Hawaii - Sample Letter

Well done!
Where I rant, others keep their cool.

The good people over at the Shark Safe Network Blog have posted the following sample letter. If you want to assist Stefanie in Hawaii, please send it, or parts of it to the addresses mentioned in the previous blog post.

Thank you!

Dear Sen. Hee,

I am writing in support of two North Shore shark eco-tour businesses, North Shore Shark Adventures and Hawaii Shark Encounters. These responsible businesses, that draw tens of thousands of tourists every year, are being unfairly targeted by a series of five bills (SB2330, HB2664, HB2459, HB2705, HB2483) that have been submitted to this year's State Legislative session. It is appalling and unconscionable that public officials -- who are supported by Hawaiians' tax dollars -- would take up the State Legislature's time and resources with this series of bills that have no other purpose than to destroy two hard working and law abiding small businesses.

The proponents of these bills have been conducting a campaign of misinformation and misguided emotion with no regard to the facts or any common sense. A calm review of the facts and issues, however, presents a much different picture.

Following are some observations on the issues involved that I respectfully present to you:

1. Public Safety: There has been no evidence to indicate that these shark eco-tours pose a hazard to public safety, nor is there any indication that the tours cause a significant change in the sharks' behavior. Please see the following University of Hawaii study, which concluded that shark tours have a "negligible impact on public safety" (http://www.hawaii.edu/cgi-bin/uhnews?20090714111309).

Other activities in Hawaii's waters are much more likely to attract sharks close to shore and the surfers, canoers and swimmers. For example, the Waikiki Midnight shark hunt operates near the most populated areas of Waikiki and Hawaii Kai. Spear fishing goes on right in the surf zone where bleeding and struggling fish attract sharks.

It doesn't make a lot of sense that activities that attract sharks close to shore are apparently not considered to be a threat, while shark viewing tours that operate three miles offshore are being criticized as a hazard to public safety. Yes, these tours operate three miles offshore in 600 foot deep water, far from where any surfing, swimming or canoeing takes place. Participants view the sharks from Poly Glass cages that allow them to view the sharks with no risk of physical contact.

This anti-shark tour movement seems to be fueled by a fear of sharks and shark attacks that is way out of proportion to the actual risk. For example, according to the International Shark Attack File there have been five shark attack fatalities in Oahu since 1828, and the last one occurred in 1992. The shark eco-tours that are being targeted have only been in existence since 2001. Proponents of the bills in question, however, are using the fear factor to manipulate the public and attract attention to promote themselves and their personal agendas.

2. Hawaiian Culture - Aumakua: Please see the following Public Service Announcement that is currently being aired on Fijian television -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eqrKs1B74w& .

(That would be this)



Sharks are also very important to Fijians and other Polynesian cultures.
Yet the Fijians do not consider shark viewing tours to be offensive or disrespectful. What does offend Fijians is the unsustainable killing of sharks that is going on throughout the world.

The Waikiki Midnight shark hunt attracts sharks with bait so that paying customers can catch and release the sharks. Is this activity not using the sharks for entertainment and profit? Yet shark fishing tours are not being targeted by these bills; only the shark viewing tours.

Shark fin soup is sold in Hawaiian restaurants and container loads filled with shark fins can be seen in Honolulu Harbour. If the welfare of the sharks is the concern here, it seems that the shark fin traders in Hawaii's ports and markets and the longliners in Hawaii's waters would be more appropriate targets.

Since sharks are such an integral part of Hawaii's culture why not promote shark conservation, education, respect and understanding? What the shark viewing eco-tours are doing is educating and enlightening, promoting understanding and respect, not fear. How is this bad?

3. Sharks are vital to the health of the marine ecosystem. Hawaii's tourism industry depends heavily on its marine resources. Without sharks to keep the oceans in balance, the ecosystem begins to fall apart, and everyone suffers. Sharks should be protected, not vilified.

4. Impact on tourism and small businesses: A decision to ban shark tours would shut out 40,000 tourists from the North Shore. These tour operators are generating tourism dollars for the local economy. They are hard working small business owners who pay taxes. The tourists who go on these tours also stay in hotels, eat in restaurants and go shopping. Especially during these challenging economic times, is it wise to take actions that will drive out small businesses and tourists? Stirring up fear of shark attacks doesn't seem to be a good idea for tourism either. This fiasco has generated a huge amount of press, not just locally, but internationally as well. And it does not show Hawaii in a favorable light.

It's understandable that Hawaiians would want to see some kind of regulation or oversight of shark tour operations. Irresponsible tour operators certainly could endanger their clients, generate negative press and even possibly endanger others. This statement applies not only to shark tour operators, however, but to many recreational activities.

But why attack responsible tour operators who are operating three miles offshore in deep waters far away from any surfing, canoeing or swimming?

Please consider all the issues and the potential consequences of any proposed actions. And please don't allow Hawaii's Legislature to be hijacked by this witch hunt mentality that aims to destroy small businesses and recklessly divert the State's attention and resources from much more important matters.

Thank you very much for your time and attention!

Sincerely,

Hawaii - the Choice

Gene Ward has a choice.

He has been handed what is effectively a political slam-dunk.
He could step up and declare that his efforts have yielded the following results

• The Law will be respected, as the Shark tour operators have agreed to abide by the Shark feeding ban and to facilitate its enforcement
• The Shark tour Industry and millions in tourism income have been saved
• A protracted and embarrassing fight that would tarnish the image of Hawaii has been averted

all of which would dovetail beautifully with the pragmatic, pro-business agenda of the GOP, and his personal involvement in the Small Business Caucus and Council.

Or, he could continue to allow other people to set the tone.
People like Fish killer and Shark hater Makani Christensen and the infamous Shark Task Force.
And people like this.



Did you hear that? From a state official?

In case you missed it, he has the chuzpah to pontificate about the "Ecological Impact" of Shark feeding!
His "concern" is "what does that (i.e. the feeding of Sharks) do to their population and what does that do to the parts of the ecosystem that they are supposed to be having an influence on".

The token expert, Mr. "no PhD" George Burgess trumpets into the same horn: "A third concern has been raised by environmentalists – how does daily shark feedings affect the ecological balance of Hawaiian waters? George Burgess, shark researcher at the University of Florida, ... fears that the feedings may attract so many sharks to those spots that sharks become scarce in other regions. This is naturally a large problem, since sharks are apex predators necessary for the overall balance of the ecosystems in which they exist."

Beg your pardon???
That's just stupid and hypocritical demagogy.
Here they go and whinge about an ecological non-event whilst ignoring the obvious Big Gorilla in the room, the wanton killing of Sharks by the commercial guys and the game fishermen.
That, and not two small Shark viewing operations, is what is depleting Shark populations and ultimately leading to the demise of Hawaii's reefs!

It's high time Mr. Honebrink started acting in line with the mission statement of the DLNR and made some real contribution towards "Enhancing, protecting, conserving and managing Hawaii’s unique and limited natural, cultural and historic resources held in public trust for current and future generations of visitors and the people of Hawaii nei in partnership with others from the public and private sectors."
That would also include taking on board the conclusions by the Meyer paper and stopping to stoke fears with populist and irrational arguments that have been amply disproved by scientific research!
And No, that paper has NOT been funded by the Shark viewing operators!
Guys, this is science, not politics!

But don't just trust me, an incendiary Industry insider.

Here's what a real Hawaiian got to say about this issue.
He's rightfully concerned about being attacked by the anti-Shark lynch mob and has asked me not to divulge his name. All I can tell you is that he's not in any way linked to the Industry and that he is highly respected and prominent!
This is part of a longer document applying "smell tests" to the various arguments thrown out by the anti-Industry propaganda - and yes, they stink!

BAN LOGIC #3: Shark tourism dangerously upsets the ecology of the ocean by changing the natural behavior of sharks.

SMELL TEST A: Sharks are undoubtedly vital to ocean ecology because of their role as apex predators. Because of their slow reproductive rates, sharks are not able to withstand any significant fishing effort. Shark populations in Hawaii, like shark populations around the world, appear to be declining.

• In order to preserve the ocean ecosystem has this legislative body banned shark fishing?
• Has it banned the sale and trans-shipment of sharks and shark products, such as fins?
• Has it supported and promoted the Shark-Free Marinas Initiative?
• Can this government body produce studies indicating that giving sharks small amounts of food disrupts their function as apex predators to a greater extent than does killing them?

SMELL TEST B: What has this government body done to address the major causes of marine ecosystem decline, including overfishing, overharvesting of marine ornamentals, terrestrial runoff, inadequate or nonexistent sewage treatment, overdevelopment of coastal areas, introduction and proliferation of exotic organisms, and overpopulation?

SMELL TEST C: Feeding of any wild or feral animal can be presumed to alter the functioning of the ecosystem in which that organism operates.

• Has this government body banned bird feeders?
• Has it banned the feeding of feral cats and turkeys?
• Are laws and regulations that affect these activities enforced?

SMELL TEST D: While any effect on ocean ecology from the provisioning in small quantities of sharks is speculative, massive damage to terrestrial environments and to populations of endemic species has been demonstrated as a result of the introduction of pigs, goats, mongoose, and other terrestrial animals. These three organisms have been shown to be responsible for the extinction of numerous endemic animals and plants.

• What has this government body done to effect the eradication of these proven damaging species?

SMELL TEST E: At various sites around Hawaii, people are feeding honu, or green sea turtles. In some cases, they are being fed fish, which is an unnatural food for these vegetarian creatures. In some cases they are being fed in marinas where the feeding attracts them into active boat channels and into areas frequented by tiger sharks, which feed on sea turtles. The turtles sometimes bite the hand that feeds them, resulting in some injuries.

Honu are a prominent amaukua. It would seem that this activity combines a disrespect of Hawaiian culture and religion, a public safety hazard, presumed harm to the organism being fed, and presumed harm to the functioning of the natural ecosystem.

• Have there been any hearings on this topic, proposed legislation by the bodies considering the shark tour ban, or action to enforce provisions of the Endangered Species Act that prohibit such activities?

ANTI-BAN LOGIC: The proposed shark tour bans are a non-logical response to a visceral fear of sharks induced largely by media hype, such as the programming on Discovery Channel’s Shark Week.
This is hysteria, and not good governance, as shown by the fact that the proposed bans affect only shark tours, and no similar activities.

Gene Ward would be well served in re-considering his associations.
Yes, I'm repeating myself!

Hawaii

Different Ocean, same controversy - and same perpetrators!

The opponents of Hawaii's "Shark dives" (they're actually totally harmless and educative snorkeling tours) try to make the case that baiting for Sharks three miles offshore may induce the Sharks to follow the boats back to shore where they then pose a hazard to the beach goers and aquatic recreationists.

Absolute Humbug!, says this study by Meyer and others of the UH Mānoa Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology:

The public safety implications of shark cage diving operations are arguably the most contentious aspect of these activities.
A recent study of the white shark cage diving industry in South Africa concluded that specific conditioning associated with these activities makes them unlikely to increase the risk of shark attacks on recreational ocean users in adjacent areas (Johnson & Kock 2006).
This is despite the fact that white sharks are the species most frequently implicated in shark attacks on people (430 attacks worldwide; G. Burgess, International Shark Attack File, personal communication 2007).

Our study indicates that current Hawaii shark diving operations also pose little risk to public safety.
The shark assemblage associated with these activities was numerically dominated (> 98%) by Galapagos and sandbar sharks, which rarely bite people. Worldwide, there have only been five confirmed unprovoked attacks attributed to sandbar sharks and only one attack attributed to a Galapagos shark (G. Burgess, International Shark Attack File, personal communication 2009). Other potentially dangerous species (tiger shark, hammerhead spp. or white shark), occasionally visit Hawaii shark cage diving sites, but there is no evidence that the rate of shark attacks along the adjacent coast has increased significantly since the advent of shark cage diving operations in 2001. There were five confirmed shark attacks along the north coast of Oahu (38 km stretch of coastline between Kaena Point and Kahuku Point) during the 1990s (Global Shark Attack File [GSAF] 2009) and five confirmed shark bites in this area between 2000 and 2008 (GSAF 2009, Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources 2009).

Negligible impact on public safety is also supported by:
(1) the remoteness of the sites,
(2) the fact that the shark tours mimic activities of crab fishing vessels which have been operating in the same area for over 40 years and
(3) inshore recreational stimuli (such as a surfer paddling on a 3msurfboard) substantially differ from the conditioning stimuli associated with tour operations (c. 10 m diesel powered vessels operating several km offshore), and hence are unlikely to stimulate a conditioned feeding response (Johnson & Kock 2006).

Seriously, does anybody really think this is anything but good, safe and harmless fun?



Incidentally, I was just sent the following by "somebody" very prominent who lives in Hawaii and is intimately acquainted with local circumstances. I can categorically state that he's generally as pragmatic, impartial and well reasoned as they come and not at all an exponent of the tree-hugging activist faction of Shark Conservation.

Did you catch Jim Rizzuto's column in West Hawaii Today on Monday?
It seems that a charter sportfishing boat was on its way into Honokohau Harbor and decided to try for some fun near the harbor entrance. They hooked up a Whitetip, which was then bitten in half by a Tiger Shark. When a fisherman feeds a Shark (even one that belongs to a species that has declined drastically in population over the last decade) to another Shark, it's GOOD FUN!
If you go out to look at a Shark to appreciate it and learn about it, it's a statewide threat.

A diver was circled by two Tiger Sharks for 20 minutes recently at the entrance to Honokohau Harbor.
Every knows why the Sharks are there: because the sportfishing boats dump their carcasses there on their way back into the harbor (or in many cases, dump the carcasses in the harbor, with the smell and sometimes the carcasses themselves going back out with the tide). When fishermen pollute the harbor and attract the only dangerous species of Shark we have here into an area that is one of the island's most popular spots for snorkeling, diving, and surfing, and home to endangered Sea Turtles, Dolphins, and (seasonally) Humpback Whales with calves, it's NO PROBLEM.

If divers maintain a population of small Sharks, never implicated in attacks on humans here, at a location over 3 miles offshore and far from any other recreational water activities, it's a CRISIS! Of course, when that same population of Sharks was being maintained in that same area by fishermen it was NO PROBLEM.
Hmm - must be a simple rule in here somewhere that could explain this logic....

Indeed!

The Problem with "Sharks"

Try defining "Sharks".

I've looked up the various definitions in Google and inevitably, there's talk of "large and voracious" and "sometimes attack humans". And then, there's the human "Sharks" that are "ruthless, greedy and dishonest".
Talk about animals having a bad reputation!

The correct definition would instead list these elements: marine, fish, cartilaginous skeleton, 5-7 mostly lateral gill slits, tough skin covered in denticles, carnivorous. All rather vague as in the definitions for "Birds" and "Mammals" (no mention of "attack humans" here - and yet they do!) - and for good reason, as a Whale Shark, a Cookiecutter Shark and a Great White are as different as, say, an Elephant, a Shrew and an Orca!
To say, "Sharks do this and behave like that" is just dead wrong - and I for one am guilty of having fallen in that trap all-too-often!

Which brings me straight back to the Shark operator controversy in Hawaii.
Yes, Hawaii regularly experiences "Shark" attacks - but those are overwhelmingly attributed to one species, i.e. Tiger Sharks, large predatory Sharks that target big prey (as in Turtles) close to the coast. That's where most aquatic recreationists do their thing and that's where from time to time, somebody gets attacked - mind you, very very rarely, a clear indication that they really want nothing to do with us.
I betcha that drowning and fatal boating and surfing accidents are way more prevalent - so what about banning those activities first, the more as the causality is irrefutable?

The Sharks showcased by the Shark Tour operators are however not Tigers, they're just Sandbars and Galapagos Sharks, smallish piscivorous Sharks that in Hawaii frequent the open Ocean and couldn't care less about some swimmer on the coast - because they eat small stuff like fish and squid and because they just don't live there. Yes they are "Sharks" but they are completely different from Tiger Sharks in terms of size, behavior, nutrition and habitat.
Think "fishing": what are the odds of you ever, ever catching an oceanic Fish like a Blue Marlin whilst surf-casting off the beach? With the wrong lure? See?

To make a connection between feeding a few Fish scraps to a Sandbar (mind you, 3 miles offshore) and an attack on a surfer by a Tiger Shark makes about as much sense as claiming that feeding Mongooses at home will trigger more attacks by Bengal Tigers in the Jungle - meaning, zero!

Alas, the public at large just doesn't want to know better.
It's up to the affected operators to try and set the record straight and there has been a first attempt with this, and other articles in the Hawaii press. Data are data and the interpretation is unequivocal.
Except of course to the usual vermin, see the comments section - just gotta love the guy! "Since 1990" - no shit! Did I say self-promoting asshole? Absolutely not! See, I'm learning to be polite!

Of all Shark operations I can think of, Hawaii's Shark viewing tours are probably the safest, most harmless, most ecologically unproblematic and most widely frequented and thus educationally valuable. Hell, it's just a fun snorkeling gig!
It would be such a crying shame if they had to succumb to mass hysteria and the ambitions of a local politician wanting to get elected.
Really!

From the bottom of my heart, I really wish them the very best of luck.
Fingers crossed!

The Hawaiian Uncle

Yes, I'm referring to none other than Uncle Charlie!

Let me remind you of his contribution to the Shark feeding ban in Maui.

Kahu Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell Sr. reminded council members that many Native Hawaiians honor sharks as aumakua, or guardian spirits, and said treating the animals as entertainment was invasive and disrespectful.
"Any time you organize a tour to look at the mano (shark), you're disturbing their environment," he said.

I found it hypocritical then - but now that I know what he does, I'm just simply stumped.

In a previous post, I've blogged about a breed of Pacific islanders who make an excellent living in bullshitting the ever-so-politically-correct and google-eyed Palangi with pseudo-cultural mumbo jumbo which they make up on the fly.
They exploit the all-pervasive bad conscience of the previous conquerors and colonialists and know all-too-well that for lack of any written tradition, Pacific culture was handed down orally and that as a consequence, it is virtually impossible to verify, and especially, to refute those claims objectively - however far fetched and preposterous they may be.

In the softest possible way, Hawaii is a most fertile breeding ground for unscrupulous ethno-scamsters, native and Haole alike - and good old Charlie seems to have carved himself a most convenient little niche smack within the tourism industry in Maui.

Turns out that among many other things,

Maxwell (also known as "Uncle Charlie") along with Sam Ka'ai and other respected Hawaiian practitioners are part of an elite group of Hawaiian Cultural Advisors who share their mana'o (knowledge) for Maui Ocean Center's various educational and conservation programs.
In addition to paying homage to Hawai'i's 'aumakua, these guardians also contribute to the marine park's standard of operations and service, preside over blessings of important functions and facilities, as well as empower and train employees through their love and respect for the island's host culture.

Well well.
That must be Uncle Charlie's very personal help in

... stopping the practice of using the "Aloha Spirit" to lure tourist to these islands pretending that everyone is "spreading the Aloha Spirit" when they are not.
The visitors will have to be shown the true Hawaiian culture in dance and song and not "theatrics" of the fire and knife dancing with plastic fern leis. If the visitor industry proposes to keep tourism then they, along with the state of Hawaii, will have to keep promoting every phase of the culture.
as he himself wrote in 1997!

So let's examine his culturally relevant contribution.
This is what I read with awe on the Maui ocean Center's website.

Even before the marine park officially opened its doors on March 13, 1998, the Hawaiian Aquarium paid respect to Hawai‘i’s cultural legacy by building a ko‘a (fishermen’s shrine) on property. Located on the left side of the Seascape Ma‘alaea Restaurant, this structure was erected days before the facility’s opening and was dedicated to the ‘aumakua mano (shark guardian) of “Uncle Charlie” Maxwell’s family’s ancestral gods who come into the bay of Ma‘alaea.
The pohaku (stones) to build this fisherman’s shrine were gathered from Maxwell’s family ancestral home in Ukumehame, about seven miles (Lahaina side) from Ma‘alaea. When these stones were brought to the marine park, it rained continuously until the structure was built. As soon as the last stone was placed on the ko‘a and the chanting started, the rain stopped. Hawaiians called it hoailona (a sign of good luck).
The next day, the tiger sharks came to the Maui Ocean Center.

They came??? Really??
Yes, the Center displays Sharks, i.e. Tiger shark, hammerhead shark, blacktip reef shark, grey reef shark, whitetip reef shark, sandbar shark, spotted eagle ray, broad stingray, and dozens of species of tropical reef and pelagic fish!

1. Blessing Sharks?

My awe cannot but increase when I read that

... when a shark is brought into or released from the aquarium, it is blessed by one of Maui Ocean Center’s Hawaiian cultural advisors, for sharks are considered na ‘aumakua (deified ancestors or personal gods) by old Hawaiians.

Do you really believe that under ancient Hawaiian culture, there is a ceremony for blessing Sharks that are caught and brought to an aquarium?
Really???

2. Catching Sharks?

So, do those Sharks "come" - or are they collected exclusively from waters around the Hawaiian Islands? If the mere looking at the mano is disturbing their environment, how about catching them?

Uncle Charlie: Is catching and keeping Sharks in captivity disrespectful of the 'aumākua??

Check out this video.
This is what the less, uh, polished native Hawaiians think about a recent slaughter of Sharks - sanctioned by the State of Hawaii Shark Task Force where Uncle Charlie sits as a Hawaiian member!

3. Feeding Sharks?

Which brings to mind the next question: are those captive Sharks been kept hungry? Or may it be that somebody is -anathema!- feeding them?

So, Uncle Charlie, is feeding captive Sharks disrespectful of the 'aumākua??

4. Displaying Sharks for Money?

And what about the Shark dive, where people pay 199 bucks to go and dive with those poor captive Sharks? Remember the sage words of the great Uncle when Maui passed the infamous Shark feeding ban?
Kahu Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell Sr. reminded council members that many Native Hawaiians honor sharks as aumakua, or guardian spirits, and said treating the animals as entertainment was invasive and disrespectful.

Uncle Charlie: Is displaying captive Sharks for entertainment and for commercial purposes disrespectful of the 'aumākua??

So lemme get this right:
According to the stupid anti Tourism legislation which has been spawned by the infamous Shark Task Force and that has been passed by Maui and is being threatened by Oahu

... shark tours, the practice of charging residents and visitors to venture into ocean waters to view sharks attracted by fish feeding, .... is disrespectful of Hawaiian culture, alters the natural behavior and distribution of sharks, and may be disruptive of ocean ecology and the natural environment. 

But catching, and then displaying and feeding Sharks in the Maui Ocean Center is none of the above - because of Uncle Charlie's blessing and obvious approval?

Did I say ethno-scamster?
In US popular culture, there's already an infamous "Uncle".
As of today, I've added another one to my very own personal vocabulary.

Tiger Sharks in Hawaii - Paper!

Click for detail!

And I cite.

Although tiger sharks clearly utilize open-ocean habitats in both Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the majority (78.7%) of satellite location estimates for tiger sharks captured around Maui and Oahu during the present study were in coastal waters over insular shelf habitat.

Tiger shark affinity for coastal waters and shelf habitats has been documented in previous studies in Hawaii, Australia, the Galapagos, the Bahamas and Florida, although movements are generally much wider-ranging over the extensive continental shelf areas off Australia and Florida, than over the smaller insular shelf habitats surrounding the oceanic islands of Hawaii or the Galapagos.
Conversely, most tiger sharks tagged at Challenger Bank (Bermuda, Atlantic Ocean) predominantly used open-ocean habitat.

These apparently conflicting patterns of open-ocean versus coastal habitat use by tiger sharks may partly stem from the demographic characteristics of sharks tagged in these different studies.
For example, eighteen (95%) of 19 highly-migratory tiger sharks tagged at Challenger Bank were mature males, whereas tiger sharks tagged during the current and previous Hawaii studies were mainly (59–80%) mature females which predominantly utilized coastal habitats, and tiger sharks exhibiting high coastal residency in the Galapagos were predominantly (85%) sub-adult females and males.

These differences in habitat use are consistent with habitat segregation among different life history stages, with sub-adults of both sexes and mature females occupying coastal areas, and mature males occupying offshore habitats, but likely also reflect the species ability to adapt the scale and pattern of movements to local resource distribution.

Very interesting!
Once again, Hawaii's Shark Research Team has produced a stellar paper focusing on the residency pattern of Tiger Sharks between Kauai and Maui.

Dunno about you - but I just love love love this stuff.
Step by step, all that initially rather baffling local, regional and global  sneaking around is being deciphered, and I'm just totally fascinated by the insights.

Enjoy the new paper - required reading!

Sharks are People just like you and me!

Talking of Tiger Sharks.

Here's a recent paper from Hawaii.
It once again contributes very interesting insight into how Tiger Sharks forage for food.
If I understand it correctly, it tells us that the behavior of every single individual Tiger Shark is different, a fact that we Shark divers have known all along.

Tiger Sharks are long lived and are obviously (and unsurprisingly) able to learn from their personal experiences.
And when it comes to how and where to they travel, they appear to be able to remember information about any good feeding grounds they may have chanced upon during their previous walkabouts. Having stored both a sort of map and also a time frame, they are then able to replicate the experience by turning up again at the right place at the right time, as witnessed by the Tigers that prey on the Albatross chicks in Midway.
This information is strictly personal and is not being passed on among individuals or through the generations, meaning that there are individuals who travel a lot between food sources whereas others engage in a much more localized and quasi-territorial life cycle. This could be a mechanism by which Tiger Sharks may be able to handle intra-specific competition by focusing on different prey items.

From the paper - abridged for excerpts concerning Tiger Sharks, italics are mine.

A multiple instrument approach to quantifying the movement patterns and habitat use of tiger (Galeocerdo cuvier) and Galapagos sharks (Carcharhinus galapagensis) at French Frigate Shoals, Hawaii
Carl G. Meyer, Yannis P. Papastamatiou and Kim N. Holland

Abstract

We equipped individual tiger (Galeocerdo cuvier Péron and Lesueur, 1822) and Galapagos (Carcharhinus galapagensis Snodgrass and Heller, 1905) sharks with both acoustic and satellite transmitters to quantify their long-term movements in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (Northwestern Hawaiian Islands).

Tiger sharks exhibited two broad patterns of behavior.
Some individuals were detected at French Frigate Shoals (FFS) year round, whereas others visited FFS atoll in summer to forage on fledging albatross, then swam thousands of kilometers along the Hawaiian chain, or out into open ocean to the North Pacific transition zone chlorophyll front, before returning to FFS in subsequent years.

These patterns suggest tiger sharks may use cognitive maps to navigate between distant foraging areas.
Different patterns of spatial behavior may arise because cognitive maps are built up through individual exploration, and each tiger shark learns a unique combination of foraging sites. Results show reef-associated sharks utilize a wide variety of habitats ranging from shallow atoll lagoons to deep reefs and open ocean and may provide important trophic links between these habitats.

Discussion

Previous studies have shown tiger sharks alternate between wide-ranging behavior and more restricted movements and use a broad variety of habitats ranging from shallow coral reefs to open ocean (Polovina and Lau 1993; Holland et al.1999; Meyer et al. 2009a).
In this study, we used a multiple instrument approach to determine how these behaviors and habitats are linked for individual sharks over multi-year time scales.

For example, distinctive clusters of acoustic detections at East Island indicate some tiger sharks (e.g. TS4 and TS5) visited FFS for several weeks in summer to forage on fledging albatross and left when this prey resource ran out.
A combination of satellite and acoustic telemetry revealed these sharks then swam thousands of kilometers along the Hawaiian chain, or out into open ocean, before returning to FFS in subsequent years. SPOT tracks suggest several tiger sharks navigated between distant patches of high resource availability. For example, TS3 and TS5 made highly directional movements between a succession of submerged banks and seamounts located between FFS and Pearl and Hermes Reef.

This behavior indicates these sharks knew the locations of the bathymetric features from previous experience and were navigating between them.
Tiger shark movements became more localized around these features, and although we do not know whether foraging occurred at these sites, seamounts are often hotspots of resource availability (e.g., Rogers 1993). Open ocean SPOT detections of TS4 in late fall 2006 were associated with the transition zone chlorophyll front (TZCF), an area of high productivity and important oceanic foraging habitat for apex predators (Polovina et al. 2001).

Long-term, reciprocal movements between distant locations suggest tiger sharks possess detailed cognitive maps of resource availability.
The precise, seasonal arrival of certain tiger sharks at FFS in time for albatross fledging indicates these sharks may also use internal clocks to guide their movements (Olding-Smee and Braithwaite 2003).

Unlike mammalian apex predators such as bears (Gilbert 1999), there is no evidence of social transmission of foraging traditions in sharks, hence locations of good foraging areas must be uniquely learned by each individual.
Tiger shark movements presumably include some element of exploration enabling them to discover new foraging locations (Meyer et al. 2009a). Sharks are long-lived animals which, over time, could build up detailed spatio-temporal maps of productive prey patches.

In contrast to tiger sharks TS3, TS4 and TS5 which were only present at FFS for short periods, tiger sharks TS1 and TS2 were detected at FFS at all times of the year and showed more extensive use of shallow lagoon habitats.
Similar inter-individual variability in long-term movement patterns has been previously described in tiger sharks in the Main Hawaiian Islands (Meyer et al. 2009a). These different patterns of behavior could result from unique individual learning experiences (i.e. each shark learns to exploit a different combination of prey patches) and serve as a mechanism for intraspecic resource partitioning, giving rise to prey specialization.

Albatross fledgling predation at FFS provides strong evidence of prey specialization in tiger sharks.
This directly observable phenomenon produces a characteristic cluster pattern of acoustic detections of tagged sharks at fledging sites. Our results indicate a subset of tiger sharks present at FFS during summer intensively target these fledging birds (e.g. TS4 and TS5), while others (e.g. TS1 and TS2) apparently do not. Thus, although overall this species has a very varied diet, this may be due to the contributions of many individuals each focusing on a narrower range of prey (e.g. Tinker et al. 2008).

The ability to directly observe tiger sharks feeding on albatross fledglings at FFS enabled us to interpret the tight clusters of tiger shark detections recorded at albatross nesting habitats during fledging season.
In most other cases, direct observations of foraging are not possible, but determining when and where sharks are feeding is essential for advancing our understanding of their ecology.

The timing and location of other ecologically important behaviors such as mating are also completely unknown for most shark species.
Future studies could shed light on shark feeding and mating by combining instruments which tell us about spatial behavior with other devices which directly measure feeding or inter-animal interactions (e.g. Papastamatiou et al. 2008; Holland et al. 2009).

Which of course appears very pertinent to what we see here in Fiji - not so much in our Tigers but very much in our Bulls!
We now keep track of close to 100 named individuals and many of them, like Whitenose, Crook, Bum and Hook, have been around ever since I started to keep tabs in 2003 - and I can tell you that we know each other very well, all the way to knowing the peculiar behavioral traits of every single individual Shark - and undoubtedly, vice versa!

Over time, we've learned that there is a clear differentiation between those individuals which we call regulars and who are extremely well acquainted with our routine and thus highly predictable (Bum for instance always takes 3 heads back-to-back), and others that are much more transient, turn up at irregular intervals and are much more difficult to handle.
And then, there's the rather stunning case of Long John that we've named after crippled Long John Silver of Treasure Island 7 years ago: he inevitably skips the first half of the year but then turns up exactly between July 25 and August 3 and stays until December! And after all these years, he never takes food from the feeders!
Go wonder!

Surely, we must be witnessing the same cognitive faculties!
Long John is of course an extreme example, but just think of the females that all come back in January after having gone to the rivers to give birth: they all very obviously remember the location of Shark Reef and also, the required etiquette - and we hope that they don't only do it for the food, but because they like us, too!

But whatever the ultimate explanation, and yes I'm undoubtedly speculating as usual - isn't this just fascinating stuff!

Hawaiian Shenanigans

Gene Ward is on the attack.

He continues to fan the flames of anti-industry hatred and is circulating this piece of despicable populist shit. Click on it for details: this is how a self serving politician is trying to kill Hawaii's tourism industry.

And what about "chairman" Makani Christensen?
A quick Google search reveals an xenophobic activist and guess what - a spearo and fisherman! Despite of his fake eco-branding (or can anybody please tell me what part, exactly, of teaching tourists how to kill Fish is to be considered "eco"?), he obviously got zero knowledge of the Ocean, or he would not be propagating this irresponsible anti-Shark rubbish. Or is he really encountering Stefanie's Galapagos and Sandbar Sharks on his Fish killing sprees?
Gene and Makani are old allies and have formed the Shark Task Force aimed at shutting down the Shark tour operators - smack in the middle of a recession, where every penny and every job count!

The "invitation" is of course nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Mr. Ward knows all too well that after their recent experiences, nobody from the pro-Shark faction is anymore willing to endure the abuse of an irrational lynch mob. The inevitable result of that town hall meeting will be yet another "public outcry".
Such a sham and oh so predictable!

What however continues to rile me most is the reference to "traditional Hawaiian cultural practices" and the like.

You really need to go through Stefanie's brilliant website and read the comments concerning the purported "Disrespect of the Aumakua".
But she's obviously right smack in the middle of it all and there's no way she could ever dare to properly respond to those ridiculous allegations. I've said it before: Hawaii is a glaring example of how the natives are unabashedly playing the racial card and abusing of the naivety and fashionable collective guilt of the haoles.
Or do you really believe that stuff like E komo mai. Welcome. Come to Hawaii and re-connect to your aumakua. Learn the old chants with us under the trees by Kealakekua Bay. Swim with us at Waipio valley. Walk with us into volcano craters in Volcano Park. Let us ride the winds together at Ka Lae. Meditate with us deep inside a lava tube. is anything but cold-blooded pandering to our credulous stupidity?
Wanna really know what respectable people have to say about the Aumakua?
Read this!

Contrary to Stefanie, I got the advantage of not being subjected to the same pressure, and of being allowed to tell it as it is. I also live in a vibrant cultural environment where I can just go out there and hear it from the horse's mouth.
And that is precisely what I have done!

So there.

This is a scam, and a particularly nasty one on top of it!

Contrary to Hawaii and despite of its colonization and the advent of Christianity, Fiji has managed to preserve much of its indigenous ancestral beliefs and traditions.
To this day, Fiji has a dual system of government: a post-colonial westernized system with President, Government, Parliament and Judiciary and a highly stratified indigenous community that resides in villages which are organized under a local and regional chiefly system. These indigenous villages are the repository of Fiji's native culture that has been handed down (mind you, orally, by storytelling, dances and ceremonies) in an uninterrupted line since time immemorial.

After reading about the racial shenanigans in Hawaii, I've gone out and interviewed several people about Fiji's rich tapestry of beliefs linked to Sharks.
This has not been easy, as not everybody is empowered to make authoritative statements about this matter. That authority is only conferred to storytellers and sometimes, people whose hereditary ranking would correspond to that of an indigenous "priest".
Like everywhere in the Pacific, there is however no shortage of native scamsters who make a good living at cooking up some self serving pseudo-cultural ethno-bullshit aimed at impressing some naive and google-eyed kavalangi. Inevitably, these stories turn out to be false and more than that, in indigenous culture, these people are actually committing sacrilege.

The lesson being that next time some brown skinned half-cast who happens to have an indigenous name comes along and starts lecturing you about his "culture", "tradition" and "pride", you need to question his motives and ask for his credentials.
I betcha that in 99.9% of the cases, he will turn out to be a self serving fraud. Legit storytellers are very reserved about these matters and will generally only share with a foreigner after lengthy introductions and after having thoroughly checked out your intentions. Keep in mind that sharing determined religious beliefs is an important defining and cohesive element of social groups and that very often, it is strictly tabu to divulge them to outsiders.

Over to the Fijian Shark beliefs.
Fiji has a multitude of languages ("Fijian" being a lingua franca derived from the dialect of Bau) and cultural beliefs that are linked to a large and diverse number of clans. Several of them believe in rather generalized Shark guardian spirits and others, in veritable Shark gods, Dakuwaqa being the most widely known of the latter.

Depending on where you go, Dakuwaqa is purported to fulfill different roles.
The islanders of Kadavu believe that Dakuwaqa has lost a battle against their own protector deity, the Octopus, and that he had to promise never to harm any Kadavu islander. The people of Taveuni believe that Dakuwaqa will punish the sinners and when somebody gets attacked by a Shark, they believe that the victim was obviously a bad person and that his fate was merely the just punishment for a misdeed. Our Beqa islanders will tell you that Dakuwaqa resides on the island and that there is a covenant whereby no Beqa islander will ever harm a Shark and in turn, the Sharks will protect and even assist them.

When talking to elders, I've asked the specific question whether it is reproachable to observe and dive with their gods and the unanimous response was that it is perfectly OK. In fact, our feeders from Beqa have the specific permission to do so.
It is however completely tabu to fish, kill or otherwise harm the animals.

The exact same answer was given to Eroni when he went and interviewed other clans as part of his TEK: some clans have various Shark spirits who protect the people and nobody from those clans fishes for Sharks or eats their meat.
Here's a textual example from an upcoming paper on the matter.

Our father told us that a big white shark that lives at the mouth of the Navua river had decreed and warned other sharks not to hurt or spill any human blood or otherwise face the consequence of being killed by the big white shark.

Now this is Fiji - and Fiji is essentially Melanesia, albeit heavily influenced by Polynesian culture.
I've thus also inquired about any Shark beliefs in Tonga. This is a pure Polynesian country and with neighboring Samoa, very much the place from which the Polynesians have set out towards the east all the way to French Polynesia and the onwards to Hawaii.

Like Hawaii, much of Tongan culture has been eradicated by Christianity and by the overpowering drive towards the "benefits" of the western cash economy. In fact, most young Tongans know next to nothing about their history and their culture, expect for a highly romanticized and sanitized version which is being handed down by the government and the churches. Like in Hawaii, there's a cultural renaissance movement but most of the original culture and traditions, like the art of navigating, have already been lost forever.
I was however lucky in finding an elder who confirmed that some people did believe in a "punishing" god very much like the Taveuni islanders, and that contrary to the majority of the population, those people would not fish for Sharks nor eat Shark meat.

When conducting the interviews in Fiji and Tonga, I also told the elders what was happening in Hawaii.

That there is a Shark viewing tour where customers observe Sharks from the safety of a cage far out in the open Ocean.
That this operation educates their clients and turns them into Shark lovers. That on top of it, they are active in sponsoring research aimed at pushing through pro-Shark legislation. That they are instrumental in preserving the Sharks for future generations and that by doing so, they are preserving the reefs which are the sustenance of the indigenous people.

That on the other hand, there are plenty of recreational an commercial fishermen that kill Sharks and kill the reefs as a consequence.

And that there is a nasty politician wanting to close down the pro-Shark tours but who does nothing to stop the killing of Sharks. That his anti-Shark movement is aided by some natives that claim that looking at Sharks is culturally insensitive whereas they raise no objection to the activities of the Shark killers.

They all shook their head in utter bewilderment.
And we all had a good snicker at the suckers who got conned into believing that pseudo-cultural rubbish.

I can thus unequivocally confirm that were Stefanie in Fiji, she would not be reviled and persecuted but hailed by both the Government and the indigenous community alike.
She deserves our gratitude and our respect.

Hawaii Smell Test - it stinks!

Bit-by-bit, the Shark Task Force in Hawaii is being outed as what it really is: a fraud.

Run directly out of the offices of the rep. Gene Ward, it operates the anti-Industry hate site Safe Waters for Hawaii and propagates, among other stupidities, the myth that two operators conducting Shark tours miles offshore constitute a public safety hazard.

Ward has so far failed to distance himself from the hate group.
In what is increasingly looking like a huge political embarrassment, his persistent silence risks making him a de-facto supporter.

He has been handed the unique chance of being able to step up and claim to have solved the "problem" consensually and to look like a statesman in the process. The flip side, siding with the anti-Shark lynch mob would be to look anti-business, anti-tourism and anti-science.
Well, as I said, that's really his choice isn't it.

Others are ensuring that their reputation is not being tainted.
Both the UNEP and TIES have asked that their names and quotes on the SWFH website be rescinded. I hear that more such requests are about to follow.

I had a look and the quotes are still there.

Hardly surprising considering the affiliation of the Shark Task Force with the infamous anti-Industry CDNN and the persona of their president Makani Christensen, a notorious xenophobic Shark hater and Fish killer. As long as they can promote their hypocritical agendas, they just don't care who says what and whether what they do and claim is truthful or even legal.

Here's what our wise and anonymous Hawaiian has to say about the contribution to the safety of Hawaii's beaches by the fishermen and the spearos like Makani and about the hypocrisy of those who single out the Shark viewing industry.

BAN LOGIC #2: Shark tourism must be banned because it creates a public safety hazard.

SMELL TEST A: Many fishing activities put bait in the water, often greatly in excess of the amount of bait used by shark viewing operations.
These fishing activities attract sharks, and in many cases attract them to nearshore areas where recreational activities such as snorkeling and surfing occur. Fishermen often dump excess bait, cleaned fish carcasses, etc. at harbor entrances as they return to port.

• Has this government body banned or regulated use of bait or dumping of bait and carcasses by fishermen?
• Is there enforcement of the laws and regulations that apply to these practices?

SMELL TEST B: Shark cage tours have never been associated with a shark attack in Hawaii.
On the other hand, surfing, spearfishing, and offshore swimming have all led to shark attacks in Hawaii. Spearfishing has been known to precipitate attacks on persons nearby who were not participating in the spearfishing activity. Surfing is statistically the activity most likely to produce a shark attack in Hawaii.

• Does the proposed legislation include surfing, spearfishing, and offshore swimming among the activities to be banned?

SMELL TEST C: The shark species viewed at Hawaii cage diving operations (Sandbar and Galapagos sharks) have NEVER been implicated in attacks on humans in Hawaii.
Furthermore, reports by University of Hawaii shark researchers and NOAA shark specialists conclude that there is no public safety hazard created by these tours and that the sharks do not follow boats to inshore areas or otherwise interact with recreational ocean users as a result of the tours.
On the other hand, pit bulls attack and maim or kill someone in Hawaii at least every year.

• Has this government body acted to ban or require sterilization of pit bulls, which are probably the most dangerous animals in Hawaii?

Once again: It stinks - and sadly, I'm not surprised!
Is this really the foundation upon which Ward wants to enact a Law?

Great Whites - Great Paper!

GW picture by Chip Scarlett

Wow!
It should come as no surprise that after the Junior fiasco, I'm certainly not a great admirer of the GW researchers within the TOPP program, at least not when it comes to their ethical attributes.

But I must say, this is as good as it gets.
From the paper.

About what the Sharks may be doing in the White Shark Café.

Despite the likely reduction in foraging opportunities in the Subtropical Gyre, white sharks are offshore during a period of time when prey availability in this region may be relatively high.
It is logical that white sharks would time their offshore migrations to coincide with periods of increased prey availability. The reported spawning area of the neon flying squid (Ommastrephes bartrami) generally overlaps temporally and spatially with white sharks in offshore waters as does that of the purpleback flying squid (Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis), suggesting that spawning aggregations of Ommastrephid squid may be an important prey resource in offshore waters. Similar to the neon flying squid, Pacific pomfret (Brama japonica) also make seasonal migrations, foraging in the transition zone or subarctic waters during the summer then moving south to subtropical waters to spawn during winter and spring. Catches of pelagic fishes and sharks by the Japanese long line fishery can be substantial, though not necessarily at their peak, in this region during the time of year that white sharks are present. It has also been noted that the occurrence of white sharks in Hawaii coincides with birthing of humpback whales.
Therefore, it appears that white sharks may be using these offshore habitats when prey availability, though likely still lower than in coastal habitats, is relatively greater than at other times of the year.

Although these offshore habitats may not provide optimal foraging conditions at present, it is important to remember that historical conditions may have been very different.
It is possible that with the decline of large pelagic fishes, sharks and whales, the historical forage base of white sharks in these habitats has diminished. In addition, the decline of the Hawaiian monk seals, may have also removed an important prey item for white sharks. It seems likely that historically there was a more abundant prey field available for white sharks to exploit in pelagic habitats.
Therefore, to some extent white shark migrations may be vestigial and reflect historical conditions.

About why they may be traveling there

One of the fundamental questions regarding white sharks in the NEP is why they undertake these extensive and regular offshore migrations, leaving the highly productive California Current for oligotrophic waters of the central Pacific.
The two primary hypotheses are that these movements are related to foraging or reproduction. While our data are not able to directly address the reproductive hypothesis, they are useful for evaluating the foraging hypothesis. Our results indicate that 1) white sharks do forage in offshore habitats, though at a lower rate, and 2) white sharks may initiate these offshore migrations around the size of first maturity.
These results, in combination with the observation that white sharks returning to central California aggregation sites often are lean, suggest that although white sharks feed offshore, it appears foraging may not be the primary motivation for offshore migration.

If white sharks are not moving offshore to feed, an alternative explanation is that the offshore migrations have a reproductive purpose, possibly playing a role in gestation, parturition or mating.
The particular reproductive function that offshore habitats may play in white shark life history is unclear, but it is possible that use of these habitats is related to gestation and/or mating as parturition is believed to occur in the southern California Bight. It is possible that females use the warm waters of the Subtropical Gyre to aid in gestation, and indeed there is some evidence that females segregate from males in offshore habitats, especially when in the Hawaiian focal area. If female white sharks have an extended gestation period (12 to 18 months), extended use of warm offshore waters may explain the return of some large females to coastal aggregation sites every other year.

Very interesting!
Needless to say, I very much look forward to finding out how this dovetails with Michael Domeier's multi-year tracking results, and his own interpretation of the data!

But look for yourselves.
Thankfully, the paper is open access and you can read it in its entirety right here.

Enjoy!

The Shark Feeding Paper!

Here it is – finally!
This is now the published paper about Aleks’ work with the Caribbean Reefs.

Here she is talking to David, courtesy of SFS.

From the paper (highlights are mine).

Effects of tourism-related provisioning on the trophic signatures and movement patterns of an apex predator, the Caribbean reef shark

Aleksandra Maljković and Isabelle M. Côté

Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
Received 26 May 2010; revised 2 November 2010; accepted 28 November 2010.
Available online 18 December 2010.

Abstract

Wildlife provisioning, i.e. the provision of bait to generate aggregations of charismatic megafauna as tourist attractions, occurs around the world.
This practice is often promoted as an economic incentive to conserve the focal species, yet has stimulated debate based on the potential for risks to human safety and perceptions of behavioural shifts in provisioned populations. We studied a population of Caribbean reef sharks (Carcharhinus perezi) in the Bahamas that has been subject to regular provisioning for >20 years.

We used a combination of focal observations of sharks during feeding events, remote acoustic telemetry and stable isotope analysis of shark muscle tissue to determine the impacts of provisioning on the trophic signatures and ranging behaviour of sharks in this population.
A small number of large sharks monopolised more than 50% of the bait on offer. These ‘fed’ individuals showed significant 15N enrichment in their tissues compared to conspecifics of the same size that failed to obtain bait at the feeding site, and un-provisioned sharks from a control site.

Despite the disparity in trophic signatures, fed, unfed and control sharks exhibited similar degrees of residency at their respective home receiver sites, and travelled similar daily minimum distances.
Thus, despite long-term provisioning of this Caribbean reef shark population, there is no evidence for shifts in the behaviours considered which might affect the ecological role of these sharks.

However, further research is required to examine potential indirect effects of shark provisioning on sympatric fauna and habitat before this activity can be placed within a sustainable marine conservation framework.

1. Introduction

Provisioning wildlife, as a means of enhancing nature-based tourism experiences, is a hotly debated issue (Newsome and Rodger, 2008) which becomes most controversial when involving the feeding of large predatory species (Burns and Howard, 2003; Perrine, 1989).
In these cases, human safety issues are usually at the forefront of the debate, with opponents of the practice claiming the potential for predators to learn to associate human presence and food rewards, and proponents citing a lack of empirical documentation of such links (Orams, 2002). Concerns have also been raised about impacts on the provisioned animals themselves, which have only begun to be empirically examined. Regular provisioning of various predators has been shown to lead to increased population densities and interference competition (Semeniuk and Rothley, 2008), increased frequency and duration of aggressive behaviours (Hodgson et al., 2004; Hsu et al., 2009), impoverished body condition and physiological indications of impaired health (Semeniuk and Rothley, 2009).

Shark-viewing tourism is the epitome of this controversy.
At over 40% of the 267 globally-distributed shark viewing sites detailed by Carwardine and Watterson (2002), some form of attractant (chum or decoys) or bait is used to increase encounter rates and keep the focal species within viewing distance of paying clients. Yet due to the longstanding difficulties associated with studying large marine predators, the basic ecology of most of these shark species, let alone their responses to provisioning, remains undocumented. Nevertheless, the full spectrum of arguments both for and against the practice of shark feeding has been discussed in several recent papers (Johnson and Kock, 2006; Laroche et al., 2007; Meyer et al., 2009).

The contentious nature of shark provisioning has prompted legislation abolishing the practice in several areas of the world, including Florida, Hawaii, the Cayman Islands and South Africa (Carwardine and Watterson, 2002), with mounting pressure for the activity to be banned in others regions (Topelko and Dearden, 2005).
However, the popularity of shark dives, and subsequent success of many shark encounter operations, now makes this activity a valuable source of revenue, particularly in countries that depend on tourism as a major source of foreign earnings (Green and Higgenbottom, 2000; Topelko and Dearden, 2005).

For example, an analysis of the economic impact of shark-related tourism in the Bahamas revealed that in 2007, operators facilitated more than 72 500 shark encounters, generating an estimated $ 78 207 338 input to the economy when all local services used by shark dive clients were considered (W. Cline, Cline Marketing Group, unpublished data).

The strong economic incentive to maintain, or even promote, shark-related tourism may therefore outweigh the perceived negative effects of this activity on sharks, particularly in light of the absence of strong evidence showing such effects.
Because a substantial part of the debate surrounding shark feeding centres on perceived shifts in the behaviour of sharks in response to provisioning (Guttridge et al., 2009), the aim of our study was to quantify the effects of tourism-related provisioning on the trophic signatures and movement patterns of sharks, i.e. factors for which data may be reliably collected and which are expected to reflect direct impacts of supplemental feeding.

We focused on Caribbean reef sharks (Carcharhinus perezi), which are frequently the focal species at shark dive sites in the Bahamas.
The relative abundance of this shark in accessible coral reef ecosystems of the tropical Western Atlantic makes it an ideal model system to examine the impacts of provisioning on apex predators. Specifically, we compared patterns of site fidelity, daily distances travelled and 15N-based trophic signatures of provisioned sharks with those of un-provisioned conspecifics to elucidate the effects of shark feeding on this species.

Our study provides data that are currently missing from attempts to weigh the benefits and disadvantages of wildlife provisioning.
Such information is essential to assess whether provisioning practices can be included in portfolios of management strategies that enhance apex predator conservation awareness and revenues while not conflicting with other preservation goals.

2. Methods

2.5. Data analysis

We categorised individual sharks as ‘fed’ or ‘unfed’ based on bait consumption (see Section 3.1). Fed sharks were those consuming 3% or more of the bait (n = 11 individuals), and unfed sharks were those consuming 1% or less (n = 37 individuals).
These cut-off values represented a natural break in the bait acquisition data (see Fig. 2a). To account for the possible effects of sex- or size-based differences on Caribbean reef shark behaviour, we restricted our analyses of trophic signatures and movement patterns
to female sharks (i.e. the most abundant gender) of more than 180 cm TL, with the stipulation that these individuals had to have attended at least 50% of the focal shark feeding events.

In addition, we included a control group of 10 Caribbean reef sharks to test whether the shark feeding activity per se influenced movement patterns and trophic signatures regardless of any bait consumption effect.
Sharks in the control group were all females of more than 180 cm TL and, as determined using acoustic telemetry, resided mainly near receiver C (Fig. 1), approximately 4.6 km from the shark feeding site. Eight of the sharks in the control group were sighted at shark feeds over the course of the study, but they attended very infrequently (ntotal = 51 sightings; or 0.4 ± 0.03 sightings per shark per month) and none took any of the bait on offer.

3. Results

3.1. Shark presence and behaviour at shark feeding dives

Between 24 May 2007 and 13 February 2009, 97 individual Caribbean reef sharks were identified during 293 shark feeding dives, i.e. 48% of all shark dives conducted during this period.
Of these sharks, 56 were externally tagged to aid identification. Sharks ranged in size from 90 to 280 cm TL (mean ± SD: 160 ± 35 cm), and the sex ratio was strongly female-biased (1:6.5). Overall, the number of sharks present at each feeding dive varied between seven and 55 individuals (mean ± SD: 34 ± 9 sharks), and individual sighting frequency varied widely (mean ± SD: 127 ± 84 sightings, range: 1–261 sightings, or 0.3–89% of feeding events surveyed).

Eleven sharks (11% of all individuals recorded; 2 males, 9 females) took over 50% of the bait on offer (ntotal = 3792 pieces), with no other single shark consuming more than 2% of the remainder.
The sharks eating the majority of the bait were significantly larger (mean ± SD: 198.18 ± 26.0 cm) than the remainder of the study population (155.47 ± 33.42 cm; independent t-test: t95 = 4.08, P < 28 =" 0.76," p =" 0.48;" 26 =" 2.26," p =" 0.12)," 26 =" 2.51," p =" 0.13;" 26 =" 0.98," p =" 0.39)." 28 =" 1.09," p =" 0.35;">

4. Discussion

Substantial tourism industries have developed around the world, which are centered on charismatic predatory species.
While such industries can provide an economic stimulus favouring the non-consumptive exploitation of the focal species, the cryptic nature and low abundance of most predators often necessitates the use of bait to generate larger aggregations and satisfactory viewing opportunities for tourists (Laroche et al., 2007).

The impacts of provisioning for wildlife viewing purposes are generally poorly known (Orams, 2002), and this is particularly true for marine predators such as sharks.
We examined the direct effects of provisioning on the behaviour of an inshore population of Caribbean reef sharks. We found that although a large number of sharks attended feeding events, a very small proportion of sharks acquired bait regularly. Bait consumption resulted in an elevated 15N signature of fed sharks relative to unfed and control sharks, but there was no statistically detectable variation in the extent of movement of individuals across groups.

Our results therefore suggest that the impacts of long-term, regular provisioning on this shark population may be limited, at least in terms of the parameters examined here.

4.1. Shark presence and behaviour at shark feeding dives

Attendance at feeding events varied widely among individual sharks.
Some of this variation, at a seasonal scale, is attributable to reproductive activity. A mass departure of near-term gravid females, followed quickly by many other females, occurred throughout June. None of the returning sharks, the majority of which reappeared at the feeding site in July, was visibly pregnant and most individuals exhibited extensive scars, usually obtained as a result of mating (Pratt and Carrier, 2001). However, some of the variation in daily individual attendance at feeding events also stems from differences in patterns of residency. Some sharks exhibited a strong degree of fidelity to the feeding area, but many sharks arrived at the site opportunistically, perhaps as a result of attraction to the bait or to the aggregation of conspecifics.

The proportion of Caribbean reef sharks successfully acquiring food rewards at shark feeds was very small.
Although this pattern has also been noted in studies of white shark provisioning (Johnson and Kock, 2006; Laroche et al., 2007), it seems surprising here given the larger numbers and tighter spatial aggregation of Caribbean reef sharks at feeding events. Close proximity potentially created the opportunity for multiple individuals to successfully compete for the proffered bait. The fact that only a few large sharks were repeatedly effective at taking the majority of bait suggests that in Caribbean reef sharks, as in many other shark species (Allee and Dickinson, 1954; Bres, 1993), social hierarchies exist in which larger sharks are dominant in competitive situations.

4.3. Residency and movement

Previous studies of animals subject to regular provisioning have shown marked changes in space use and movement of provisioned animals, including increases in the time spent at the site where food is provided and when it is provided (Hodgson et al., 2004; Milazzo et al., 2005; Newsome et al., 2004; Walpole, 2001).
Neither shift was evident in our study population. All sharks with transmitters spent a high proportion of their time near a single receiver, regardless of feeding status. Thus, overall, fed sharks did not spend more time at the provisioning site than unsuccessful individuals. In addition, fidelity to a single receiver was evident across the day. Fed, unfed and control group sharks in our study were detected at their respective home receiver sites equally during the morning and afternoon indicating that the regular acquisition of food, or even the potential to acquire food, does not influence the residency patterns of these sharks. Provisioning also did not appear to affect the extent of movement away from home receivers. All sharks travelled similar daily minimum distances suggesting that successful acquisition of bait did not lead to smaller foraging ranges.

Overall, both fed and unfed sharks in our study population exhibited movement patterns that were consistent with previous studies of habitat use in Caribbean reef sharks, which have shown that larger individuals (>110 cm TL) prefer ocean reef habitats near drop-offs (Pikitch et al., 2005) and exhibit site fidelity, but also make wide-ranging lateral (_50 km) and vertical movements (Chapman et al., 2005, 2007).

In light of the small estimated contribution of bait to the overall energetic budget of the majority of sharks, it is not surprising that shark movement patterns appear to be largely unaffected by provisioning.
However, our analyses were restricted to a specific subset of sharks (i.e. females > 180 cm TL) whose behaviour may not be representative of the population as a whole. Future telemetry studies should include a broader range of shark size classes and use active, rather than passive, monitoring to obtain more accurate estimates of daily space use.

Previous studies of the movement patterns of marine fish in response to provisioning have yielded conflicting results.
Fish abundance – the most commonly reported proxy for movement – is often higher at feeding sites than at control sites, or during feeding than at other times (Ilarri et al., 2008; Medeiros et al., 2007; Milazzo et al., 2005; Newsome et al., 2004; Semeniuk and Rothley, 2008), but this effect is highly variable among species.

Many taxa, in both tropical and temperate locations, show no change in abundance or biomass as a result of provisioning (e.g. Cole, 1994; Hawkins et al., 1999; Milazzo et al., 2005).
However, the lack of individual identification in these studies makes changes in individual movement impossible to measure. The most comparable study to our own is a telemetry study of provisioned and un-provisioned stingrays (Dasyatis americana) in the Cayman Islands. In contrast to our results, Corcoran (2006) found that stingrays, which are normally solitary foragers with large home ranges, showed strong site fidelity to the provisioning area and reduced activity, which resulted in aggregation. The lack of consensus among fish provisioning studies perhaps reflect differences in, for example, home range sizes, habitat associations, habituation thresholds or tolerance levels of the species at provisioning sites to repeated disturbances.


5. Conclusion: Provisioning as a tool for conservation management of apex predators

The development of effective conservation strategies for apex predators is a pivotal step in the movement towards ecosystembased environmental management (Pikitch et al., 2004; Wallach et al. 2010).
However, large and usually highly vagile predatory species pose a specific set of conservation challenges. For example, their home ranges frequently exceed the boundaries of protected areas (Chapman et al., 2005; Woodroffe and Ginsberg, 1998), increasing the likelihood of negative human-wildlife encounters and susceptibility to hunting or capture.

Given that economic factors play a fundamental role in driving the consumptive exploitation of many apex predators, both on land and in the sea, the key to reducing, or even reversing, population declines may therefore lie in raising the economic value of non-consumptive forms of exploitation.
Our study of Caribbean reef sharks – one of the most abundant apex predators remaining in the Caribbean – suggests that provisioning does not necessarily influence animal behaviour in detrimental ways (Orams, 2002). Because of this, we believe that provisioning, when carefully conducted, has the potential to be an effective strategy that can contribute to apex predator conservation.

Provisioning-based tourism, when accompanied by natural history information, can enhance public awareness of the conservation plight of apex predator populations (Carwardine and Watterson, 2002; Topelko and Dearden, 2005).
Moreover, wildlife-viewing tourism is an expanding and lucrative industry, which suggests good potential for shifting the relative economic gains from extractive to non-consumptive exploitation of apex predators (Clarke et al., 2006; Johnson and Kock, 2006; Meyer et al. 2009; Topelko and Dearden, 2005).

On a cautionary note, our conclusions may not necessarily be extrapolated to other provisioned species – either marine or terrestrial – owing to the potential effects of species-specific responses and differences in provisioning modes.
There may also be indirect effects of provisioning which were not considered here. For sharks, these include increases in diver-sustained damage to habitats at provisioning sites, as well as potential cascading effects of marked local increases in predator abundance.

However, healthy populations of apex predators have been shown to have positive impacts on biodiversity at lower trophic levels (Sergio et al. 2005), thus conservation of these species may deliver wider ecosystem-level benefits.
There is a clear need for further ecological research, coupled with studies of the socio-economic benefits of provisioning-related tourism, before this activity can be safely incorporated within a sustainable-use framework for conservation management of apex predators.

This is just great work, bravo!
I obviously like it because it proves, at least for this population of Caribbean Reefs at this specific feeding site with its specific procedures, that the provisioning has no notable effect on how the Sharks utilize their habitat, meaning that it dispels the myth that feeding Sharks harms the animals.
Bravo also to Stuart Cove who facilitated this!

I also like it because it’s so nifty.
Segregating different sub-groups based on their feeding and attendance patterns, and creating a control group in the process is very smart indeed! If you remember, the lack of control group was one of my principal reservations about the Clua paper on Lemons - and here, we’re being shown a smart way of obtaining that very result through careful observation and lateral thinking! Incidentally, I’m not the only one who took exception to some of the findings in the Lemon paper: some fellow Shark researchers have raised similar concerns, resulting in an interesting discussion – keep watching this space.

Finally, bravo for the caveat!
Indeed, the conclusions may not necessarily be extrapolated to other provisioned species – either marine or terrestrial – owing to the potential effects of species-specific responses and differences in provisioning modes! I really cannot agree more – especially considering the stupid reverse statements about feeding The Wildlife in general and Bears in particular that continue to haunt us!

Still, I do find plenty of similarities to our dive here in Fiji.
In view of the totally different species, I did not expect this and find it totally fascinating! We, too, have periods when the pregnant females leave, shortly followed by most other animals, male and female. We, too, observe different levels of residency, meaning that we have “regulars”, ‘strays” and individuals (e.g. Long John and Valerie) that only turn up during specific periods that appear unrelated to any sexual activity.

Also, we too know that specific individuals nearly always feed when present, whilst other regulars never do – although I could not confirm that successful feeding is liked to size in females. To me, rather than being hierarchical, it really appears to be an individual inclination.
My gut here is that contrary to Reefs where many species aggregate, maybe in family groups, Bulls are rather solitary and that as a consequence, their social etiquette is just not very pronounced – think Polar Bears in Churchill, Ontario. I just cannot see any advantage for such large Sharks to live in groups in a reef habitat where food does not come in large packages. This is contrary to the open ocean with its sporadic big schools of Fishes and Cephalopods where some form of cooperative hunting requiring a more pronounced social etiquette would likely facilitate predation.

Yes, I’m speculating as usual!
The good news being that Juerg is presently working his way through our gargantuan database and the results of years of acoustic tagging – so finally, we will be able to progress from observations, personal speculation and daring (and probably rather stupid) hypotheses by yours truly to proper peer reviewed conclusions!
Can’t wait!