drrich2
Contributor
Hi:
This question has been percolating in my mind for some time. It comes up in different genres of threads, including these:
1.) Shark feeding dives via chumming. The concern is that desensitizing sharks to being around humans, and/or conditioning them to associate us with food, increases the amount of human & shark close encounters.
2.) Shark feeding dives via spear fishing near sharks.
3.) Cageless shark diving with tiger sharks, oceanic white-tips and even great white sharks.
4.) 'Shark Riding' - where people grasp a shark by the dorsal fin & are pulled among, with the poster child being a female conservationist free-diving and riding a large great white.
5.) Discussion of how to respond if a large shark of a species known to've slain humans comes on the scene; you're doing some other hand of dive & a large tiger shark, great white or really large bull shark cruises into the area.
Someone may attempt to characterize the dangerousness of such encounters by comparing them to land-based predator encounters. Most regard getting to within, oh, say, 20 feet of a wild bear (black or grizzly) as idiotic, nor would most of us willingly get that close to a wild mountain lion, African lion, Bengal tiger, Nile crocodile (in the water), etc...
Yet many people dive around potentially deadly sharks without harm. The argument that we don't look like their natural prey also holds true for bears, mountain lions & some land-based predators. Yet is seems to be different. If I had to choose between floating out in the middle of the water 20 feet from a 14 foot salt-water crocodile, or scuba diving at 30 feet deep 20 feet from a passing 14 foot tiger shark, I'd be frightened either way, but for some reason I think I'd pick the shark. (In fairness, Abernathy dives with Emma the 14 footer, whereas Steve Irwin used to work with salt-water croc.s, and it seemed like Agro and the rest wanted to kill him).
So why is it different?
What ocean predators would frighten you the way the land-based or croc.s would? Great white? An orca? Giant squid? Beyond simple fear, are there any you consider comparably likely to attack?
Richard.
P.S.: It's not just sharks. I've been near big barracuda who doubtless could've taken my hand off, in high-viz. conditions, and admired them but wasn't all that scared.
This question has been percolating in my mind for some time. It comes up in different genres of threads, including these:
1.) Shark feeding dives via chumming. The concern is that desensitizing sharks to being around humans, and/or conditioning them to associate us with food, increases the amount of human & shark close encounters.
2.) Shark feeding dives via spear fishing near sharks.
3.) Cageless shark diving with tiger sharks, oceanic white-tips and even great white sharks.
4.) 'Shark Riding' - where people grasp a shark by the dorsal fin & are pulled among, with the poster child being a female conservationist free-diving and riding a large great white.
5.) Discussion of how to respond if a large shark of a species known to've slain humans comes on the scene; you're doing some other hand of dive & a large tiger shark, great white or really large bull shark cruises into the area.
Someone may attempt to characterize the dangerousness of such encounters by comparing them to land-based predator encounters. Most regard getting to within, oh, say, 20 feet of a wild bear (black or grizzly) as idiotic, nor would most of us willingly get that close to a wild mountain lion, African lion, Bengal tiger, Nile crocodile (in the water), etc...
Yet many people dive around potentially deadly sharks without harm. The argument that we don't look like their natural prey also holds true for bears, mountain lions & some land-based predators. Yet is seems to be different. If I had to choose between floating out in the middle of the water 20 feet from a 14 foot salt-water crocodile, or scuba diving at 30 feet deep 20 feet from a passing 14 foot tiger shark, I'd be frightened either way, but for some reason I think I'd pick the shark. (In fairness, Abernathy dives with Emma the 14 footer, whereas Steve Irwin used to work with salt-water croc.s, and it seemed like Agro and the rest wanted to kill him).
So why is it different?
What ocean predators would frighten you the way the land-based or croc.s would? Great white? An orca? Giant squid? Beyond simple fear, are there any you consider comparably likely to attack?
Richard.
P.S.: It's not just sharks. I've been near big barracuda who doubtless could've taken my hand off, in high-viz. conditions, and admired them but wasn't all that scared.