Arubandi07
Contributor
A big distinction I would make between chumming and hand feeding..... For tens of millions of years, sharks were constantly exposed to Natural death events, such as whale carcass, etc...bringing many sharks, grouper, and other predators to dine on the "natural death based feeding event". When you see groupers showing up at a whale carcass, you see the sharks ignoring them.....All each of the predators attending will care about, is getting their share of the carcass.
Chumming( the blood trail)... is the "invitation" that has been used for the same tens of millions of years.... If you chum, but there is no food to be found, this is ALSO a result sharks have faced for tens of millions of years....that they showed up too late, and the buffet is over....In fact, we know that this is really their expectation when following a blood trail where there is no vibration or sound related to a death struggle--the shark knows instinctively, that the struggle is long since over--and that there may very well be nothing to find....so the shark swims slowly, they don't get all excited--they try to conserve energy on this hunt....but they do follow the trail, on the hope that something may turn up....
And when this is Chumming like Abernethy does...when the shark gets there, they look around, wondering if they are going to see a buffet meal anywhere--but they don't....so they look as long as they feel the INVITATION is still going out....up until at some point, they decide there is nothing, and they go elsewhere.
The Hand feeding or spearfishing issue is very different--at least to me.....when Frank Hammett taught me advanced spearfishing techniques in the early 80's, one of the big lessons he shared with me--that was a RULE followed by all the spear fisherman of the day ( 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's) -- was that if you bring sharks in by spearing a fish--you get the fish out of the water AND YOU DO NOT LET THE SHARK GET FED.....No one wanted sharks to figure that WE would represent an easy meal.....They knew sharks were OPPORTUNISTIC, and just like Jewfish, if they thought it would be easy to STEAL a MEAL, rather than hunt a healthy fish down--THEY WOULD STEAL THE MEAL. This was obvious to the old time spear fisherman...and it is obvious to many of us today.
The old timers knew that if sharks began figuring the DIVER=FISH TO STEAL, then sharks would soon be "looking and digging in our pockets" for food so to speak...like a horse looking for an apple.....Except, unlike a horse, the shark will bite through the person when looking for the apple
As to the shark riding.....Remoras do it.....Sharks don't care much, or they would do something about it.....an 18 foot long GWS is NOT in need of sympathy from environmental liberals that think the poor helpless shark needs to be protected from the evil snorkeler. Sharks have very obvious body postures they use to express themselves when they feel it necessary---THREAT Displays are common, as are territorial posturings with the pectorals tucked and the rapid torquing of their body left and right....if the snorkeler was bothering them--the snorkeler would quickly get the message...or become a protein snack.
As to the terrestrial predators and how they respond to people....comparing bears and lions to sharks.....I think this is faulty on a direct basis, because the lions or bears would see humans as prey....the sharks typically assume we are another predator--maybe a lower level predator that must be subservient to themselves--but still another predator....
With land based predators....there are several species that exist in their environments with other predators that they evolved with--possibly not competing with for the same prey--but evolved at a level as a co-predator....and are KNOWN to be predators, not Prey..... A couple of wolves will not look at a Grizzly Bear in the same way they would look at a lamb or a sheep.....The bear will not look at the wolves like it looks at the sheep. Each is looking for prey that fall in to a specific trophic level that it hunts in....Each is going to avoid predators it deems as potentially dangerous--that could limit it's ability to pass on it's genetics by injury or death--survival value in evolution.
I'm sure that there are evolutionary biologists, or others specializing in trophic level interactions, that could easily pinpoint the ideal predators to use to discuss this with.... But I am confident, that sharks assume we are not prey, but an unknown predator--or, at worst, as just not food--as is the typical reaction to Lionfish.
You just saved me a whole lot of typing ...
jerk is lucky it wasn't his dick.
