or grouper and barracuda closely approach when a BC pocket is opened or hand extended, or eels leave hiding places to greet you, they are not behaving as fish unaffected by humans. It’s not natural.

Impact on the environment: Anti-feed factions say that the unnatural aggregation of sharks or large predators in a small area will eventually reduce stocks of nearby fish in the creatures’ food chain. More aggressive species have been observed dominating and reducing populations of less aggressive fishes in feeding areas.

Feed proponents say these feeds allow divers to become educated about creatures such as sharks, thereby increasing appreciation and promoting protection. Anti-feed people argue that divers already appreciate sea creatures, and any boost they get from feeding them is inconsequential.

The Raw Politics
The scuba industry has been remarkably successful in preventing and resisting federal and state regulation. It fights to maintain the status quo, no matter how small potential breaches may appear. For this Florida fight, PADI retained an attorney-lobbyist to orchestrate the pro-feeding campaign. Many people expect PADI to assist in a formal legal challenge if given an unfavorable future FWCC ruling.

PADI’s position is viewed by some as an abrogation of the responsibilities implied by Project AWARE, advertised as the dive industry’s leading nonprofit organization operating on behalf of the aquatic environment and its resources, and particularly its international public awareness campaign, Protect the Sharks.

In July, Scuba Diving’s editor David Taylor promoted a pro-feeding position in his magazine. They also had an online mechanism for petitioning the FWCC, which offered only the chance to express disagreement with regulation.

The Florida-based Scuba Radio sponsored a luxury bus, replete with free food, beverages, and prizes, that took divers to the September FWCC hearing because “... what the commission needs to hear is your personal experience with this type of diving and your objections to the proposed ban.”

One of the more interesting events involved Dr. Russell Nelson, head of the Florida Division of Fisheries. On July 7, Dr. Nelson presented comments that concluded: “Staff does not recommend regulatory action at this time.” Instead, they recommended forming a working group of interested constituencies to develop voluntary controls. A few days later, the Sun-Sentinel reported that, by his own admission, Dr. Nelson had visited pornographic websites on his state computer and on state time. Dr. Nelson resigned, but did not remain unemployed for long. In September, he released a report for DEMA concluding that total prohibition of feeds by the FWCC was not warranted, and, if regulatory approaches are deemed necessary, the FWCC should look to “.... the voluntary adoption of industry standards and specifically the use of special management areas and public information and education efforts.”

Of course, the pro-ban side is not without its strange bedfellows. Florida spearfishing interests have been a major impetus for a state shark-feeding ban. Concerned about increasing aggressiveness of sharks toward spearfishers, some of their members have made outrageous statements to influence the commission, even conjuring up an association between shark finning and shark feeds. Some people believe that the strident position of at least one spearfisherman, Stephen Picardi, webmaster of the “Ban Shark Feeding” website, has not helped his side.

The Outcome
The FWCC met in a grueling day-long session on September 7 to hear massive testimony of widely-varying quality. After considering the input, it suspended any further consideration until May 2001, thereby maintaining the status quo. Meanwhile, the Commission recommended that all factions work together to arrive at methods of feeding that minimally impact the environment. In short, the pro-feeding side prevailed.

The day following the vote, John Stewart, in charge of marketing for DEMA, told Undercurrent that the pro-feeding coalition has every intention of launching a work group that will be “inclusionary, not exclusionary.” He indicated that the deliberations will be entirely public and hoped to have recommendations to the FWCC by next April. He indicated they will focus on making feeds maximally safe for divers, marine creatures, and the environment.

A spokesperson for the losing side was less enthusiastic, telling Undercurrent: “It’s a real disappointment to see the body responsible for protecting Florida’s marine life respond in the way they did to the kind of dog-and-pony show orchestrated by the dive industry. It’s a sad but true commentary in our democracy that those with the greatest financial resources and expertise at manipulating the political system usually get their way.”

As to the various factions working together cooperatively, there is basis for skepticism given the track record. So far, we as divers and stewards of an embarrassment of marine riches have not acquitted ourselves well in addressing this topic. Looking at what has transpired thus far, the welfare of the marine animals at the center of this controversy seems a footnote."

Best regards.

DocVikingo