I suppose mandatory requirements proposed by law would not be enforceable, as pointed out. If they are not enforceable than there would be no point in any form of Gov agency making them.
But answer me this question.
As divers and protectors of the oceans and the sharks that we all love to dive with, arent we responsible to figure out how we can dive with sharks and not have future incidents like this? How much damage has been done to the Shark diving industry and the sport of diving with such amazing predators. Because of this event what will happen now? Will diving with sharks using an attractant be outlawed? I hope not. There is still much to learn about sharks and having the ability to have them come to you to observe whatever behavior you may see is a bennefit for research as well as a vehicle to promote awareness of these animals.
Now as a dive community we need to let the idea of diving un-protected with any type of baited in predator die on the table. Many have told me opinions on why the moral majority of divers should accept the fact that it will always be dangerous do dive and live for that matter and that protection from baited in predators in a SCUBA dive is not necessary. Many people have told me that this act of diving un-protected is their right, and it should not be infringed on.
This issue IMO is not about personal rights, rather about conservation of the sea. With the vast majority of people that make decisions regarding the future of the ocean being non-divers, it is irresponsible for a person who claims to love the sea to put its creatures in jeporday by participating in an event that has the potential to affect the very creatures we claim to want to protect in a negative way. By attracting predators we call them to us, by our will we bring them to us. Then we get in the water with them and hope their peanut size brains and pure instinct will enable them to make the right decision all the time. After all if they bite a diver it will reflect bad on the shark, not the diver.
It is the Moral responsibility of Shark dive operations to protect its customers from sharks. They have the same responsibility to protect the sharks from the divers. If you bait in a shark and put an unprotected diver in with it, you are now putting the shark at risk. The animal in its million years of perfection just may decide that the feeding opportunity it came for on auto-pilot is your foot. Of course we all know that the shark does not really want to eat your foot so after he bites it he spits the foul bony tasting thing out of its mouth.
Now instead of going home and showing off all of the cool shark pics and getting their friend to vote on anti-shark fin legislation,
They get to spend 4 times the amount of the suit (at least) to re-hab from the injuries. Why? What is the reason?
Now another "shark attack" has occoured and people care less about the millions that are killed each year, for food, finned, or just plain killed by idiots who want to say that......."Got this shark last year, got its teeth out in the garage. We got that thing on the boat and it almost bit so and so's leg off. Yea, I killed it though, it was a real battle.....did ya hear that a diver was killed by one not to long ago...."
A shark protection suit costs $4,600us. If a shark operator charges $3,000 per person for a week, and they take out 10 people that is $30,000. 6 month operating window per year you have 24 weeks. Total rev for the season, 720k. If you are in business for a couple of seasons that is $1,440,000. The price of equiping an operation with protective gear is about 50k. The suits never go bad, they dont have moving parts, and they are 3 piece so they fit most anyone.
For that amount of money there is no reason that anyone should be diving with a shark dive operator un-protected. There is no reason to dive un-protected other than to use it as an ego crutch at the company water cooler. In fact you can get better shots because the focus can be on the shot instead of the 2 reefsharks sniffing your leg. There is no downside to redundant saftey protocol, it is the professional way to manage relative risk scenarios in highly volatile theaters of operation, and all professionals know this. As a professional operator it is your duty to supply this type of saftey to your customers out of moral responsibility.
If we as divers want to continue to search out and interact with these types of predators we need to set at least an operational standard so that through our actions we dont end up harming the very resource we intend to protect. Others see that we are a group of intelligent people that flock towards safe operations and will self regulate when needed, and that people that dive with sharks are not rogue idiots that will needlessly endanger themselves for an ego boost. Rather, Shark divers are a reasonable group of people that through their growing knowledge of the animals they love will embrace any type of ideas that will make the sport safer for all included and promote the activity for years to come.
GTB
