At the moment one of the most popular options is 'Don't care' about diving with even an extremely high risk. But when confronted with the reality of that level of risk, so far no one has confirmed they would stand by their claim.
One difficulty I believe some of us have dealing with your poll is that some option conditions are hypothetical and hardly exist in the real world.
I would not go body boarding near Sea Island, of South Africa. I would likewise not choose to enter the water if I knew a large great white (say, over 5 or 6 feet?) was in the immediate vicinity, at least alone. If I were with a group, such as Abernathy leads for tiger shark diving, and it had been established to have a good track record of safety, then I might. We have that with some tiger shark encounters. I don't want to dive cage-less with great whites chummed in, either.
In a real world example, someone posted a video of a truly massive great white feeding on a whale carcass; they'd heard about it, headed out, the diver thought about going in, got there, saw the thing and decided 'not.'
On the other hand, awhile back someone posted a video of a pair of divers descending the mooring line of the wreck of the
Duane off Key Largo, Fl. A good-sized great white shows up, it's obvious what it is, it hangs there looking for a bit, then seems to swim off. But viz., which good, is limited underwater and there's always they chance it'll hang around, circle back, etc... But the divers go on about their dive. When it's present, watch it and see what it does. Once it heads off, go about your business.
So, don't dive in on top of one, but don't live in fear of the water because one might wander by.
In spite of that, I think the thread shows that in general divers are prepared to accept a much higher level of shark attack risk than the wider community.
I rather think that in general divers have a better grasp of how low that risk is, and even when you stack the deck a bit by asking about danger levels that for the most part don't exist in the real world as hypothetical risk, many react to actual risk, not artificially posed numbers like an attack a week.
For many both of these factors are driven by a desire to protect sharks even at the expense of people's safety.
Just like with lions, tigers and bears, as long as we don't drive sharks into extinction, it's going to cost a few human lives. With sympathy to the tragedy of that price, we generally choose to pay it. It's not an absolute question of which is more important, sharks or humans. On a 1 to 1 basis, most of us will pick the human. But what about 1,000 to 1, if the 1,000 may compromise the integrity of a species, and killing much less is useless slaughter for public grandstanding and probably saves no one?
As for my own personal experience, most of my non-diver friends and some former divers think that the level of risk I tolerate in this regard is too high.
Plenty of people think that about scuba diving. My mother wasn't enthused about me diving off Key Largo around reef sharks maybe 4 or 5 feet long that were scared of me instead of the other way around.
We had five fatal shark attacks in the space of about 12 months recently which was the highest in the world at the time so this is topical.
Concerns about shark attack risk are topical at some point to most anybody who dives in the ocean, as horror movies, coupled with wildlife documentary programs showing the massive size, horrific appearance and grisly injuries associated with great whites and their bites, and I think most of us mull it over because it's frightening and unnerving. But with time and education the intellect gains ground on ill-founded prejudice and we cultivate an appreciation for the animals.
Your 5 in 12 months figure ironically shows how low the risk is. Humans in the water are slow, awkward, defenseless 'sitting ducks,' entering the water in vast numbers, showing up at practically any depth a shark might prefer to feed at - whizzing across the surface, swimming partly submerged at the surface, diving down to over 100 feet deep, near shore, out hundreds of yards, way out on reefs, and many of the humans splash around like injured fish, make so much noise they can't be missed, and in the case of spear fishermen cause wounded fish struggles and blood in the water. All in your area. Over a year. With great whites and tiger sharks out there.
And you tell me 5 fatalities. Tragedies, and a terrible way to die, yes, but 5. While we ignore all the people who got mangled in car wrecks on trips or vacations to go enjoy the ocean or return home. Or drowned in the water.
I'm just another diver who has had to think through some of these issues because of the area in which I live.
I respect that. Some time after the
Duane video, I was down diving in Key Largo last September, and headed down the mooring line, I was looking around. Viz. was worse than in their video. I thought about that video, but I still did my dive. I think that's how it is for a lot of divers.
Richard.
