Shark Bloggers - all Mouth?

Remember this thread?

The Saipan Blogger said...

I hereby challenge that scientist-in-training down in Miami to a dance off!!!

5:07 pm

DaShark said...

Camera running I hope!
And the prize - Neil's orange Crocs?

6:56 pm

WhySharksMatter said...

Challenge accepted, Angelo. I used to be a competitive line dancer and have won informal dance-offs on behalf of the United States in the Bahamas, Caymans, and Australia. I doubt Neil would give up his orange crocs though.

2:53 am

That was nearly two years ago.

I know that they have met last week - see the evidence at top.

I also know that at least one of them has been working, HARD, on the Shark tagging boat - see the evidence below.
And finally, I know that there has been dancing aboard!

So, gents - have you finally delivered on the breathy announcements?
Evidence please!

Scott Cassell - doing excellent Stuff!

Sorry for the protracted silence.

I'm extraordinarily busy- but in a good way!
To be revealed soon! :)

But this is great and I wanted you to see it.
I first came across Scott's name when blogging about Luke's film where he plays the role of a sensei-like dive boat captain, probably not much removed from his remarkable real persona. Now, Underwater Thrills have posted this gripping account of a rECOn mission to Baja California.

Here's to Scott for walking the walk.
Where others rant and bloviate, he goes and does the job. No Facebook, no petition, just getting one's hands dirty and doing the heavy lifting - and nailing four poachers in the process!
Very well done!

Guy Harvey Shirts - must buy!

It really is very very bad!
I spare you the links - but by now, the Gulf Oil Spill must surely have evolved into the worst anthropogenic marine extinction event, ever.

Action?
Have the US-based Marine Conservation orgs all re-defined their priorities and are they throwing their resources at this?
Hmmmmmm...

One that does is the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation.
Guy being who he is has designed two new shirts and one poster that are now for sale everywhere. As he explains in his blog, fifty percent of the proceeds will go to institutions researching the effects of the spill. The data are vital as they will certainly determine the thrust of any future remediation once the spill has been contained.

Please go and purchase those shirts - this is really money well spent.
Thank you.

How about some Accountability!

Patric is not letting go and I say, well done!!

Several months after the fact, there's still no news about that Shark.
Or is there? And if so, why is it not being released, the more considering the fact that this was one of last year's major, and I may add: self inflicted media disasters?
Fishy business - or just the same old hubris?

Just as a reminder of what this is all about.

This is not about the professional qualifications of Michael Domeier as a scientist - in fact, I find his research interesting and I mostly like his interviews and the fact that he always tries to weave in a pro-Shark message.
And his White Shark Symposium in Hawaii has been stellar.

This is also not about whether SPOT tags are generally useful or whether the data collected are valuable, or not.

This is about a fishing show where research was used as a pretext to go angling for record sized Great Whites within two marine parks.

This is about the self serving and unethical mindset of the researcher who partook in it and the agency who gave the according permits, and the arrogance they displayed once it became clear that one of the animals had been grievously injured.

This is about about the brutal procedures employed, where an endangered animal was hooked and subdued and then hoisted upon a naked wooden platform where it was left to fight for its life whilst somebody drilled holes into it.
Specifically

• Tagging procedures and gear must be chosen in order to limit any possible harm to the animal. Like RTSea said at the time, if the tag required bolting on, it needed to be improved, or new attachment techniques needed to be devised. Others have invested the time and have come up with viable alternatives where stationary tags can be firmly attached "on the fly". Instead, in this instance, the animal's welfare was disregarded in favor of filming a fishing show aimed at providing the public with a maximum of thrills watching intrepid anglers subdue monster Fish.

• Likewise, there was no need whatsoever to brutally manhandle the Shark onto the platform, let alone to hoist her aboard and torture her for 20 minutes. It is well established procedure to bring big Sharks to the vessel and to keep them submerged, often even in a soft cradle whenever applying tags - yes, including tags that need bolting on, as amply demonstrated here by Richard Fitzpatrick!
  

This is about the need to finally abandon the antiquated view that research data are all-important and that they warrant treating animals as mere objects regardless of the consequences to them.

And finally, this is about accountability.
Domeier was not dragged, kicking and screaming, into the public domain - he himself chose to go there in the first place. Pity it didn't turn out as planned and that instead of the expected accolades, he got heaped with scorn once he botched it.

It's high time to stop pouting, to man up and to accept the consequences of one's doing.
If the Shark is alive and well - prove it. And if the Shark has died as the result of the injuries it has sustained, own up to your responsibility, apologize and learn the lessons that have to be learned.

In case you have forgotten, this is what Accountability is all about.

Actions speak louder than Words

Fisher and the hook - and still proud of it!

The San Diego Reader has just published this story.

It's a great and well researched piece about the Shark fishing tagging disaster in the Farallones and the outrage it sparked among scientists, divers and the public alike. Kudos to all of them for having spoken up and said it as it is.

Alas, the perpetrators remain completely unfazed.

Not that I would have expected anything else from Fisher.
As amply documented by his public boasting, all he really cared about was to hook and subdue (if that doesn't say it all) a couple of giant Sharks - and the scientific research was just a pretext to do so within two marine sanctuaries, and to subsequently sell the show to Nat Geo. Very savvy indeed, and pretty cynic on top of that - but again, hardly surprising considering his track record.

What however baffles and quite frankly saddens me is that Domeier just doesn't seem to get it.
What is being criticized is the brutal handling of the Sharks, not the fact that this or that tag was deployed. In fact, everybody seems to agree that SPOT tags are the current cat's meow and that the long-term observational data collected would provide valuable and unique information about the GWs life history - but apart from Fisher's obvious requirements: was hooking and subduing really the only possible procedure?

Really?
I may be repeating myself, but just imagine the outcry if anybody dared to state that the level of temporary stress we subject these animals to is unfortunate, but the scientific advancements are well worth the effort, and then proceeded to go and hook and subdue, say, an Orca! And then released it with a huge hook embedded in its throat!

Are we really to believe that Domeier could not have adapted the proven non-invasive techniques for capturing and handling large Cetaceans? That he could not have tagged the Shark by keeping it in a cradle next to a skiff, like everybody else seems to do? That he could not have built some tool like the grabber this guy has invented, or used nets instead of rod and reel? Or re-designed the anchors so that the tags could have been deployed by using pole spears? Or developed some other non-invasive technique?

Did he even try?
Thing is, he just doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about the animals, does he.

Eagerly awaiting news of the Shark you tortured and injured!

Beqa Shark Dive!

That would be us!

Talking of Fiji's pro-Shark media, meet Jone Kalouniviti of Mai Life!
After his phenomenal pro-Shark debut in February, he has once again written a brilliant, compelling and well-researched piece about our work with Fiji's Bull Sharks. And as I shall never tire to point out: compare this to the hysteria and to the outright hypocrisy of those Uncle Charlies over in Hawaii!

The article is essentially a synopsis of our most recent foray into the country's rivers where we will henceforth start researching and documenting the life history of the pups in the nursery areas. So far, the data have already led to the imminent publishing of Eroni's and Victor's first scientific paper and to a great pro-Shark feature on MaiTV.
As research progresses, Eroni plans to covert it into a Sharky PhD thesis - which may well be the first ever such endeavor in the history of the University of the South Pacific!

Vinaka Jone, great job as always!
Yes and I know that the wrong name is just an honest (and alas, consistent) mistake! (:

Please click on the images - and Enjoy!

Saving the Bahamas Tigers

There has been a lot of brouhaha about a series of images depicting the killing and butchering of a pregnant Tiger Shark in the Bahamas. Here they are.
I'm obviously outraged and saddened.

Several Shark Diving blogs have posted them along with scathing comments and much energy has been invested in trying to ferret out the perpetrators. So far, it seems, they haven't been identified, nor the exact location and circumstances of this despicable act.

Question is: then what?
Are we going to inundate them with hate mail once we know who they are? Write more blog posts? Contact the mainstream media? Launch petitions?
And if so, is that going to make them behave differently in the future? Is that going to save a single Shark? And even if the answer is yes, would that be the most effective way to channel our frustration?

Thing is, people like that think that we're just a bunch of whackos anyway and could not care less about our opinion.
And why should they. What they do is perfectly legal and "Sport" Fishing has a following numbering in the millions and disposes of a well-organized and powerful lobby that will easily dispose of such a minor inconvenience.
It is also very good business for many Island Nations, one of them being the Bahamas.

Wanna see what those people are really capable of?
I pulled the above pic from the image gallery of Mark "The Shark" Quartiano, a mega-asshole and VIP favorite operating out of not some oscure Third World Country, but Florida, USA. A guy like that doesn't even get nailed when he kills protected species, like the Bigeye Thresher depicted. There are 1073 pictures, 90 pages of murdered Sharks - and this by just one man and one boat!

Keeping that in mind, do you really believe that our outrage and let's face it, our hopelessly incestuous blogging, petitioning and clamoring is going to make any difference at all?
Hardly - unless we take it to the next level.
But if we do, I'm convinced that we do in fact have an excellent chance for success.

No, not in having recreational Shark Fishing banned in general, that would just be delusional.
What we need to do is to heed this as a wake-up call that something has to happen. When it comes to the Tiger Sharks in the Bahamas, I believe that we should stop whining and instead focus our energy on making a real contribution to Conservation, and that right where it really matters to us. As Shark Diver (yes them again..) correctly remarks, now is the time for action and not only words.

Here's what I believe can be done.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm by no means an expert in Bahamian diving and have no clue of the "politics" and the like - but the impression I get is this.

We all know about the uniqueness and popularity of Tiger Beach.
It has been featured "everywhere" and has become one of the world's safest, most reliable and most widely published hotspots for diving with macro Sharks. Everybody who has been there raves about it and it is consequently attracting more and more tourists, film crews and scientists, to the point that bookings have now to be made months in advance - and this despite of an increase of dive Operators targeting that site. It is safe to assume that all of this it is very good business indeed.

On the negative side, lacking any established user protocols, there is an incipient issue of overcrowding. Some documented incidents show a trend towards ever more reckless, and thus dangerous interactions with the Sharks. There is a bitter ongoing feud between the Bahamian dive Operators and those Operators visiting the site from the US. There's another feud between "established" Operators and perceived interlopers. The site's notoriety is also increasingly attracting Shark fishermen who can legally target the animals.

I've said it before, if one disregards the feuds, politics and history, the crux of the problem is that Tiger Beach is not being protected.
Now, wouldn't that be a wonderful opportunity and challenge for somebody? To make a real difference?
Do I hear "Petition", "Ethics", "Image", "Public Opinion" and the like?
C'mon guys - get serious.

In Banking, we have a saying that Money talks, Bullshit walks.
The Bahamas are a poor Island Nation which is desperately dependent on Tourism income. Which begs the question, how much do the Bahamas get from the Shark Tourism to Tiger Beach?
In licensing fees from the Operators? Directly from the Divers? In ancillary revenues by the Tourism Industry as in flights, meals, accomodation, souvenirs, duty free sales, gambling etc etc? In terms of local employment? In berthing fees, fuel sales, shipyard business?

And how much income do the Bahamas derive from the Sport Fishing business?
Get the gist?

Thing is, it doesn't have to be that way.
Think about e.g Cocos or the Galapagos - and the solution could be this.

• Tiger Beach is declared a Marine Sanctuary - and thus fishing there is being outlawed
• there is a code of conduct and access is being regulated
• any Operator wanting to work there will need to obtain and pay for an according license that can be revoked if he infringes on the regulations
  
• when a vessel operates there, there is a daily park fee for the vessel and each of the customers
• ideally, that money is being used for enforcement, along with the obligation, and authority of each Operator to be of assistance

Is there anybody over there in the Bahamas or in the neighboring US who would like to step up to the plate and get the job done? As in, talking to the Bahamian Authorities and having it implemented?

But, I hear you ask, isn't that a mission for somebody "important", a powerful NGO or the like? Hell No! Anybody can do it!

Me, a nobody, did something very similar all by myself in Fiji, and then expanded on the concept with the help of BAD that was created for just that purpose. And I'm proud to report that others are now proudly reporting our achievements!
But I'm digressing. Shame on me.

Back to the Bahamas.
Run the math and you'll see that it's a compelling case, an easy sell.
It's not like you would be asking for some wide-ranging legislation, or the like. In the big scheme of things, Tiger Beach is nothing but a small speck in the middle of nowhere and you would be providing the Authorities with a viable concept, incremental income, good publicity, even the formula for enforcement!
Why would they ever say no? For them, there's only upside!

Will it be tedious, difficult and controversial? Not really!
Will the Operators gnash their teeth and try to convince us that such a measure would mean the demise of the business they run? Sure they will - but, does Cocos work? And the Galapagos? I mean, business-wise? The fact is, Clients love to pay for Conservation and most of the incremental costs could easily be passed on to them. Will their numbers dwindle because of that increase in price? Certainly not!
Granted, the "code of conduct" may deter some of the more "demanding" Clients - but how much of the target customer base would that really be? Provided that the ever-present Huggers don't get the upper hand when formulating the rules (and we can pre-empt that by proposing those rules ourselves), I can very well imagine a set of protocols that would improve on safety whilst still offering a great experience to the Clients. Isn't that what we should be striving for anyway? Wouldn't it be fair to anticipate that a protected site featuring more "orderly" protocols may even attract more Clients?

Makes sense? Any takers?

Hell, it's such a no-brainer that I might even decide to do it myself!
Just imagine the huge blow to the egos , and the reputation of the concerned Operators, Shark lovers and Shark user groups if some loudmouthed bozo from the South Pacific parachuted in and managed to pull this off right in their own back yard!
And if he then would publicly flaunt them for not having protected their own Sharks due to their laziness, narrow-mindedness and petty bickering. After having been shown how to do it!

Because, believe me - and if you don't, go ask my friends: that's exactly what I would do!
And that's a Promise!