Oceanic White Tip Shark

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anassrat

Contributor
Messages
71
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1
Location
Halifax, NS Canada
# of dives
100 - 199
Since we haven't really gotten any new information from the experts on what is going on I thought to start a thread to see what everyone thinks beyond all the facts that were shared previously (i.e. weather, sheep carcasses etc.)

I am not a shark expert by any means, but I have had my share of shark diving. Looking at what we have been told so far could it be possible that there is no rogue shark in Sharm and it was just all a chain of unfortunate events?

We know that all the factors that have led to the current events have resulted in an increased presence of sharks in the Sharm area which is not common. As a matter of fact most people on this form have said that some of the sites that currently have sharks did not have them for over 20 years. This means that all tourists that have been coming to the area in the past 20 year are not familiar with sharks and even the staff working in the area aren't either. So if you had asked them about sharks before these events they would say they don't exist here or are non-lethal.

We know that humans are not on the preferred diet of OWT, as a matter of fact humans are not on any type of sharks diet including great whites. This doesn't mean that a shark would not come close and try to identify the big object that is floating on the surface (i.e. snorkeler) and possibly taking a curiosity bit (non-lethal). That is assuming that the person on the surface does not panic and show aggression towards the shark which can turn the bit into a little more than just curiosity.

I know in Canada we have a lot of bears and they do injure people who do not know how to act in the presence of a bear. This doesn't mean that there is a jaws type of scenario with people and bears making bears want to eat people. It is just how animal act to protect themselves.

So, what I am throwing out as a possibility is that what has been going on is in deed rare to happen in the area especially within a span of a few days, but this doesn't mean it is not normal in any way. We just need to be careful in the presence of sharks and educate people about this.

I am open to hearing everyone's comments on this maybe we can come with an answer before the experts do!
 
We know that humans are not on the preferred diet of OWT, as a matter of fact humans are not on any type of sharks diet including great whites. This doesn't mean that a shark would not come close and try to identify the big object that is floating on the surface (i.e. snorkeler) and possibly taking a curiosity bit (non-lethal). That is assuming that the person on the surface does not panic and show aggression towards the shark which can turn the bit into a little more than just curiosity.

I know in Canada we have a lot of bears and they do injure people who do not know how to act in the presence of a bear. This doesn't mean that there is a jaws type of scenario with people and bears making bears want to eat people. It is just how animal act to protect themselves.

So, what I am throwing out as a possibility is that what has been going on is in deed rare to happen in the area especially within a span of a few days, but this doesn't mean it is not normal in any way. We just need to be careful in the presence of sharks and educate people about this.
A few other posters have combined wishful thinking and poor understanding of shark behavior to come up with similar conclusions. Longimanus has a well-chronicled history of eating people--so I am skeptical of the rush to explain these attacks as cases of mistaken identity, curiosity, territoriality, or fear. Perhaps they were--perhaps not. But the suggestion that the sharks were protecting themselves from the snorkelers borders on silly, doesn't it? Many (most?) sharks are opportunistic feeders, longimanus in particular. If you want to comfort yourself with the notion that you can modify your behavior to prevent shark attack, go ahead. (I would watch the video of "shark expert" Erich Ritter demonstrating the strategy, right up to the point where a bull shark bites him.) There are, no doubt, strategies to minimize the risk, but our principal protection is that there aren't that many sharks out there and they usually prefer other food. To the extent that other food is unavailable to a particular shark, we can expect him to move down the menu to snorkelers eventually, in my opinion.
 
To the extent that other food is unavailable to a particular shark, we can expect him to move down the menu to snorkelers eventually, in my opinion.

This is an excellent point vladimir. Perhaps we have caused a change in the ocean ecosystem which has resulted in the decline of traditional food sources available to sharks... scary!

This article seems to think that some animal carcasses may have been recently thrown overboard but also that it is possible that decline in fish stocks is altering natural feeding behavior of sharks!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11926406

Quote:
He said a more compelling argument could be a continued decline in pelagic fish stocks having an impact on the natural foraging behaviour of certain shark species.
 
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Thanks, Samaka, I found this quote particularly interesting:

“The severity of the attacks and the amount of human tissue taken (and potentially swallowed) indicates a clear deviation of the normal behaviour of an oceanic whitetip shark. Instead of briefly grabbing for testing or tasting purposes, this female apparently considers human swimmers as a potential food source”.

I'm not sure I agree with Dr. Elke Bojanowski on what constitutes "normal behavior," but she's the biologist, and certainly these attacks are a departure from what was the norm in the Red Sea for Longimanus.

Decision-makers are probably doing a cost/benefit analysis now. They probably don't have the capacity--and almost certainly not the will--to stop the overfishing that may be an underlying cause. I am afraid that depleting the shark population is the next "logical" step in their minds:

For sure the last chapter of this tragic series of events has not been written and there have been rumours of sharks being caught and killed. The question is if this has been as retribution or as preventive measure or if there has been a reason at all.

I hope those with a vested interest in the tourist industry remind the decision makers that divers go there to see fish, and often sharks in particular.
 
A few other posters have combined wishful thinking and poor understanding of shark behavior to come up with similar conclusions. Longimanus has a well-chronicled history of eating people--so I am skeptical of the rush to explain these attacks as cases of mistaken identity, curiosity, territoriality, or fear. Perhaps they were--perhaps not. But the suggestion that the sharks were protecting themselves from the snorkelers borders on silly, doesn't it? Many (most?) sharks are opportunistic feeders, longimanus in particular. If you want to comfort yourself with the notion that you can modify your behavior to prevent shark attack, go ahead. (I would watch the video of "shark expert" Erich Ritter demonstrating the strategy, right up to the point where a bull shark bites him.) There are, no doubt, strategies to minimize the risk, but our principal protection is that there aren't that many sharks out there and they usually prefer other food. To the extent that other food is unavailable to a particular shark, we can expect him to move down the menu to snorkelers eventually, in my opinion.

I have to agree. An OWT may well be looking for hamburgers( fish), and not particularly interested at one particular instance in cheeseburgers ( snorkelors)....

To them, you are still a swimming cheeseburger, and if they get into the mood, the cheeseburger will be on their menu. If you are going to snorkel at some place with OWT's hanging around ( I can think of smarter things to do) , then there needs to be several of you, each should have some kind of shark billy or big camera in your hands, and there should be a nearby boat if you are more than a very short distance from shore.
 
I'm not sure I agree with Dr. Elke Bojanowski on what constitutes "normal behavior," but she's the biologist, and certainly these attacks are a departure from what was the norm in the Red Sea for Longimanus.

What she is saying is that when it comes to biting the normal behaviour is not to take a mouthful and swallow it but rather to make a "test nibble" which often hardly leaves more than punctured skin. She doesn't mean that the biting in itself is normal OWT behaviour.

Decision-makers are probably doing a cost/benefit analysis now. They probably don't have the capacity--and almost certainly not the will--to stop the overfishing that may be an underlying cause. I am afraid that depleting the shark population is the next "logical" step in their minds

Nope... They are thinking how they can get out of the situation without losing face...

I hope those with a vested interest in the tourist industry remind the decision makers that divers go there to see fish, and often sharks in particular.

We try...
 
A few other posters have combined wishful thinking and poor understanding of shark behavior to come up with similar conclusions. Longimanus has a well-chronicled history of eating people--so I am skeptical of the rush to explain these attacks as cases of mistaken identity, curiosity, territoriality, or fear. Perhaps they were--perhaps not. But the suggestion that the sharks were protecting themselves from the snorkelers borders on silly, doesn't it? Many (most?) sharks are opportunistic feeders, longimanus in particular. If you want to comfort yourself with the notion that you can modify your behavior to prevent shark attack, go ahead. (I would watch the video of "shark expert" Erich Ritter demonstrating the strategy, right up to the point where a bull shark bites him.) There are, no doubt, strategies to minimize the risk, but our principal protection is that there aren't that many sharks out there and they usually prefer other food. To the extent that other food is unavailable to a particular shark, we can expect him to move down the menu to snorkelers eventually, in my opinion.


Longimanus does not have a "well-chronicled history of eating people". No shark has. Shark's can of course eat people, but so can dogs under the "right" circumstances. Of the 50 or so shark incidents reported yearly worldwide, there are very rarely a case involving someone being devoured.

On the contrary I'd say that the latest 10-12 years of divers and snorkelers interacting with longimanus in the Red Sea has somewhat "demystified" some of the bad reputation Longimanus had in the past (mostly created by the USS Indianapolis story which gained a lot of publicity in JAWS). It's hard to appreciate the number of people who have been in the water with OWT:s on Elphinstone, Il Akhawein, Deadalus and other reefs, but it must be thousands of encounters. If they would have considered us "cheesburgers" or "hamburgers", we would have had a lot more deaths ...
 
I think what Vladimir was referring to was the poorly-documented (anecdotal) but rather well-known instances that occurred in the Pacific during WWII when large numbers of wounded sailors were sometimes dumped into the open ocean as a result of naval battles and ships sinking. The shark most often named and blamed for these attacks (but never proven) is Longimanus. Since then, the incidents involving OWT's have been scarce, presumably because they are true pelagics, and since there have been (thankfully) few instances since that time when hundreds of injured and bleeding people have been required to float around for hours or days in the open ocean awaiting rescue.

What has been postulated is that a predator like Longimanus is normally an opportunistic feeder and when the conditions are just right, they might very well resort to attempting to feed on a person at the surface.

The question still remains - why have there been these incidents involving snorkelers? Why are these OWT's coming so close to the reef when conventional wisdom says that they are normally deep-water pelagic sharks? I am aware that there are a few dive operators that intentionally take divers to places where it is possible to have encounters with OWT's, but (and this may just be my ignorance) I was not aware that Longimanus encounters with snorkelers were as common as Christian seems to believe. Am I wrong about that? Perhaps there have been 12 years of regular interactions with snorkelers and OWT's in the Red Sea - but this is the first time I've heard that.

It makes some sense to me that divers have not been attacked - they do not resemble anything that could be considered palatable and spew those noisy bubbles. A snorkeler might trigger a curious or feeding response - since they are floating at the surface and are comparatively clumsy. Longimanus might very well wonder if that creature that appears to be struggling at the surface is a distressed and injured potential prey animal that represents an easy meal...

But if, as you suggest, there have been frequent and regular sightings and interactions with snorkelers in the area over 12 years, then something else must be going on... Doesn't sound right to me.
 
I think what Vladimir was referring to was the poorly-documented (anecdotal) but rather well-known instances that occurred in the Pacific during WWII when large numbers of wounded sailors were sometimes dumped into the open ocean as a result of naval battles and ships sinking. The shark most often named and blamed for these attacks (but never proven) is Longimanus. Since then, the incidents involving OWT's have been scarce, presumably because they are true pelagics, and since there have been (thankfully) few instances since that time when hundreds of injured and bleeding people have been required to float around for hours or days in the open ocean awaiting rescue.

This is the USS Indianapolis incident, which I referred to in my post.

What has been postulated is that a predator like Longimanus is normally an opportunistic feeder and when the conditions are just right, they might very well resort to attempting to feed on a person at the surface.

I agree with this. However, the conditions seem to be just right very seldom.

The question still remains - why have there been these incidents involving snorkelers? Why are these OWT's coming so close to the reef when conventional wisdom says that they are normally deep-water pelagic sharks?

Water is very deep close to shore in this area, so it's not that strange that pelagic sharks can appear there. After all, pelagic fish close to shore is what made Sharm El Sheikh such a famous dive area to begin with. It's not common for them to be there, but it's not unthinkable.

I am aware that there are a few dive operators that intentionally take divers to places where it is possible to have encounters with OWT's, but (and this may just be my ignorance) I was not aware that Longimanus encounters with snorkelers were as common as Christian seems to believe. Am I wrong about that? Perhaps there have been 12 years of regular interactions with snorkelers and OWT's in the Red Sea - but this is the first time I've heard that.

Yes, you are wrong. It is common for people to dive and swim with OWT in the Egyptian Red Sea (I believe there are 40-50 Scubaboarders, including yours truly, who have done it many times). It is actually one of the main features. There has been a few incidents (I have personally seen one "almost-an-incident" on Elphinstone), one leathal in June 2009 in St Johns, but they are rare.

It makes some sense to me that divers have not been attacked - they do not resemble anything that could be considered palatable and spew those noisy bubbles. A snorkeler might trigger a curious or feeding response - since they are floating at the surface and are comparatively clumsy. Longimanus might very well wonder if that creature that appears to be struggling at the surface is a distressed and injured potential prey animal that represents an easy meal...
But if, as you suggest, there have been frequent and regular sightings and interactions with snorkelers in the area over 12 years, then something else must be going on... Doesn't sound right to me.


There's quite some difference if you are on the surface or not, but even if you are snorkeling, the risk of attack is actually quite low. The shark will often come up very close to you and perhaps even bump you, but not bite. If we were considered food to them, it would not be possible to have these type of encounters. However it is not advisable to snorkel with them.

I can easily see the tragic accidents happen without anything necessarily being wrong. It's freakishly uncommon, but it can happen.
 
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