Sunday, March 31, 2013

Manipulating Sharks?


And talking of not messing with Nature.

Stellar post by Cristina!
When people accuse me of “teaching” sharks to attack divers, I remind them that sharks have learned to feed from human boats, fishing lines and spears from the first day our species entered the water to procure food for ourselves (hear hear!)
If sharks truly associated humans with food, in the Bahamas we would never be able to go snorkeling or free diving. Every single shark in our waters would have learned by now to approach and attack each person in the water. Yet spearfishermen — who often lose their catch to sharks — are the first to tell you that they can be swimming for hours, looking for prey without seeing a shark, and as soon as they spear a fish, a shark appears out of nowhere to steal it. 
Where was that animal all along? 
Doesn't get much better than that!
Of course, and I'm quite confident (!) Cristina will concur, it does not mean that Sharks are nothing but big puppies and that everybody should start feeding them! Rather to the contrary, her post explains that it needs to be done responsibly - and you can read on Cristina's post, and on this one she has penned earlier, what doing so entails.

Anyway, great job - bravissima come sempre!

1 comment:

Tropical Selkie said...

Well done, Cristina, indeed. But, why oh why, does this debate continue and continue. If shark 'manipulation' is done responsibly and makes sharks more valuable alive to eco-tourism than dead from extraction, then the argument, for me, is kinda over. I'm biased, of course, but not by much, given my 'animal rights' (the rational, sane kind, not the crazy kind, I hope) tendencies.