Blog about "The World's best Shark Dive" by Beqa Adventure Divers.
Featuring up to eight regular species of Sharks and over 400 different species of fish, Shark diving doesn't get any better!
Showing posts with label Oceanic Whitetips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oceanic Whitetips. Show all posts
Looks like that attack a while ago has led to zero reflection - and why am I not surprised to find the name of the pagliaccioin that pathetic lineup of Shark molesting morons!
And the comments by Shark Education?
Well yes, maybe. But then again, if this is supposed to be tourism as opposed to some private adventure, then the operators need to approach those dives completely differently and bloody keep the clients in check and suitably protected - and yes it is possible to dive safely and responsibly with OWTs like amply demonstrated by GSD member Epic Diving!
And no, no need to elaborate.
Re read this and if you really got too much time, this - it sure ain't rocket science!
PS -Indeed, the OWT populations are among the most depleted, and these shenanigans can easily lead to further persecution. Bravo Sergio, condivido al 100%!
Apparently there was no bait *- and for once I tend to believe that.
One very knowledgeable friend speculates that the victim may have gotten in the way of the OWT who was targeting the dude in the shorts, and that the OWT did bite him in order to chase away a perceived competitor in what would be a case of agonistic behavior.
I beg to differ: to me this looks like a quintessential predatory attack.
What strikes me is how small that Shark is, meaning that it may be a subadult who is still experimenting, or not a very good hunter and thus particularly famished, or just a particularly bold individual - but of course we will never know as per this unforgotten brilliant post by Rick.
If there is some lesson to be learned from all of this, it escapes me ** - maybe with the exception of the fact that playing possum when faced with a pesky predator may not be the best strategy!
Anyway.
Let's go Shark diving!
* or maybe there was? ** or maybe not = read the rather shocking comments in the above link!
It is obviously not only about breaching OWTs, but the breach it describes is totally spectacular - story here.
Yannis and Yuuki are quickly establishing themselves as the gurus of small multi-use electronic packages that can be temporarily affixed to the Sharks in varying configurations, and are thus able to help find answers to the most diverse scientific questions.
Now, some Bull Sharks (and possibly Tigers and OWTs?) appear to have attacked and killed a Humpback calf in Haapai, Tonga. Very interesting - and big kudos to the good folks at Whale Discoveries for their impassioned and respectful report.
There was a decline in shark size over the 15 year study period, a clear indication of overfishing
These findings suggest that bans on shark finning are
not helping nearly enough to protect sharks. Their failure is most
likely due to lack of enforcement and the increasing market for shark
meat.
“These findings underscore conservationists’ messages that most
finning bans are not properly enforced, and alone are insufficient to
reverse shark population declines,” explained Sonja Fordham, President
of Shark Advocates International.
We got to stop advocating only finning bans because that is not the solution: most countries have them anyway - but enforcement sucks and even if the bans are being followed, by now the fins are so valuable that landing the whole animals is profitable, meaning that those bans don't reduce the number of Sharks that are being killed, at least not adequately.
I'm also not in favor of fins-attached policies and even less, of fin-to-body ratios and the like as the associated bureaucracy and thus cost is staggering and because they present huge loopholes.
What we got to advocate is sustainability.
Ultimately, this means drastically reduced quotas and there, we got to ask the fishermen to prove that whatwever quotas they want to fish are fully sustainable - and until they do, they should not be allowed to retain and land any Shark let alone only its fins!
Looks like I've been too optimistic.
Japan has stalled the decision to ban the appalling practice of abusing Whale Sharks as FADs by setting purse seines around them. What possible argument could they have raised against banning this abomination - Angelo?
But the parties have protected the Oceanic White Tips.
As always, it's a mixed bag but I guess that we must be grateful for any progress. More about the status of Sharks in the Central and Western Pacific here!
Baby step by baby step...
And the Tuna?
Dunno but I'm gonna find out - appeal by Pew here, infographic here!
Sorry for the silence. We're currently incredibly busy, not least with getting the Great Fiji Shark Count under way, and time is just simply slipping away. Talking of which, please do check out the list of participants: if you haven't already done so, book with one of them. Those are the businesses who truly care about Sharks in Fiji.
Incidentally, Mahmood is about to start publishing his first findings about the global Bull Shark genome research to which we have been contributing samples for several years - keep watching this space!
Shot in the late 60ies, it remains to this day my favorite Shark footage, ever. This is at the very beginning of Shark diving when a very few, very brave and also, very crazy adventurers went exploring and started experimenting with the different species. BWWD is the first ever documentary featuring GWs after Ron Taylor took the very first footage from a boat in the mid 60ies - but it is this scene where Ron, Val, Stan and Peter ventured out amid hundreds of Oceanic Whitetips and even approached them whilst they were feeding on the whale that will forever be imprinted in my memory.
Alas, I fear that I'm probably wasting my breath here. The old-timers remember but I'm not hopeful that the younger generation will ever comprehend the scope of what those guys dared and what they did achieve by pure will power and guts.
It will never be repeated as there will never be as many OWTs in one place again. Valerie and even normally totally unfazed Ron who was nearly knocked unconscious remember this as their scariest dive and consider OWTs to be the most dangerous Shark, as do many other experienced pros. Yes they did kill a Shark - not nice, but those were completely different times.
I've asked the question and here is the answer.
The good news: it really looks like this got nothing to do with the commercial Shark diving industry in Guadalupe. For once and with the exception of yet more of those pathetic summit expeditions by the indefatigable and totally unrepentant Amos, I haven't heard about any particularly stunning stupidities and on the contrary, one prominent industry member has posted some remarkable pro-Shark footage, see further below.
The bad news: other people dive there, too.
But lemme first tell you a story so you know where I'm coming from.
It very much looks like GWs may well be just another large predatory Shark, meaning that very experienced people who take the time to observe them and to learn are able to interact safely with determined individual animals in determined conditions. This is really nothing new as evidenced by the following epic video of Valerie hand feeding one particular GW that she observed and deemed to be particularly friendly.
What incidentally totally blows me away here is that a Fish is sticking his head out of the water and very much establishing a personal relationship with a person - just amazing!
And then, there are those free diving dudes.
About ten years ago, GW diving pioneer Andre Hartman whom I totally respect for having spent years learning about GW behavior, and this at great personal risk, allowed a punter named JM Cousteau to hang on to one of his Sharks. This was pure Gallic macho bravado and had nothing to do with trying to demystify anything like it was later portrayed. I know because I got friends who were there.
Ever since, there has been a deluge of copycats abusing Sharks as underwater scooters, first Great Whites and now alas also those poor placid Tigers. There's no denying that all of them are brave (and probably stupid) and that many have an excellent water sense - but still, I find their lack of respect simply appalling and would wish that this idiotic fad would go away, be it owing to the insight that the message, or whatever, actually sucks or far more likely, due to somebody pushing it just a bit to far and finally getting nailed - and take a wild guess as to who would be blamed if that happened! :(
But the fact remains that certain individual GWs appear to be unendingly tolerant of our shenanigans and that so far, everybody has lived to tell the story, sometimes in a disarmingly charming way. Good on them.
Anyway, with that in mind, I had an idea about a possible documentary.
After talking to people in the know, I am intimately convinced that given a suitable site and a lot of time, patience and dedication, one can develop a dive where one can safely interact with GWs outside of the cage, very much along the lines of what we do here in Fiji. If somebody of the caliber of, say, Mike Rutzen of whom I remain a big fan put his mind to it, I see no reason why one would not be able to safely feed a GW underwater. Our Rusi speaks Shark and I wondered whether one could shoot a documentary about him feeding our Bulls and Tigers and then traveling to Lupe, spending a long time observing the Sharks and then identifying and feeding a suitably mellow individual - not out of bravado but in order to show that given the respect and the empathy, people and Sharks can work together harmoniously, just like what happens here in Fiji.
Having asked two friendly operators in Lupe, their reaction was unequivocal: no way!
Apart from it being illegal, they did not want to take on the responsibility of a possible accident and above all, they were extremely wary of possible copycats, something I had overlooked and where I completely concur.
Consequently, out of respect, the project was shelved.
But the idea remained, and I was thus happy to read this.
Synopsis
A shark is a mindless killer, an eating machine. They are so dangerous; in fact, that the only way we can observe them safely is through the bars of a steel cage. But, is it possible that our terror of the animal and perhaps even the cage itself, is warping our perceptions?
Academy Award filmmaker Mike Hoover, believes the answer to that question is, “Yes”. Having spent much of the last decade filming and interacting with the great white sharks at Guadalupe Island, he has come to believe that the common perception of the mindless killer is not only deeply flawed but incredibly destructive. Hoover believes that the only way to change that perception is to interact with the great white shark in a new way. Essentially, he wants to do for sharks what Jane Goodall and Dian Fosse (sic) did for the chimpanzee and the Mountain Gorilla.
The goal, is to see the world through their eyes, to interact with them, touch them, maybe even form a relationship with the animal. If we can do all this, we might learn new things about white shark behaviour and, just maybe, change the perception of the demon shark.
And then, I watch the trailer.
And then, I see the token Shark pornographer spout his pseudo-conservation message.
And then, I see a bunch of weapon brandishing yahoos abuse those poor GWs as underwater scooters. And then, here comes the f@$%ing mermaid.
I mean, you just can't make these things up!
A MERMAID???? Is that the f@$%ingmessage??? Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey my ass! How darethat guy compare himself to them!
This is nothing but yet another one of those self promoting punters parachuting into somebody else's turf and using bogus conservation messaging to play to the googly-eyed sharkitarians in order to justify the latest stupid and utterly disrespectful circus stunt with Sharks - the sad part being that like all those other self professed visionaries, he's likely to be successful! Makes me wanna puke!
The correct way to go about it?
Look no further than this stellar video by Lawrence. Those peaceful scenes of mellow GWs minding their own business, the harmony between them and those Sea Lions - that's the message.
No need for arrogant weapon toting simians, let alone brain dead bimbettes, in the same way that nobody would dream of depicting the African wilderness by having people in clown suits go walkabout in the Serengeti.
And that latest trailer about night diving with OWTs?
My call: not everything that can be done needs to be done and not everything that is being done needs to be publicized. Once again, those dudes are seriously brave (and probably stupid) and all the power to them for having pulled it off. But this got NOTHING to do with conservation: it remains extremely dangerous and the bogus conservation messaging will inevitably encourage the punters to try and do the same. The old man with the red hat and incidentally, Ron and Valerie are right when they deem this Shark to be exceptionally dangerous!
Guys, if you really feel that you must showcase it, tell it as it is: a bunch of brave divers did something dangerous. Please, walk away from that touchy-feely conservation spin. Seriously, and I know you know what I'm talking about: if you really care about those Sharks, please, don't go there.
Special thanks to the saffron pimpernel for having donated the cover shot!
Good news for OWTs. This is one of the most depleted Sharks and in dire need of protection - and it very much looks like that is happening as we speak!
This is podcast #33 of Saving Species presented by Brett Westwood. It features Sarah Fowler of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group (of which I'm a big fan, too) with some truly unexpected and probably, and equally frighteningly totally correct comments about how some Shark fisheries have become so small that they have basically become irrelevant to the regional fisheries management bodies tasked with preserving them.
And then, there's one Steve Castle (?) with some remarkable statements about the Red Sea attacks. Bravo for putting things into perspective! Steve I hear studies Shark Behavior - not to be confused with Applied Shark-Human Interaction, which as I understand it is a sub-discipline of Eco-Behavior! Talking of which, boy do I have a treat for you!!! Keep watching this space! :)
So, as always, the usual vultures are closing in - by invitation, all expenses paid, no less! And on top of that, they've been awarded a grand total of three preemptive PhDs, no doubt in anticipation of their forthcoming spectacular eco-behavioral insights - now that's what I call credentials! Wow!
As yet another unnamed friend writes Expect fireworks: Ritter and Levine will try to turn this into a media circus for their own self-promotion as they did previously with the Jamie Daigle case when Ritter hijacked the autopsy (to which George Burgess had been invited by the coroner) and released his wild speculations to the media ahead of the official report. This really stinks.
Indeed it does - and I say: dive industry beware! This is a conversation you must get on top of andOWN, or the bureaucrats, self-appointed experts, whacks and charlatans will carry the day, with truly unfathomable consequences - for you! The authorities are obviously completely overwhelmed, so get in contact with a reputable Shark NGO (Shark Trust!) and let them mediate contacts to reputable researchers and industry professionals.
You need to act right away, join ranks and have a voice. You need to counter the hysteria (this is pretty good, but where's the follow up?) and the conspiracy theories with reasoned and fact based(!) statements. It also very much looks like you and the other water based tourism operators need to reform and self regulate - or someone else will do that for you.
As to the causes for the attacks, nobody will ever know. All the theories that have been advanced (the Mossad, no less!) will always remain untestable hypotheses, some of which are certainly plausible. Here's a possible list and here's a remarkable compilation by David - buddy did you just accuse me of being too reserved? Wow, that sure is a first!
All very interesting but let's maybe first stick with Occam's razor. The simplest and painfully trivial explanation is that due to the massive increase of the tourism infrastructure in that area, there are now heaps of people splish-splashing around in water that incidentally gets very deep very fast, meaning that the chance for attacks by some species of Sharks has increased accordingly. As to why those OWTs (yes David, agree: plural!) have ventured closer to shore, I miss any reference to the usual "big" factors, as in climate, weather, water temperature and currents along with seasonal aggregations of prey, like what happens in South Africa, Florida and Oz.
But I'm digressing and as I said, my guess is as good as anybody's anyway. The fact is that there are some very negative news out there that need tackling. Leave the initiative to others, especially those guys, and you will end up in an ocean of hurt.
Some people have been severely injured - and looking at the video, who's surprised! When stupid operators allow stupid people to do stupid things with Sharks, it's only a matter of time til something will go horribly wrong! THIS is why I rant!
David's take on the ensuing hysteria here (yes, you are going out on a very thin limb indeed!) and some common sense by Richard here - and the flip side is here! As to the inevitable conspiracy theorists (WTF?): read this and this and please, just stop it - it is really not helpful.
Trash talking blog-dawgsout there, no less! Wow! Would that by any chance be always polite and mellow moi??? My-oh-my!
Patric alerts me to this remarkable blog post by Eli. The way that blog works, that post is now on top but will eventually disappear and you’ll have to search for November 29, 2010. I’ve said it before, the man is onto something! Anyway, good to have a reaction and to see that the issue is now firmly on the table! And good fun, too!
So, let’s examine his views and compare them to my last post about Cat Island.
Trickle-down economy, ie ecotourism and involvement of local stakeholders - check
MPA, i.e. conservation - check. But, one has to look at the local circumstances. Here in Fiji, the reefs belong to government but are held in trust by the villages, and hence both entities can agree to set an area aside. No idea about the Bahamas but as I said, if the locals agree not to enable the killing of Sharks, they will be able to stop the local fishermen and at least enact de-facto conservation and enforcement – check.
Marine Park fee - check. But only in exchange for conservation!
Science - check. But, I believe that it has to be enacted from day one, at least in the form of a baseline count. And in this specific case: in view of the new protection of OWTs in the Atlantic (tho alas not in the Bahamas), how about helping the enforcement by getting in contact with Mahmood and establishing the genetic fingerprint of the Atlantic population by collecting DNA samples!
Catch & release fishing - check. Yes it is not appealing but this is the real world
Co-operation among operators - check
Protocols – fail. Since I just know that yer gonna be reading this: Buddy I used to be like, if not worse than you but this is not about having fun anymore – this is now about commercial Shark diving and on top of that, the global media are instantaneous and will hone in on any mistakes we make and propagate the myth of the killer beast. Those stunts don’t dispel the myth, they just lead to more headlines of a brave (or stupid) man defying death and the like. Yes we hand feed, too, but in very different circumstances and above all, on our own dive, in highly controlled conditions, with animals we’ve known for years and above all, in a place where no other dive shops operate and where the animals have been conditioned to observe always exactly the same uniform and thus predictable routine - for them, not us! Over to the Oceanic Whitetips, there’s squillions of dive operators in the Red Sea with ample experience in diving with them and if you don’t believe me, use your own contacts and ask them what they thing about snorkeling with this species in baited conditions! Guess we’ll continue to disagree on this one and I’ll continue to talk trash for as long as we will. Nothing personal btw!
Governments? Agree and disagree. I may be fortunate but I’ve yet to meet a single fisheries official who does not support sustainable fisheries (but fisheries never-the-less! Global prohibition, as in CITES, is nothing but wishful thinking!) and the according conservation measures. Yes I hear that in some places corruption is rampant but then again, it’s mostly situated further up the food chain and can be tackled if one has the guts to speak up and expose it, the more as most countries dispose of the relevant laws.
The real problem is the politicians who shun any decision that may in any way alienate their constituency and who thus continue to impede any legislative measures. Unfortunately, the true conservationists are merely a small minority of the votes, so we’ll have to continue coming up with unusual strategies - and correct, paying for conservation is one of them, especially in lesser developed countries.
Anyway, talk as always is cheap and the proof is in the pudding. Now go do it, starting with flying over there and establishing a dialogue with the locals – and trust me, it won’t be easy! In the spirit of cooperation, you can get all the project papers, research data, proposals, cash flow etc from here which as you know is a great template – just write to the dive shop & we’ll mail it over.
Thing is, I should have known better. Years ago, when searching for Oceanic Whitetips off the coast of the Big Island, I witnessed how game fishermen would preempt those Sharks from stealing their catches by throwing in baited drums around the FADs and letting the Sharks fight to their death whilst they went on to target their coveted billfish. The only OWT we saw in a pod of Shortfin Pilot Whales was consequently totally spooked and never came close enough for any meaningful pictures.
Get some Bahamian allies! This will not work if the push is being viewed as coming only from some foreign Shark whacks!
Establish a Bahamian Oceanic Whitetip conservation and awareness website as Patric suggests, and roll it out to the operators. Any takers for doing that?
Define commercial Shark diving protocols. My gut would be to follow what Jimmy has already developed and successfully implemented & have the operators agree to it. Now that this has (alas!) become a multi-user site, there also needs to be some code of conduct in order to avoid crowding and multiple boats vying for the same animals. Yes that would mean that everybody operating Shark dives around Cat Island would have to talk to each other, as in self regulating. Easy! :)
Start new, or consolidate existing research projects and showcase them on the above website. Read Patric's suggestions.
Calculate the commercial value of those Sharks to the local tourism industry and go and talk to the local community. Have the local powers that be agree on not enabling the targeting of those Sharks. This thing will only fly if the locals on Cat island can be convinced that protecting Sharks is in their very own interest! Remember the fiasco of that new Shark operation on Hawaii and how it was dispatched by the locals for poor planning and lack of proper outreach! Hell, provided that they agree to some protection, one may really think about offering them a cut of the cash flow, as we do here in Fiji via our Marine Park levy! Clients love paying extra for protection!
If there are any, convince the local marinas to become Shark Free
As soon as it is official, roll out the new IGFA non-lethal, release-only length-based certification to Cat Island. Maybe even combine it with something like this to get the game fishermen on board and kick-start the research - yes it's maybe radical but is it really totally anathema, the more as it would funnel incremental income from Sharks that are being kept alive to Cat Island?
Integrate this whole project into the present push for a Bahamian Shark sanctuary, i.e. get the same actors involved plus produce the according media
Please: no activism, no demonizing, no finger pointing! This is about being constructive and showing the way for an outcome that benefits all the stakeholders, especially the local community! Remember, we're talking about developing long-term sustainable ecotourism here, not some parachute-in-parachute-out adrenaline fix before everybody flocks to the next adrenaline hotspot!
And finally: yes, this has got nothing to do with natural encounters and the like. But as I said elsewhere, that's nothing but wishful thinking anyway. Natural resources, if we want to preserve them, will need to be managed - and the sooner we understand that, the sooner we will be able to enact forward looking policies.
Again, just my 2¢ and by no means meant to be exhaustive or the only solution. But it may be a good starting point.
Thing is, somebody must do something, right now! Difficult but certainly achievable if intelligent and motivated people get their heads together, develop a pragmatic goal-oriented strategy and for once are bigger than the usual sum of big egos, petty historical feuds and personal agendas.
As a friend (yes another one!) wrote, I am wondering out loud if this site could be all that it could be. All the elements are there:
1. rare species 2. opportunity for research 3. good base of operations 4. tie in with push to get Bahamas to declare a sanctuary
Totally correct! It really is a fabulous chance for doing it right from the outset and establishing yet another iconic Shark hot spot - if done responsibly!
We've just seen what is the alternative, so can we for once maybe learn from those mistakes.
Please read this.
Yes that was two years ago and one would have hoped that by now, everybody had understood that message, maybe with one addendum: you need to get the local stakeholders involved.
I'm sure you know what happened in Playa del Carmen.
And if not, there's a plethora of newspaper articles and blog posts bemoaning the killing of nine pregnant Bull Sharks with approx 50 pups and the damage this has inflicted to the Shark population, the dive shops and the community in general. As a reaction, we now have an advocacy group, petitions and shark advocates calling for the protection of the Sharks during the season.
That's a good thing and fingers crossed that it's not too late.
What is not good is that it did not have to come to this.
A friend writes, I was never a fan on Phantom Divers in Mexico and yes, I dove that site quite a while back. It seems to me they have been hamfisting the encounters from day one. Probably too harsh but the fact is, this was obviously poorly planned and executed and as Steven Spencer correctly remarks, the feeding has undoubtedly aggregated the Sharks and directly led to their demise.
Where I however believe that Steven errs, is when he claims that this proves that Shark feeding dives are bad.
They are simply not. If conducted responsibly, they harm neither the animals nor the customers, provide for economic alternatives for the people who would otherwise kill the Sharks and very much contribute to dispelling the negative stereotypes.
Again, if conducted responsibly!
What this incident however does, is to once again reinforce my strong belief that we need to first and foremost assume the stewardship of the sites we develop and promote, and this from the very beginning - very much along the lines of Patric's Noblesse Oblige. Had the local dive shops and the people promoting this dive established the necessary protection and cooperated with the local communities from the outset, this would not have happened, period.
Which brings be straight over to this.
Totally EPIC - pun intended!
I really wish I could say something positive about this, the more since Oceanic Whitetips have become so critically depleted that any site offering reliable encounters is nothing short of miraculous and worthy of being promoted - if the diving is conducted responsibly!
But not like this!
Let there be no doubt that these Sharks are dangerous and that anybody conducting commercial dives with this species needs to set in place proper protocols. From Wikipedia, citing Compagno
Groups often form when individuals converge on a food source, whereupon a "feeding frenzy" may occur. This seems to be triggered not by blood in the water or by bloodlust, but by the species' highly strung and goal-directed nature (conserving energy between infrequent feeding opportunities when it is not slowly plying the open ocean). The oceanic whitetip is a competitive, opportunistic predator that exploits the resource at hand, rather than avoiding trouble in favor of a possibly easier future meal
Interesting and probably true.
The pros have known it all along - but latest since that fateful attack in the Red Sea, everybody should know that snorkeling with Oceanic Whitetips is just plain stupid, the more as the Sharks are highly inquisitive and will readily approach SCUBA divers and allow for those coveted in-your-face wide-angle shots anyway. As to hand feeding those Silkies whilst on snorkel and without wetsuit - oh well, whatever.
Now, it appears, this site is about to go mainstream.
This was once one of Jimmy's discoveries and signature dives sites that would experience sporadic visits by the Shear Water. Next year, it appears, the Sharks will be subjected to a solid six weeks (click on Diving) of daily baiting.
Will that aggregate the Sharks? Will it change their behavior?
And if so: is anybody developing bomb-proof commercial Shark diving protocols and much more importantly, is anybody talking to the local stakeholders, namely the game and the commercial fishermen to at least develop some local consensus about their value to the local economy and the need to preserve this valuable resource? Yes there's a push for the nation-wide protection of all Sharks in the Bahamas - but this is not a done deal quite yet, and those Whitetips that are being publicized and aggregated may well still be fair game in April, meaning that any Shark fisherman wanting to kill them may do so in total impunity.
What can be done to prevent that?
Please, think about it.
Please, learn the lessons from Playa del Carmen.
A woman has been killed by a Shark in the Red Sea.
According to this news flash, the Shark was an Oceanic Whitetip. I was impressed by the official reaction. Much of what is being said makes perfect sense and the snorkeling and night diving ban is exactly what we have in place on Shark Reef, along with the rule that all tourists be supervised by experienced dive guides and that they descend and ascend along the reef. Not happy about the total chumming ban (cages being the logical alternative) but the Law is the Law and needs to be respected. All-in-all, this is exactly how such an accident needs to be handled and big Kudos to the authorities for having done so.
I've gone rummaging for footage from those sites and have come up with the following two clips. If only all Sharks were so easy to approach! And look at how gracefully they maneuver in total 3D: absolutely stunning!
I've never quite managed to dive with Oceanic Whitetips myself and chances for that are becoming slimmer by the day as this is one of the species most affected by the Shark fishing industry.
Can you guess why they have those conspicuous white tips on their fins? I wasn't able to find the original paper (Myrberg, Arthur A., Jr. 1991. Distinctive Markings of Sharks: Ethological Considerations of Visual Function. J. Exper. Zool., Suppl. 5: 156-166) but this fascinating paper about possible explanations for the coloration of Whale Sharks carries this synopsis of Myrberg's assumption that they may be a case of aggressive Mimicry.
Myrberg’s (1991) examination of the functional relevance of the huge white tipped fins of the oceanic whitetip shark, Carcharhinus longimanus, clearly demonstrates this concept. His ‘spot-lure’ theory describes how the silhouette of a nearby oceanic whitetip is easily seen; but from a distance the body’s silhouette becomes indistinct and only the moving white-tipped fins (‘spots’) remain visible. An observer would see a ‘pack’ or a ‘school’ of small, white objects moving closely together at a distance. Oceanic whitetips are known to prey upon some of the fastest oceanic predatory fishes and it is unlikely they could chase down or sneak up on them in open water. Since many small prey fish are lightly coloured and move in schools, it is postulated that predatory fish would likely investigate by moving toward such ‘prey’. The scenario is that the whitetips spots lure faster moving prey to a distance where the shark’s rapid acceleration could overcome veering by the predatory fish. Evidence is also provided that young oceanic whitetips hide their lures, as they may attract predators, by wearing a transitional ‘costume’ of black tipped fins.
That would be us Divers - and Sharks!
On 2:55!
It started out like this, on a small beach in the French Riviera.
The year is 1942.
And then came 1956 and the epic "Le monde du Silence" that won both the Palme d'Or in Cannes and an Academy Award,
One unforgettable episode features an accident (was it?) with a whale calf and a subsequent encounter with Oceanic Whitetips. I found it on YouTube but unfortunately, the embedding has been disabled and you will have to watch it here.
Chances are that you will not like what you see.
"Avenge the Whale"??? That was rammed, speared and shot?
And a research vessel with a harpoon on board?
Indeed: French accent and all, it's the Calypso of Jacques-Yves Cousteau!
But that was 1956 and things have thankfully changed.
Or have they?
