Death in Cocos from shark attack

[outofofficebrb]

Of the few times I have been truly afraid of a shark/s (all in Oz) was on the surface after a dive. Had to fend a few of with camera/s at times, and get out of water ASAP. To a shark any 'animal' flapping about on the surface generally means it is in distress and hence easy prey, Simple as that sometimes, unfortunately

That sounds awful - super stressful! Also, besides rapid movements, shiny objects (jewelry even as smell as studs on ears, rings, etc.) strobe flashes from cameras, high contrast colors are all items that can play a part.

 

[mike75]

I was at Cocos 2 weeks ago on a private sailboat.
Saw a Tiger most dives in the channel between Manuelita and the main island.
On our first dive I was surface support in the small inflatable tender we used. Since it was so small and light I decided to snorkel over the two other divers in my party and drag the dink behind me. A couple of minutes in the water and I was surprised by what I thought was the dink in front of me (it should be behind since I was dragging it). I had a 3 to 4 meter tiger pass about two meters in front of me.
I really don't like being on the surface around sharks so quickly got back into the dinghy.
First time I have ever had a shark make me feel like I would be better off out of the water.

I was also there 2 weeks back on the Okeanos Aggressor I and the captain said he saw a tiger shark swim on the surface next to the boat

 

[KevinNM]

New York financier killed in Costa Rica shark attack

New York financier killed in Costa Rica shark attack
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Rohina Bhandari sustained severe bites to her legs in the attack off the coast of Costa Rica CREDIT:GETTY

• Julie Allen, washington

3 DECEMBER 2017 • 10:35PM


ANew York financier has been killed in a shark attack while scuba diving off the coast of Costa Rica, the country's Environment Ministry announced.

Rohina Bhandari, 49, a senior director at WL Ross & Co. LL, was identified by friends as the American tourist who was fatally attacked last Thursday.

She was dragged from the Pacific Ocean after sustaining severe bites to her legs but could not be saved. Her 26-year-old diving instructor was also badly injured.

The male instructor, who was conscious and in relatively stable condition, told officials that the shark attacked when his group was surfacing at the tail end of the dive in pristine waters close to Cocos Island, about 300 miles from the country's mainland.

According to the Costa Rican newspaper La Nacion, the guide noticed the shark approaching his group underwater and tried to scare it away.

But as they surfaced, the shark went for Ms Bhandari, tearing at her legs. Tiger sharks, which have dark stripes on their body when young, are predators often found around Pacific islands. Unlike many other species of shark, they can be aggressive and account for a large proportion of attacks on humans.

Authorities said two park rangers and several doctors who were part of the diving tourism group of 18 people on the island trip organised by Undersea Hunter Group, offered first aid in a desperate bid to save her.


The group regularly organises tours to the national park reportedly known for its abundance of sharks.

Alan Steenstrup, the tour company’s sales manager, said they were "in shock" because of the incident and added they were now focusing on working with the victim’s family and the authorities.

Friends paid tribute to the Manhattan resident on Facebook.

"Unbelievably sad and heartbreaking news that Rohina has died," wrote Julie Walker. "She was such a wonderful person who loved life. I will always remember her kindness, friendship and our adventures together."

Another unnamed friend wrote: "Your kindness and genuine warmth to those of us lucky enough to call you 'friend' was a blessing to behold."

The environment ministry stressed the attack was "an isolated incident" and was the most serious one it had seen. The Central American country's economy relies heavily on the tourism industry.

 

[Steelyeyes]

So what do you mean by "if anything is done?" It's the ocean. There are sharks in it. Places like Cocos that have a healthy population of them are prime dive destinations because of that. It's a hazard of diving just like any other accident category on this board, and by comparison a very rare one. If you want to dive in a place where you're guaranteed not to be at risk of a shark attack, go blow bubbles in a quarry.

Along those lines, I don't know where you're getting your info about Hawaii, but that's home base for One Ocean Diving (Ocean Ramsey and Juan Oliphant's operation); their IG feed is full of pics of them freediving in the open with large tigers. Kona on the big island has a number of regular tigers that the dive charters know quite well.

My wife and were diving Honokohau Harbor just out of Kona as a beach dive. At the end of the dive while navigating back to the Crescent Beach we encountered a tiger shark that was about 10 feet long and about 25 feet away. We were just off of the bottom in 35 feet of water. The shark just did a swim by. From talking to other divers and reading dive reports of the site sightings like that are common. There is a large female shark there that's enough of a regular to have a bar named after her. People call her Laverne and claim she looks like a small school bus if you see her.

I've watched some videos of Ocean Ramsey's work. It's pretty informative. It would be interesting to see what she would have to say about this attack.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Where do you get that I advocate wiping out marine life? Have you ever encountered any diver who would advocate wiping out marine life? In 30 years of diving I've yet to come across a diver who wanted to destroy the marine environment.

Re-read please- "STUPID" refers to the act of tiger shark culling - as in "tiger shark culling would be stupid", not that tiger sharks are stupid.

Thanks.

Thank you for clarifying - for the record, I know plenty of divers who seem to think being "inconvenienced" by an animal is reason for man to enact some population control. Typically it's from spearfishers who find sharks or goliath groupers problematic.

From your previous posts, it seemed you weren't exactly fond of encountering sharks while diving; I've bolded certain statements for emphasis:

• You seem not to have had any positive interactions with sharks while diving, even in non-baited scenarios.

Last time I was diving in Jupiter Florida it was a mixed boat with spear fishermen, they drop them separately for safety reasons for the rest of the divers (they attract sharks), toward the end of the dive somehow we ended up close to a spearo, I heard his gun go off and I tensed up because I knew what was coming, within 30-40 seconds two super aggressive large reef sharks came in like rocket propelled torpedoes from no-where, like rabid dogs they flew into each recreational diver and basically sniffed our crotches in super high speed before going to the next diver and the next, they did that all in about 20 seconds then they turned instantly and zoomed toward the spear diver, I can only surmise they got a whiff suddenly of his fish. Having a 6 foot reef shark at super high speed sniff your crotch and then turn to be 2 inches from your mask all in the space of about 1/2 second gives you a real good understanding of how defenseless you are in the water with these guys, the waters their element and they are built for speed, no defense against any shark moving like that.

Those are not even fed sharks, fed sharks are much worse. In Belize I had two other sharks do the same thing to me, but they were much bigger and much more agressive, they were beaten off by my camera rig. Everyone around was in denial or refused to admit that anybody was feeding sharks in that area... truth came out later that a boat was doing it to attract sharks for their trips out there. Sharks aren't stupid, they are predators and they can make basic associations in their little brains, and fed sharks suck.

• You consider tigers and other "dangerous" sharks to be a no-go for you when it comes to diving.

I will dive with certain sharks and don't want anything to do with others, I have no desire to be in open water and find myself with a great white, bull shark, oceanic or a tiger shark, these species are dangerous and just because a thousand people have dived tiger beach in the bahamas without incident doesn't negate the fact that others have died there. Tigers are one of the sharks that is a roll of the dice, you have very little ability to alter the outcome of an encounter with one, you're at the mercy of that animal. When people go on and on about how rare attacks of sharks are it doesn't disappear the fact that people do get bit and people do die from them all the time. This nasty incident was just another roll of the dice that the diver came out on the bad end of it, nobody had any power to change how that outcome was going to go down, it was the day that tiger decided to put it's mouth on them. And that's the reality of shark encounters, with certain ones you have zero ability to do anything, caught in open water your dives outcome and the rest of your life is 100% up to that animal that day. That's the reality of the statements behind 'sharks rarely bite people'.

Tiger sharks are indiscriminate eaters they seem to 'eat' all the time, don't think there is any hunger attached to them, they are nicknamed 'trash cans of the oceans' in their stomachs they have found tires, other sharks, a porcupine, a bag of money, rocks, license plates, cameras...

• You seem to think shark attacks are downplayed as a risk

I would be quite surprised if anything is done, it will be chalked up to the "how rare shark attacks are" and be forgotten about. Cocos are a cash cow, those benefiting don't want another incident but I'd guess they also don't want anything changing or limiting them. I'll be surprised if there is ever a lot of details about this incident made public.

Use your imagination, if you can't come up with a dozen scenarios ranging from marine park regulation changes to changes in dive operators diving procedures, to some stupid tiger shark culling... well, come back and I'll help you fill in the blanks.

As I said, likely nothing at all will change or come of it. Just another "rare shark attack"

So, forgive me if from the context of your posts throughout this thread I made the assumption that you felt an area with a large population of tiger sharks was unsafe for diving and warranted a cull.

 

[Steve_C]

• You seem to think shark attacks are downplayed as a risk

One has only to follow this thread to see that there are many who downplay sharks as a risk. They are a risk. I think they are magnificent creature.s But they ain't pussycats.

Well I take that back.

My normally docile pussycat of 12 years bit me in the hand when I tried to take him back inside and he did not want to go in that way. Put me in the hospital for 3 days on IV antibiotics wondering if they would have to splay my hand open if the red line kept climbing up my arm from the infected bite.

 

[drrich2]

They are indeed a risk; we're simply accustomed to many over-estimating the threat level so it's natural to try and counter the distortion, but true, they seriously wound or kill some people, and I don't think every case was due to mistaking us for another creature (e.g.: great whites hunting seals).

But how many divers disproportionately fear sharks when their risk of heart attack, narcosis-related dysfunction or gear failure then drowning, or arterial gas embolism is much greater?

The issue with night diving around white-tip sharks posing significant risk is good to know, and something I haven't read of in Cocos Island trip reports. In such reports tigers tended to play minor roles; a few seen briefly and likely at some distance was the impression I'd somehow gotten. 1st Hand accounts in this thread are eye-opening!

Richard.

 

[mmmbelows]

Thank you for clarifying - for the record, I know plenty of divers who seem to think being "inconvenienced" by an animal is reason for man to enact some population control. Typically it's from spearfishers who find sharks or goliath groupers problematic.

From your previous posts, it seemed you weren't exactly fond of encountering sharks while diving; I've bolded certain statements for emphasis:

• You seem not to have had any positive interactions with sharks while diving, even in non-baited scenarios.

• You consider tigers and other "dangerous" sharks to be a no-go for you when it comes to diving.

• You seem to think shark attacks are downplayed as a risk

So, forgive me if from the context of your posts throughout this thread I made the assumption that you felt an area with a large population of tiger sharks was unsafe for diving and warranted a cull.

Sharks and the world are divided into 3 camps

1) Non-divers (general public) with zero actual interactions with sharks who get their opinions of sharks from movies and the news, so they typically over-estimate the danger of sharks

2) Divers with very little experience with sharks, they likely have 50 or less encounters, they get much of their opinions formed by the small amount of encounters they have which have all been unexceptionable and the typical scuba world over reaction of "shark attacks are very rare, sharks are more scared of you then them...." which are the typical diver reaction to counter act the non-divers opinions of how dangerous sharks are.

3) Divers with a lot of experience with sharks, hundreds and hundreds of shark encounters, these divers have enough encounters to have had personal experiences with aggressive sharks, sharks with bad attitudes, close encounters with sharks requiring them to get out of the water or defend themselves.

As you increase your interactions with sharks, you'll eventually have your first bad experience, with more and more experiences with them you'll eventually change from #2 to become a #3 sooner or later, that doesn't make you someone who hates sharks or thinks they should be culled or has never had good interactions, it just makes you somebody who has seen what most divers have not and you become much more realistic about how good sharks can be to dive with and how bad they can be to dive with.

The diver that died in Cocos went from a #2 to a #3, however she unfortunately didn't survive the experience.

Obviously I'm a #3, I had hundreds upon hundreds of shark encounters over 30 years and I've seen the good and the bad in sharks, I've done just about every commercial shark feeding dive there is in the world, the last one was the Beqa bullshark and tiger shark feeding dive in Fiji. I don't hate sharks, I just respect them and I understand better than the #2 divers how unpredictable they really are.

 

[drrich2]

3) Divers with a lot of experience with sharks, hundreds and hundreds of shark encounters, these divers have enough encounters to have had personal experiences with aggressive sharks, sharks with bad attitudes, close encounters with sharks requiring them to get out of the water or defend themselves.

I wonder what % of those ‘3’ divers spearfish? I’m not knocking spearos, just pointing out I suspect hundreds and hundreds of shark encounters aren’t a common experience for most recreational divers. Hundreds and hundreds taken literally is at least 400 separate encounters.

Now, if a couple dozen reef sharks on one shark feed dive count as 24 encounters that’s another story, but I don’t think that’s what you meant.

Richard.

 

[Steve_C]

I wonder what % of those ‘3’ divers spearfish? I’m not knocking spearos, just pointing out I suspect hundreds and hundreds of shark encounters aren’t a common experience for most recreational divers. Hundreds and hundreds taken literally is at least 400 separate encounters.

Now, if a couple dozen reef sharks on one shark feed dive count as 24 encounters that’s another story, but I don’t think that’s what you meant.

Richard.

Probably depends some on where you dive. In my own case, lots of sand tigers (I am in NC), some sand bars, one up close and personal, a few reef sharks (FL), lots of nurse sharks (FL), and one huge shark (NC) that I have no clue. Came swimming right by me near a wreck. It was big, powerful. Wasn't any of the others.

I use to do some NC pier fishing and we would see tigers, hammerheads, duskys, lemons, sharpnose, and a number of other sharks.