Shark bites liveaboard guest

[deco_martini]

if you decide to dive when someone is chumming known man killers without a cage you should have already investigated the risks.
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That's a huge assumption. People looking into JASA are greeted by a pretty web page with a dolphin photo. When they click on animal encounters and look at descriptions of tiger and bull shark, they are painted as skittish. If you read the captain's own blog, the dangerous tiger sharks are given pet names. Even acts of aggression like losing a camera are spun into funny anecdotes (we named the reef after the camera!).

When they check the schedule for this operation, they see a regular routine diving schedule of dives with these animals which gives them a sense of normalcy.

And yes, people later sign waivers saying they understand all the risks.

Thought to be extremely aggressive, you will find as a scuba diver, that they tend to stay pretty far away from you at most times.

JASA: Bahamas Shark Encounters

Does that seem like its trying to inform someone of the risks or gloss over them?

If you can prove to me that every someone who takes this kind of trip fully understands how dangerous it really is, I will gladly concede the point.

 

[deco_martini]

Many choose to take it farther - deep diving, cave diving, diving with sharks, etc. These are areas where no one can provide complete protection from the inherent dangers.

Cave diving of course has risks. It also has rigorous certification, its own gearing, and additional safeties over normal diving to mitigate that risk. I imagine that cave diving operations wouldn't want their work compared to cageless, chummed, dangerous shark encounters.

What additional safety precautions are taken on a chummed tiger shark dive?

 

[Zippsy]

I'm with Jack Spearo. A warning of the potential danger, followed by a knowing assumption of the risk, should be a sufficient affirmative defense to any negligence claim..

But lots of people here are telling me it's not dangerous at all. How can there be a knowing assumption of the risk in that case?, I ask while looking all innocent and confused.

 

[deco_martini]

But lots of people here are telling me it's not dangerous at all. How can there be a knowing assumption of the risk in that case?, I ask while looking all innocent and confused.

Most testimonials I see say it was safe and people never felt like they were in danger. Hey, it was even on discovery channel! Sign me up.

 

[gonetobaja]

Ive just heard about the accident. After going through this thread I am confused. There is a way to dive with sharks out of a cage without getting hurt. Its called a SHARK SUIT. Neptunic Sharksuits | The Creators of the Sharksuit Technology

I wear one to dive with the Humbolt squid in mexico and so do all of my customers. For years the shark dive industry has been living under the impression that they are good not lucky and that there is no need for protection of their customers. I dont know of a single shark dive operation that gives armor to its customers even though its readily available. Guides and people who feed them directly get armor but not the customer 15 feet away. Why would anyone dive with baited in sharks or sharks being fed (same thing to me) if you are not going to protect yourself. You can not trust the judgement of a shark. Its a shark, not a person. Its teeth are designed to take flesh off of bone. If it bites you on accident just to see what you are you are screwed. There may be a mistake made by the animal when it is in a baited or feeding situation. A mistake by a 4 ft reefshark means you loose 3 fingers off of one hand, or some other minor inury. For years I have laughed at the idea that as long as you dont move off of the bottom and dont flail around you will be safe.

If you dive with sharks with no armor, you are right, its like skydiving, only with no reserve chute. Whats the back up plan for "dont worry the shark wont bite you." It should be some type of secondary protection for the diver in the situation. I dive with sharks, and Humboldt squid and I have had people give me a hard time because I wear my armor on every dive that I know that there will be a shark or Humboldt around. These animals have evolved over millions of years and it is disrespectfull to expect them to act any way other than the way they are built for. If you are going to dive with dangerous animals you need to protect yourself for the POTENTIAL DOWNSIDE OF THE ENCOUNTER out of respect for the abilities of the apex predator you are going to try and take a picture of.

If the dive operation does not offer shark armor you can still buy your own, it costs about half of a good camera and should be included in the gear for any extreme underwater person. Its a small price to pay to keep your fingers, hand, calf, leg, or life.

I make a living diving with dangerous animals. When I am in the water with them I wear protection. If my customers are in the water with me, I consider them to be in the same danger bracket as me and they must wear armor as well. It is a requirement.


Or you can jump without the reserve chute...... Just on my trip.

GTB

 

[LIVES4SHARKS]

I am an avid diver and protector of sharks. I have not done any dives with baiting of any sort at this point. I have participated in dive expeditions with the SRI. However, I do understand that I am in THEIR environment, and usually where there are sharks there are THEIR natural food source. Before I entered the water for my first shark dive, I thoroughly educated myself in their underwater behavior. Sharks do have some limited field of vision and some bump into things to know if it's worth getting a bite of. Being aware is the most critical element of this type of dive. It's no different if you were on a safari watching lions in their natural habitat. Knowing what to look for in behavior changes...changes in dorsal fin and gaping of the mouth are clues that things are bound to happen and either you need to get ready to put up a fight, or try to disappear to the reef. These are just a few behaviors that one needs to learn before entering the water with sharks.

When it comes to baiting, well you pay thousands of dollars for this type of liveaboard. Baiting ensures that people will see the sharks that they paid top dollar to see. But as a diver, you are not ignorant to what you are diving into. You take the risk, you understand when you sign that paper and when you enter the water anything can happen. Every time you enter the water, you have a chance of having some type of life threatening incident (this is true until we grow gills). With this type of dive, you have added risk, but for some people, the rewards of the experience outweigh those said risks.

It is sad that we have lost another bretheren of the diving community. Would it have made headlines if he had died from a box jellyfish sting? Would it have made headlines if he had had a 1st stage malfunction and died from an OOA? In this case it has become another sensational, biased news story against a magnificent creature that is predicted to be less than 50 years from possible extinction at the rate we are killing them now!

I will continue to dive with and protect sharks. I will dive with Jim Abernathy's group more than likely next year. A few of the divers that I have dived with from the SRI have done the tiger shark liveaboard trip and have had nothing but great things to say about their entire experience. Let's not turn this into a witch hunt, for there are more positives from these types of trips vs negatives. The fact that more people are out there on these encounters learning the truth vs fiction about sharks just might be the key to their continued survival.

My prayers are with his family!

Happy diving and Protecting my Sharks!
Carolyn:sharks:

 

[fisherdvm]

The fact that more people are out there on these encounters learning the truth vs fiction about sharks just might be the key to their continued survival.

This is true only if no ones gets hurt. Most diver's have little fear of being harmed by a shark. Except in this chumsicle experience.

My fear is, all the gain in educating the public by these chumsicle shark feeding experience is - you are teaching the wrong crowd. All it takes is one injury or death, like here - and CNN picks it up.

One incident like "a diver kill by shark doing a "safe" shark dive" will turn millions of non scuba diving public against sharks. If you want to do shark education - do it to the non diving public. Do it by preventing any injuries and deaths during your shark dive excursions.

I'm not saying that the dive operator is at fault. I'm not saying that the diver injured should've known the risk. But in the big picture - the shark's survival is decreased by this one incident rather than increased. Why? No divers on this board is less likely to scuba dive because of this incident. No divers on this board feels that sharks are any more dangerous today than yesterday. But it is the negative impact on the general public that warrant more regulation on shark and fish feeding in general.

 

[LIVES4SHARKS]

It seems that no matter what we do...the press will turn sharks into the creatures made up by Hollywood. As divers, for those who have not had the opportunity, and in reality, seeing sharks is becoming more rare, the only other option are the liveaboards or the groups the likes of Stuart's Cove. Most divers I have talked to have become more focused and supportive of sharks after having experienced shark dives and interactions. Regardless if someone has a bad outcome, it is part of the risk, and I doubt it will deter that many divers. It is up to us to educate the people and I have already sent many emails to all those that have covered the story, and very poorly covered I might add!

This incident is unfortunate and the press will have its field day then it will be forgotten. I think the DISCOVERY Channel has done more damage to sharks during "SHARK WEEK" than any newscast. It seems, with all the new information on sharks and the absolute disgusting practices out there of their slaughter, you think Discovery would do more to protect and educate. All I see is the shark attacks, the anatomy of a shark attack, the most deadliest sharks, and the list goes on.

I know Rob Stewart and many supporters of the SRI are fighting everyday to change the opinion of sharks to the general public. We are in a battle here...unfortunately, due to the nature of the creature we are trying to protect, there can always be an unfortunate incident. I know that risk everytime I am in the water and I am willing to take that risk for what I believe in. But going on a witch hunt, expecting the government to get involved in more legislation is more counter productive. Heck, I want the government to enforce the laws on fisheries, ilegal imports of shark products, and our marine boarders now. As long as they are serving shark fin soup in Las Vegas, I know we have a long way to go from a government enforcement standpoint.

BTW a shark dive is "safe" from inside a cage, most of the time. But then where is the fun in that? It's a risk like any other extreme sport. No one complains when people are gored at the Running of the Bulls!

Happy diving with my sharks!
Carolyn:sharks:

 

[BKP]

But lots of people here are telling me it's not dangerous at all. How can there be a knowing assumption of the risk in that case?, I ask while looking all innocent and confused.

Simple. It's a matter of averages... If one person is bitten for every 50,000 that participate (no, I don't have the actual stats -- this is for purposes of illustration), I guess it would be deemed relatively safe...

The waiver (and admonition of 'risk') is for the happenstance of that 1 in 50,000.

There are also statistical risks for bungie-jumping, sky-diving, jet-skiing, driving a car after a couple of beers at a friend's bar-b-que, or eating raw shellfish... $#!% happens...

...and in the words of the immortal Dirty Harry: "The question is, do ya feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"...

The difference in the above, is that you're not tinkering with the natural behavior of an already threatened, and already unpredictable, predator...

 

[The Kraken]

OK, this is just my OPINION, but if there exists a person who thinks that it's perfectly safe to jump into the ocean amongst a bunch of chum and feeding sharks . . . well, I think that person is a complete idiot.

And if that person is attacked by a shark, well . . . you paid your monies, you took your chances.

the K