Question...

[saildiver]

USS Indanapolis is an odd example to use...........no one knows how many of the saliors died from exposure/wounds before being attacked by sharks (maybe thats why they didnt show up til the next day)

once there were dead bodies floating in the water its got to be a different story.....sharks will eat a Blue Whale carcass...but i doubt they kill many!

I would rather be swimming on a reef with a big scary shark that floating in open ocean with loads of dead bodies around me and lots of little sharks.

T

Hey Tiggs-good points...although,there are good estimates of how many of the sailors died from sharks,exposure,or wounds,etc. (a doctor survived the ordeal in the water and swam from man to man as they were dying and pronounced them dead and at that point his life jacket was usually taken off so he would sink,so there wouldn't be so many bodies in the water). And, according to whaling literature,the sharks certainly came after whales that were speared (and still alive), and the whalers had to work fast or the sharks might get more of the whales than the whalers would. But,in my example of the USS Indianapolis, I was mainly trying to point out that we shouldn't make the mistake that "sharks don't like the taste of human beings" or "sharks aren't attracted by human blood"...they will seek us out if injured ( and sometimes if not) and sometimes eat us,but we obviously aren't at the top of their taste preference, or we'd be dropping like flies at the local beaches, instead of just 70+ attacks world wide per year,with less than 15% fatal on average...I'm with you though,I'd rather be on a reef with a large tiger shark than to have been in the water with those guys on the USS Indianapolis,God rest their souls...Peace...Saildiver.