Dive boat operators face charges of illegally feeding sharks in state waters

[tropicalson]

I love all of the folks walking around telling folks to go swim in a lake. Hey, guy, sharks don't have to want to bite you to kill you. If you don't understand, read the report of Markus Groh. This was an excellent operation with an unparalleled safety record and they still had a diver die, not because he was bit, but because the shark happened to swipe the diver with it's teeth. The distinction is fine, but still exists. Folks who were there say the sharks were in a frenzy. What does that mean? Hell if I know, but I imagine a pack of wolves (you're from Michigan, right?) arguing over the remains of a deer they brought down. Don't be the fool who sticks his hand in there to take the meat away. In fact, don't be there period.

I'm not arguing that there isn't a time and a place to perform these types of activities. WPB probably isn't the place. In Key West they do it out in the backcountry where the swimmers don't go.

Hear, hear. Thank you!

 

[purepursuit]

Reef Sharks on Tunnels have always been overly eager for a long time from what I understand (and from what I heard that is due to feeding that used to take place there). Now we are being inundated with Lemons when you shoot a fish on other sites. I had two show up instantly when I speared a Mutton two weeks ago, and they came in close and followed until I called the dive (no spiked lift bags on me so could not send to surface). I don't remember having lemons show up like this before, they were more rare to spot on most of the popular sites. This is just my limited observations.

 

[danvolker]

I just asked Jim Abernethy about how far bull sharks range.....He says they are back and forth to the Bahamas regularly....and ranging from the Tunnels in Jupiter to the deep area outside of Breakers in 135ft, is to them like us wandering from the port side of a dive boat, to the starboard side..... This does not mean they all do runs that are back and forth, to the southern reefs...it just means some can and do....maybe so far we have been lucky that most of the fed sharks, are not the ones that like to wander to the southern PB reefs.

 

[guyharrisonphoto]

I get that you want to blame Randy for all of this, but think how many more spearos that are on the reef now. Most of them hunting lionfish at that and many just don't mind it when Mr Sharky eats that lionfish because they thinks they're teaching Mr Sharkey to eat lionfish. The video I shared appears to be just that scenario and nothing more.

Hi NetDoc

The only comparison I can think of is what if someone started illegal and aggressive shark feeding/chumming operations in the middle of Molasses Reef, or on one of the Spiegel Grove mooring buoys, and was out there, day after day, feeding, chumming, spearing (putting aside the no-spear regulations, for sake of discussion) for no purpose except to destroy fish and put blood and thrashing in the water? Even more, they are successful so that Molasses and the Spiegel are now populated by reefies, lemons, bulls and tigers that show no hesitation about fast approaches to divers?

How would the local divers and dive ops react to this? Would it be good overall for Monroe County dive tourism if there was a fatality or injury? Even if the reputation spread for aggressive sharks, would that be good for diving overall? Would tourists and vacation divers be put off? Would the small trade in thrillseekers make up for the lost business? What about the more basic question of decency which is raised by increasing the risk level, or even perceived risk level for regular divers who don't want yet another concern when crusing Molasses during their first dive in a year, or dealing with a current at 100' on the Spiegel?

 

[danvolker]

Do all diver interest groups have equal rights, and do some have more rights over others?

Imagine...your Cheatin wife has just run off with your favorite truck, along with your home hitched up to the back of it....your dog is gone, and your favorite country station is now playing rap music. But you don't care, because your beer buddies and you are getting drunk and about to play your favorite game of "Shoot the Cobia off the back of a pissed off bullshark", and you know you are close to winning the "Dumbest and Bravest Hero" contest on Youtube..and you might even win a new GoPro Hero!!!

And who cares about all those loser divers that are all nervous and jerky, cause you are stirring up the sharks, and getting them used to screaming right in between somebodies legs? You have a right to have fun....Don't you?

 

[Wookie]

Do all diver interest groups have equal rights, and do some have more rights over others?

Imagine...your Cheatin wife has just run off with your favorite truck, along with your home hitched up to the back of it....your dog is gone, and your favorite country station is now playing rap music. But you don't care, because your beer buddies and you are getting drunk and about to play your favorite game of "Shoot the Cobia off the back of a pissed off bullshark", and you know you are close to winning the "Dumbest and Bravest Hero" contest on Youtube..and you might even win a new GoPro Hero!!!

And who cares about all those loser divers that are all nervous and jerky, cause you are stirring up the sharks, and getting them used to screaming right in between somebodies legs? You have a right to have fun....Don't you?

C'mon, Dan, be the voice of reason. You know a lot of the guys who go out with Randy because they get the shot. I don't consider Alan Egan, Laz, Chris Parsons, etc. redneck cowboys any more than I consider you a diving fossil. Although I have heard you described that way. This is not an "us against them" situation, this is the case of an operator trying to make a buck, finding a magik formula to do so, and skirting inside the law to do it. Let's not talk about how many dive operators in South Florida used their dive boats at night in the 70's and 80's to bring in square grouper or Cubans or other things that shall remain nameless.

Again, I have nothing against feeding sharks, I have something against doing it by spearing tropicals and "cobia off the backs of bulls" to do it. I have something against doing it where unsuspecting divers go to the reef. You want to shoot fish to bait sharks, go to any of the expanse of sand in the Bahamas (Tiger Beach is a good example, Bimini Bank is another) or the back country of the Florida Keys where no one else except for the sports paying to go there will get hurt. And don't screw up someone's spearing spot....

 

[guyharrisonphoto]

Wookie,

Using pro photographers is not the best example for safe diving practices. I know some of these guys and respect their work no end. But, there is a lot of heedlessness in the pro photo world in general, and pros can decide to put their own safety on the back burner, deliberately, in order to get the extreme shot that will sell or give them a commercial edge. This is true for on-land extreme sports photogs as well, although there is no on-land equvalent of unprotected photography during intentional dangerous animal baiting that I know of. Another example was a photog on an Abernethy trip I heard about who insisted, instead of taking breaks like the others on the trip, of going down alone with the sharks just to maximize his shooting time. They may be pros who think it is necessary for their living, but still not safe divers engaging in safe behavior.

I prefer to think of David Doubilet, who I was privileged to dive with a few years ago trying to document the night-time goliath spawn. He even refrained from making a dive because the current was strong, adding to the risk of diving 100' at night on a wreck while managing a camera. For him, "the shot" did not take precedence over dive safety.

It gets worse though, when the demand for more and more frenzied action shots leads to the pros implicit endorsement of the reckless behavior we are talking about here. Everything that you have an issue with is present, in huge amounts, in part because Emerald markets that "pros" use these trips for shots. OF course, every amateur who thinks they are "just as good" dives right in to show slides of the action to their buddies at the bar or post You Tube video or hang prints on the wall, hence the money part for the operator (pros, after all, are few and far between as customers).

And, now, we have confirmation that it is not confined to hole-in-the-wall or deep ledge (which I still have an issue with as many divers other than thrillseekers do this dive and don't want aggressive shark concerns along with the other risks of the dive), but takes place at the Zion and on Breakers reef which are the bread and butter of Palm Beach diving.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

WHAT!!???!!!??

Randy is bringing this nonsense to the Zion Train wreck trek????

The truth about these operations is coming out and is even worse than imagined.

This is probably the MOST popular wreck site in northern palm beach county, a prime site for the annual goliath spawning aggregation, and visited by many recreational boats every day. Thousands and thousands of divers each year.

This is just as bad, or worse even, than doing feeding on Breaker's Reef. The Zion Train is deep (95'), with current. The last thing many divers there want is close shark approaches by artificially stimulated animals seeking food, especially on more advanced expeditions like night diving.

Can someone verify whether this is outside the three mile limit? If not then Halcyon's post should be grounds for additional prosecution.

This guy needs to be shut down, for good. His arrogance and hubris is going to ruin the best of Palm Beach diving if this keeps up.

See, this is what I mean by "hysteria."

Guy, I took the coordinates posted on Force-E's website for the wreck and dropped them into Google Earth just out of curiosity. For bonus points, I also ran the Miss Jenny, which I've seen in the background of some of the hammerhead footage off the Emerald. Both are a bit over 3.5 nm from the nearest point on the coastline. Federal waters and thus legal under current law.

Now, maybe you missed the part where I said Randy laid out a bunch of fish and got nothing but a bunch of nosy goliaths, and maybe some bull sharks that had zero interest in us and were only seen at a distance by him. Why might that have been? I honestly have no idea. Maybe they were satiated. Maybe they didn't feel like having to shove through a squad of refrigerator-sized grouper to get to the bait. Whichever it is, doesn't sound like the automatic frenzied response you're clamoring about.

Additionally, I dove the wreck trek from the Kyalami on Feb. 22. Again, no sharks - even though later that day the Emerald's Facebook page put up a picture of a great hammerhead feeding off the sand, possibly near that site. Our second dive that day we dropped on a reef line (I forget the site) right after the Emerald's divers came up from it. Some folks got a fleeting glimpse of a lemon shark on that dive, but aside from that we had nothing but snoozing nurse sharks and a crap-ton of loggerhead turtles.

If you're going to scream about Randy endangering divers on the wreck trek and other sites, also make noise about the boats that go shoot cobia off of Governor's Riverwalk. I did a dive there last spring, and the first thing I saw on the wreck was a diver with a speared cobia spilling blood all over the place. Apparently there were three bulls and a tiger hanging around and the spearfishers had shot a few cobia off the sharks. At least one guy lost his fish to the tiger; it didn't take it off of him but the cobia fell off the spear and landed next to the tiger. The guy wisely decided not to go after it. How much of this did I see? None. I popped a few lionfish and left them for dead, and went through the dive without seeing a shark. Finding out I had missed all that was cause for a frustrated cluster f-bomb while changing my tank over. A bunch of us dropped back in on Riverwalk for the second dive to see if they were still around, but saw nothing.

Before demonizing the guy, can we find out if this is a problem or not? I know Neil Hammerschlag's group at University of Miami has done some studies about the effects of shark feeding dives; sounds like something a bright young PhD candidate should look into.

 

[vincent54]

Hear, hear. Thank you!

I must have missed, "all the folks walking around telling everyone to go swim in a lake". It was singular statement.

You are right, I shouldn't suggest diving in a lake. There are amoeba in florida lakes that have killed more people than the "scary" shark frenzies.

 

[Johnoly]

.....It gets worse though, when the demand for more and more frenzied action shots leads to the pros implicit endorsement of the reckless behavior we are talking about here....

"implicit endorsement ??" That's a pretty big leap since I dive with these pro's.

You may think it takes 'talent' to photo a 1 inch nudi slug that doesn't move with a macro lens. Try that with a 400 lb shark in wide angle, at 5 inches with a fisheye lens so you can also capture the sun burst shining thru the surface. All while not over exposing the white underside of the shark and bringing out the clear blue water in the shot with no time to adjust the settings like a nudi shot. Getting the picture with one shutter button press because you have the talent to know the settings before even jumping off the boat is what a pro does. Got one a shark shot like that?, then post it up for others to see.

Like other posters here, I'm jealous as heck that his photo was splashed on the front page of Florida's largest newspaper giving him instant fame and fortune (well not really since they used it without the photog's prior written permission release).

Give the photog your congratulations.. He's published on the front page in a huge 4 color photo. That's talent, not "implicit endorsement"

P.S. I'm going diving in flat calm Jupiter tomorrow !!