Chumming/Baiting for Shark Dives

[supergaijin]

This is a sad story but IMHO it is not a surprising one. I don't know the complete situation but it sounds the same as in the Maldives in the late 90's-early 2000's where certain operators fed the animals, subsequently the animals got conditioned to expect food. When another operator enters the same place without food, the animal goes searching for it (in this case it was a shiny watch).

In some places shark feeding is the norm and it is controlled by a few operators (Stuart's Cove). When other sites are easily accessible to a host of different or independant operators, then things can and do go wrong... through absolutely no fault of the conditioned animal btw.

 

[Wingy]

I thought this may get lost as it was an old thread so also posted it in accidents and near misses. One poster commented on doing a dive with baited dive with topdive in Moorea in 2007 and having good instruction on what the rules are in that thread gave me a reference point - 6 years of shark baiting where no baiting is required by the same op seems to have literally BITTEN them on the backsides. IMHO it is a reflection on the practice of repeatedly baiting and using the same sites for baiting for years as conditioning of the animals.

The lemons hanging at 5m as soon as the boat arrives at the site was enough of a sign to me in January that this was going to happen. Luckily it wasn't a more serious injury. I was also sneered at by the DM on that dive for wearing one glove - I wear one glove because I have a ring that will not come off and I have seen the inside of a giant baracudas mouth at very close range. If nothing else I'm glad they have suspended baiting activities.

Maybe we as divers need to look at ourselves too. Have we become so demanding that instead of having that rare amazing wild encounter with an animal we expect to see them if we are paying to see them. Whale and Whale Shark encounters too. Some ops offer a money back guarantee if you don't have an encounter. We send out spotter planes to radio back to boats to zoom up where snorkellers or divers are thrust into the water within the allowed zone of the poor animal who was just going about his business?

When did we lose the thrill of finding that bucket list item? I want to dive with orcas, Im sure some of you have. One day I will have enough money to do that trip to Norway. If I dont see an Orca is that the operators fault or the animals or mine for expecting nature to perform on command just for me? I think every diver who has random encounters with sharks is blessed, we're killing them faster than we are making them

 

[InTheDrink]

The only chance sharks have, and even then it's vanishingly faint, of survival is tourism.

Therefore even activities which I'm not terribly keen on, like baited dives, are necessary to try to drum up the value of these animals alive rather than dead, I.e. finned.

That's pretty much all there is to it IMO. We're not seeing a huge spike in attacks so I'd be slow to attribute too many negative interactions due to chumming - altho that said I do suspect, from anecdotal experience, that it can and does happen.

John

 

[cbm32]

Most all of the reports I have heard about of scuba divers (not swimmers, surfers, or snorkelers) have been about spear fisherman or the dive op personnel paid to do the baited shark dives that get so comfortable doing them that they do something REALLY stupid that ends up getting them bit. When done responsibly, by divers that know what they are doing and don't get careless, sloppy, or decide to really show off, I dont see that there is a problem with baited shark dives. I have probably done 15 to 20 of them and plan on doing more.