World Oceans Day - Ocean Championship!

And I cite.

Today is World Oceans Day! 
ARE YOU AN OCEAN CHAMPION?

At Shark Diver, we receive a lot of inquiries from individuals looking for opportunities to help in the area of shark or ocean conservation. There are so many ways to apply the diverse amount of talents out there that people possess. So this year, we decided to show our support for those who are making a difference toward protecting the oceans we love and their inhabitants, by awarding them with the experience of a lifetime!

Today, on World Oceans Day, we officially begin the Ocean Championship, a competition for conservationists of all ages who are working to preserve anything and everything ocean related.
Your focus could be saving sharks, saving dolphins, protecting coral reefs, cleaning the beaches, or bettering the ocean in general. What is your passion? Social media awareness is nice, but it doesn’t always get the job done. We are looking for enthusiastic, motivated, and driven individuals who are working hard to make a direct impact. Are you working with legislators to enact protection laws? Are you working with businesses to reduce or eliminate plastic usage? Are you planting mangroves? Have you started a major ocean/beach cleanup effort? The sky is the limit. We want to know how you are making a difference. Do you know what you’d like to do, but just haven’t put your idea to work yet? What are you waiting for? Get going! We want to hear from you.

Here’s one example of conservation efforts at work: Beqa Adventure Divers created a national marine park called the Shark Reef Marine Reserve through their bull shark diving operation in Fiji. Regular surveys and fish counts are conducted in an effort to help in the long-term survival of endangered species. Their findings led to the expansion of a vitally protected area now called the Fiji Shark Corridor which runs approximately 30 nautical miles along the southern coastline of Fiji’s beautiful main island of Viti Levu.

Yes, some efforts take a lot of time. 
And yes, some efforts take a lot of money. But many major efforts begin with just one thing. Love. If you love the ocean and its incredible inhabitants, let’s see what you can do or are doing, so that generations to follow will be able to love it too.

This competition will yield two big winners!

Winner number 1, picked by Shark Diver, will receive a 5-day inclusive Great White Shark Diving Adventure at Guadalupe Island, Mexico where you will cage-dive with great white sharks! No SCUBA certification is necessary. Spend 5 days with Shark Diver’s owner learning about the magnificent great white shark, which finds the volcanic island of Guadalupe a mating ground and plentiful food location.

Winner number 2, selected by our sponsor Beqa Adventure Divers, will win a shark adoption through their My Fiji Shark shark adoption initiative, plus a full week of diving at the Shark Reef Marine Reserve in Fiji to ‘meet’ their shark. (SCUBA certification required)

Both are unique and unforgettable experiences!

Get inspired! Do something! Stop talking about it and take action… be an Ocean Champion!

Shark Diver hopes to make this an annual event. Good luck!

CONTEST RULES:

Ocean Championship is open to any individual to enter.
All submissions must be sent to oceanchampionship@gmail.com.
Entries are subject to being published on SharkDiver.com and FijiSharkDive.com and/or all participating sponsor’s social media pages or websites. Finalists will be asked for verification of all documents submitted and may be asked for references for contact. Airfare to and from San Diego/Fiji is not included.

Enter by May 1st, 2020.
Winner will be announced on World Oceans Day, June 8th, 2020.

So there.

When Martin contacted us with his stellar initiative, we were more than happy to contribute. As detailed above, the winner of our prize will be selected by us and receive

• A free adoption of one of our Shark Stars through our My Fiji Shark initiative, and


• One week of diving with us.
  This usually comprises 5 days of two-tank diving in the Shark Reef Marine Reserve and two days of two-tank coral and/or wreck dives. Diving is FOC but exclusive of the daily Marine Park Levy of FJD 25.00 and the cost of any rental gear or other extras like Nitrox fills, etc.

Having said that, there is a high probability that as time progresses, we will announce further perks and prizes - so keep watching this space!
As to what we like and want to reward

• Obviously, Shark conservation!
  But please, something tangible on the ground and not merely the dreaded raising awareness by posing for selfies and posting dreadful home videos, or misguided petitions for finning bans and the like! And no, contrary to what some quarters would have you believe, petting, riding and otherwise molesting Sharks is not Shark conservation - especially not in bikini!
  What we are looking for are initiatives that actually reduce Shark mortality to below sustainable levels - e.g. read this!


• And because the Sharks cannot survive if we fish away their prey and obliterate their habitat, we'd also like to see more holistic projects like implementing effective sustainable fisheries management or the establishment of well-enforced MPAs, etc - but please, spare us the fashionable but misguided fads!


• And please, show us the track record even if what you do is still work in progress and there is only partial success - but mere breathy announcements do not count!

There you have it.

Wishing you the very best of success - and hopefully, see you next year in Fiji's first National Marine Park!

To be continued!

 

What Shark is this??

Notice the caudal peduncle - click for detail!

Behold!

This is from the second 15m dive at Shark Reef a few days ago. 

For once I was not diving, and the footage is courtesy of Martin who is here for his yearly Bull Shark fix. I'm being told that the Shark was curious and circled above - but with a gaggle of Bulls dominating the feed, she remained wary and never tried to join the mêlée. 

At a reported 3 meters in length, this is a big Shark.

When they first told me, they stated that she was an emaciated, sickly Bull Shark - but from the video I can instead discern that despite of the tumor and the buckled first dorsal, she is in rather good shape. I also notice the elegant sinuous way she moves, and the keel-like bulge on her caudal peduncle, both of which are not at all diagnostic of Bull Sharks, sickly or otherwise.

So what is this?

Years ago there was another mystery Shark with a similar shape of the caudal peduncle. Back then, somebody stated that it was a Dusky - but that's a Shark living off continental shelves and we are obviously on an island, so today I'm rather skeptical.

I got my thoughts but would love to hear yours.

Opinions welcome - here on the blog and not on Facebook please!

Thank you!

PS! - May, 2022: having now sadly witnessed several moribund bull sharks, I can state with absolute certainty that this is one of those - likely Lumpy who had a large tumor and was getting ever more emaciated last time I saw her. Those Bulls are real badasses and will fight, and even compete for food til the very end.

Welcoming Friends!

Great fun!

Behold Jorge El Chino Loría and his badass jefa Elena La Táfana!

For new readers of this blog: Chino is the big boss of Phantom Divers, and they in turn are a member of GSD, your one stop shop for responsible, safe and long term sustainable Shark diving across the globe!

I must say, I respect the man enormously.

Over the past years, he and the outstanding team of SOS under the leadership of Luis Lombardo have invested a huge amount of time and money into completely turning around the situation in Playa del Carmen from a huge problem (scroll down to the earliest posts in the link) to a huge win for everybody whereby this has now become a world famous Shark diving destination with a cohesive Shark diving industry with its own code of conduct, and where the Sharks are finally being protected.

Anyway, we're having a great time.

We're also hosting Martin of Shark Diver, and the dives and conversations are simply stellar = I can already say that the networking will undoubtedly lead to new initiatives and more cooperation, and to renewed solidarity vis-a-vis the latest irritating meddling (and e.g. here!) by our detractors.

And the big question?

How do the Fiji Bull Sharks compare with the Caribbean Sardines?

Go to Playa and ask Chino!

 

Guadalupe - giant GWS!

This is the much hyped Big Blue.

And this is Tzitzimitl.

Martin who's been doing this forever and is considered the top authority on Lupe's GWS writes,

We just came back from an awesome trip to Guadalupe Island, where we encountered 33 different great white sharks in 3 days. Among them was Tzitzimitl, the biggest shark we have ever seen. She has been first seen at Guadalupe Island in 2002 and is #54 in our database. She is a very regular visitor to the island, doing the 2 year cycle that the big mature females there are known for. She has been sighted in 2002, 03, 05, 07, 12, 14 and now 2016.

Is she bigger than Deep Blue, the one some people claim is the biggest white shark ever filmed? Click on the link below for the video and judge for yourself.

So there - enjoy, and here!

Surrounded by Bull Sharks!

This is nice - thank you Martin!

And talking about Topsail.

She's been a regular visitor ever since that first sighting in 2007, is as feisty as ever and has developed into one of our most eager hand feeders. With so many Shark competing for those Tuna heads, success depends on a combination of rank which in our Bull Sharks appears to be determined by size, thus favoring the older females; boldness which generally favors the males and selected particularly feisty small females; and finally, timing and skill which favors the best learners.

Being still quite small, Topsail excels in the latter categories and usually manages to bag a few heads - but beware of her temper when she does not!

And now she's got a little sister, see at top.

We always try to choose names that help us with the ID, and have thus decided to call her Sail, the more as she already appears to be as feisty as Topsail was back then.

Welcome aboard little girl!

Conservation Shark Diving in Fiji!

Love the title! :)

Martin has penned this piece about his next trip to Fiji.

Yes it's obviously marketing for his trips - the good news being that every single word is absolutely true!

Thanks buddy - much appreciated!

And here's that video again.

Enjoy!

Martin: Granma!

This is our iconic Granma - Source.

Love this pic!

Martin is here and obviously having a ball.
He'll be here all month and offers this excellent deal - so, what are you waiting for! :)

Chris Fischer - flat learning Curve?

Same old same old... antiquated, unnecessarily invasive technology and procedures. Source.

Maaan... talk about being a sucker for punishment!

Read this.

Martin had posted a totally innocuous report about the Sharks of Guadalupe - and here comes Fischer whining about being ignored! Exactly like years ago when I posted about Domeier's epic paper, and when Fischer found it fit to try and embroil me in an idiotic debate that did ultimately lead to his public crucifixion by Domeier himself (read it!).
PS - and here is of course the inevitable second public crucifixion!

Here's the deal.

Nobody really gives a flying fuck about boat owners, captains and anglers. They're a means to an end, a dime a dozen, nothing but tools much like, say, the satellite tags. They drive boats and catch Fishes upon instructions from the researchers - and in some exceptional cases, when they obey orders and function as planned, they may be thanked and maybe even praised for their skills at the end of some scientific paper together with the donors and possibly other people worth mentioning.

Case in point under Acknowledgements at the end.

The stars are the animals and the researchers.

And the quality of those research papers is dependent on the rigor of the science, and on whether it provides new insights, or additional evidence for some hypothesis, etc. - not on whether the animals were caught from an aircraft carrier or a kayak, not on how long it took whom to catch them how. And certainly not on some gimmick like that tracker which is brilliant technology and great public entertainment but adds nothing to the scientific insights. Once again, in order to have any value, those data need to be interpreted - and this by a trained scientist, not some self promoting wannabee Shark celebrity!

Anyway.

A pity, really.

Some pals were telling me that the man had calmed down, was a pleasure to work with and had finally learned to put the animals ahead of his ego.

Well, so much for that.

Oh - and talking about self important jerks.

Behold Klimley in this truly remarkable document.

Yikes!

Randy Jordan, protecting Sharks!

Source.

Check out the video on Martin's blog.

It really beggars belief.

Why a Shark diving operator could ever do this and on top of it, think it was somehow cool to have a pal film and then post it on social media will forever elude me.

This is deeply repugnant, and shameful.

Pity they've only fined him - like I said, they should have shut him down.

And to my diver pals in Florida.

You really gotta stop giving this troglodyte your business. 

Bravo Martin for having preserved the evidence.

 

Shark Diver - Job Opportunity!

Behold!

This is truly a chance of a lifetime.

No need to paraphrase what Martin has written there - just this: this is definitely not the right job for macho ego-warriors!
Shark Diver runs a totally sustainable, extremely low impact Shark viewing operation that employs exclusively surface cages with hookah and is very serious about not engaging in any shenanigans, least of all those stupid out-of-cage excursions.

But if you want to learn about real ecotourism, that's the place to be.

Martin's knowledge of that local GWS population is unmatched, and you will have the opportunity to rub shoulders with stellar researchers, many local and international conservationists and camera pros alike.

Interested?

You should be!

Wishing you the best of success!

Shark Diver is coming to Fiji!

Ever-boisterous Martin has already announced that he plans to top this picture he took last year - we shall see! :)

Read this!

Methinks this is a great deal!

And yes you will see heaps upon heaps of Fiji Bull Sharks.

Tiger Sharks however not so much, this due to competitive exclusion. Just for you not to be disappointed - and I promise you, you won't be!

And since we're online.

Yes I'm well, yes I'm busy - and yes as we speak, I'm writing the yearly recap! :)

So keep watching this space - and in the meantime, read the reply by Mark here and especially, Eli's reply here! Both go to show that contrary to the many pathetic public feuds, one can debate without becoming mortal enemies!

And, do read the South African verdict here - thanks Clare!

Talk soon!

Shark Escape!

Happening at Guadalupe right now!



Pete Thomas here!

Jean-Marie - still at it!

Right - and I cite.

“One day in Guadalupe [an island off Baja California in Mexico] three of us were swimming with two great whites. One was a young macho who just wanted us out of the water. But there was this huge, five-metre female who was the coolest shark I’ve ever met. She played with us for one and a half hours and she wanted the contact - she was free to move wherever she wanted, but she clearly wanted company.” 

Played with us huh. Wanted company huh.

What a load of idiotic self serving horse manure.

Martin is of course correct.

But worry not, I've said all that needed saying back then (and here) so no need to double down.

End of the non-rant.

And the Number is....

Voilà!

This is Ozzie Sam's count.

But then he writes, when i pump the contrast I can squeeze 4 more - so there! :)

As to Martin's boisterous announcement - we shall see!

The Huff Post - promoting illegal Shark Rides?

The wealthiest and most curious tourists can dive outside of the cage. No, actually they cannot because it is illegal. Source.

And I cite.

This whole Huffington post article is exactly why these idiots are doing these stupid stunts. They get into the media. They get their 15 minutes of fame. Unfortunately it's those kinds of "experts" that the media relies on, when it comes to covering anything shark related.  How can they quote an "expert", that tells people not to do what they themselves do? Aside from giving hypocritical advice, by giving these guys the publicity they seek, the Huffington post actually promotes the illegal diving outside of cages and riding sharks at Guadalupe.

Bravo Martin!

As to the assertion that it all happened naturally - not so!

This was a meticulously planned trip to Lupe on Chris Wade's Shark Boat with the explicit intention of having both the peroxide whisperette and the trigger happy Ms Werner illegally ride those GWS. There were corporate sponsors, cameramen and photographers, scripts, media plans - the works. The bimbos jumped onto the perplexed Sharks, the media snatched up the videos, the pimps made their money, the plebs gobbled up the pseudo-conservation clap trap.

And the rest is history. 

BTW.
This is about when and how the shenanigans started - but at least back then in early 2000, people were aware of the risks and not trying to sugar coat everything with stupid sharkitarian sound bites. 

To be continued no doubt!

Bull Shark Soup - Two!

Yup that would be 30+ big Fiji Bull Sharks!

Remember?

Here's the video- nice! :)



Wanna experience that?
Martin is coming to Fiji in May which is the start of the busy season!
Details here!

I especially don't condone or encourage physical Contacts with Sharks?

Who, exactly, is being intrusive? Source. 
BTW that would be the female Tzitzimitl. First identified in 2002 and most recently sighted in 2012 and named by Lawrence Groth after an Aztec god .

Wow.

Martin has re-posted some of these pictures.

Whereas we've received nothing of the kind, he got hit by the following missive.

Hello Martin, I am the owner of those images and I was very surprised to see them on the blog article you posted. I would like to ask you to immediatly remove them from the web as well as the comments that concerns them- which dont correspond to the reality in that specific situation. The person who is facing the shark had to push the shark away as it was a very intrusive personality and he touched it as little as he could and the dive was aborted immediatly. I don't want the images to be used in a provocative way when they don't reflect the reality of what happened. And I especially don't condone or encourage physical contacts with sharks, but in this specific instance, it could not be avoided by the diver- as I said, he got out of the water right away after the occurence. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon, Thank you, Jean-Marie Ghislain.

Being his law-abiding Swiss self, he did immediately remove them.

And now he is pissed off.

Turns out that the pictures are but a few excerpts from this portfolio on Flickr, quite possibly the world's largest video and image hosting website. That's where I got them from, after having been directed there by this post by Jean-Marie.

I actually like the dude.

According to this portrait, he got into diving to overcome his fear of the ocean and upon encountering the first Sharks, his fear turned into fascination and he decided to devote his energy to protecting them. To that end, he has founded Shark Revolution, and I cite, a communication project of an International non profit organization. The objective of this project is to re-establish the reality of our species and to propose a truce to regulate the relationship between our two communities.

Ever since, Jean-Marie has been traveling the globe diving with Sharks and posting his adventures and pictures to the web. He came here several years ago and I found him highly intelligent and driven albeit a tad self important and naive, see the above citation - but that was then and I'm sure he has learned a lot in the meantime.

Self important and naive or not, his love of Sharks is undisputed.

His advocacy of Shark conservation has been relentless and more recently, he is walking his talk by pursuing a more hands-on approach and has invested into the very Aquatek Technologies I posted about yesterday. In fact the company's logo features a picture from that very same infamous Flickr gallery!

Talking of which.

Was it really like JM asserts, i.e. an inevitable unsolicited unfortunate one-off accident?
You be the judge of that.

But first things first.

Owing to the hard work of several researchers, dive operators, NGOs and the Mexican authorities, Guadalupe has been declared a biosphere reserve and as such, any access and activities there are governed by regulations. 

Barring special permits, leaving the cages is currently prohibited.

Jean-Marie obviously knows that - or why else does he not disclose the location and not reveal the Shark wrangler in his post. He has not only chosen to engage in illegal activities, he has obviously chosen to very much (!) share his experience with the public and I must say that I am disappointed - by the act itself but especially, by his reaction to Martin's post.

And this is what happened on that trip.

Filmed by Jean-Marie Ghislain and uncritically broadcast by Nat Geo France - and yes shame on both for promoting this reckless, illegal and disrespectful behavior to the public and the inevitable copycats!

Chuggy - healing in GWS!

 Chuggy last year and now - click for detail!

Very interesting!

Martin is spot on.

We, too marvel at the near-miraculous healing power of our Sharks and having read Martin's post, I'm more than ever convinced that the reported fresh mating scars on the female GWS in Lupe are very powerful circumstantial evidence for Domeier's theory that mating happens there, and not in the SOFA as speculated by Jorgensen and lately, by Chapple.

But there's another observation that caught my attention.

And I cite.

I'm blown away by their ability to survive injuries that would kill just about any other animal and the weirdest thing is, these nasty injuries don't even seem to bother them all that much. They swim by like nothing happened, with no discernible change in behavior or activity. They are not "limping" around, they keep swimming around normally, acting exactly like they did the day before.

Exactly!

Where any wounded Mammal or Bird would clearly signal signs of discomfort, flinch at any contact with a wound or avoid further using an injured limb etc, the injured Sharks I've observed do nothing like it. 

Instead, they continue to do their thing completely undeterred. 

The most astonishing occurrence I've witnessed was probably when Bum turned up with a partly severed tail. At any tail beat, the upper half would flap around at crazy angles, something that would have led to agonizing pain and clear avoidance behavior had it happened to any mammal. But not only did she not in the slightest appear to try and limit the use of her tail - the injured tail has even managed to grow back together, albeit at an angle, and this despite of the incessant back-and-forth movement!

Amazing!

So what does this mean?

The way I see it, one of the functions of pain is to help avoid harmful situations and thus, the total absence of pain would seem to be an evolutionary dead end. But may there possibly be different manifestations of pain, ie the sensation that makes us flinch back unconsciously (and Sharks certainly do!) and then the other pain that manifests itself in conscious suffering?
It's of course a hornet's nest where the latest research claims that Fish don't feel pain (and here) but where others passionately disagree. I'm on the fence on this - but from what I've observed, I just cannot believe that those Sharks are simply toughing it out, or whatever.

But it matters not.

It is certainly not ever going to justify resorting to unnecessarily cruel treatment, even if only by human standards. Images like these are certainly highly disturbing and although I don't for a minute subscribe to the notion that the research may be redundant or gratuitous (quite the contrary!), I'm equally highly irritated by the continued unnecessarily invasive procedures and bombastic self-promotion of the self-professed re-incarnation of Cousteau! 

Which of course begs the question, how will Shark Week's latest favorite Shark tracker succeed in handling that colossal ego and in generally navigating those treacherous media waters unscathed?

Having witnessed this, I'm not at all hopeful!

But I'm digressing as always.

Bravo Martin - very interesting post!

Best Shark Dive in the World?

Now THAT's a Bull Shark - not those Sardines in Bimini! :)

You betcha!

Nice trip report by Martin right here!
Thanks buddy!

Bull Shark Soup!

Click for detail!

Wow.

Re-posted from Martin Graf's business Facebook page. He has posted it straight from his camera without correction,  whereas I've taken the liberty to marginally increase the contrast and add a watermark.

Now THAT's what I call wallpaper Bulls!

This is from today's dive, Martin's last.

Lousy viz and overcast, but the action was fast and furious - and yes, those would all be big Fiji Bull Sharks of between 2.5 and 3.5 meters in length coming to say goodbye!

I count 34 but it may be more - and that's only a partial view! 

Bravo!