Views on Conservation Groups!

Patric is right - this is a great post.

And, have you noticed the tags?
Enough said.

Interview with Doc!

Doc - definitely not just another Shark hugger!

Remember?

Doc is this week's featured Nat Geo Explorer.
Interview here - enjoy!

Peekaboo!

Adi - the feisty Bull with the face mask is Batman - click for detail.

Great!

I just love it when my predictions come true!
Today we had stellar weather, crystal viz and heaps of Bulls.
And not only that! As some insiders know, Rusi and I always go walkabout after the clients ascend from the Arena - and bingo, look who's made a cameo appearance!
Yes nearly exactly one year after turning up on the only day where David had to skip the dive, that would once again be infamous Adi trying to barge in on the bait - and being promptly chased off like last time!

Which begs the question, where were you Lindsay?
Did I hear day off? From summer camp? And on a glorious day like today - the more as the water here is, apparently, lovely?
And you could have been Right.There!

And that's not all!
With the full moon approaching, there was what appears to be an incipient spawning aggregation of Moorish Idols - and during the whole first dive, we had a singer entertain us from the side channel, meaning that our Humpback Whale season has now officially started!

Never seen before - hanky panky among Moorish Idols!

C'ya manana I hope! :)

PS: Lindsay did join today's dive.
And here she is - click for heroic detail!

Mantabot!

I'm pretty sure this is a Pelagic Manta - great pic by Marty, click for detail!

This is pretty darn impressive.
Story here.

Smokin' hot!

Busy - click for detail!

This has been a crazy year.
First two floods, one of them catastrophic, then a spate of torrential rain that has inundated the reef and ruined the viz for weeks on end and now it is cold cold cold! Poor Shark Reef is currently suffering from the aftermath of that deluge of fresh water, meaning that several big Acropra have succumbed to the stress and that some sand patches are covered in brown algae, something that is particularly unusual during the cold season and a clear sign of eutrophication.

And the Sharks?
Difficult question as it has been difficult counting them!
Let's say that it has been very much up and down, with maximum numbers to be likely substantially off last year's record in June. But worry not: everybody is accounted for - just not in bulk!

But as always, it ain't over til the fat lady sings.
The very end of today's second dive was nothing short of epic, with stellar viz and heaps upon heaps of animals - still uncharacteristically skittish but definitely very interested! So here's to everything being late and to this being the beginning of the arribada!

It better be.
We're expecting somebody shortly, and later this month, we'll be hosting a rather epic shoot - and we sure don't want to disappoint either of them!

Fingers crossed and keep watching this space!

Proteus Semi-dry - get one!

Fourth Element Proteus - detail of the integrated bib.

This is the cold season and lemme tell 'ya, it is COLD!

No don't ask.
I know we're sissies - but when the water temperature drops below 22C, it really becomes rather unbearable, especially on the stationary Shark dive. Long story short, after years of trying to stay warm by adding an ever increasing bulk of layers, this year I've opted for my very first semi-dry wetsuit.

The choice was Fourth Element's Proteus.
David was wearing one last year and loves it, and several people I've spoken to rate it among the best of the crop. And I totally agree - once you manage to get it on that is!
In fact, it is so bloody hard there's even a donning guide - but in all fairness, once one gets the knack of it, it's rather benign and well worth enduring in view of the subsequent benefits!
Mine is a 7mil, fits like the proverbial glove, and I've been happily toasty warm ever since.

Highly recommended!

Das Auto - Teaser!

Check this out!

So, what's it gonna be?
The video caption talks about a Beetle Shark Observation Cage and knowing the team who shot this, I'm fully expecting something totally epic!
Some info here and here.

Great to see that it's gonna be a Volkswagen.
It is them who pioneered amphibious cars with the infamous Schwimmwagen, and it just so happens that the very first Beetle, the KdF Wagen shared the same chassis. Then of course came the iconic Amphicar of the 60ies, much copied but never quite equaled when it comes to popularity.

And check out the sQuba by my nutty pal Frank Rinderknecht!
This would be the first fully functional submerged car - and I fully expect that Luke's team will regale us with something even more spectacular!



No pressure! :)

Orca vs Trainer!

Captive Orcas - definitely not harmless pets!

This is scary stuff.
Story here.

Flying Tooth!

Great (and lucky!) shot!
You must click for detail - see the tooth?

Story here.
This would be the first time I hear that somebody snapping away from a boat is called a daredevil - but then again, English is not my mother tongue!

Enjoy!

David - back from the Doldrums!

David - a happy chappy again! :)

I must say, I was quite touched by this post.
Ever since we've started talking, David has had to do it the hard way - with no money, no back-up, no resources. What he however did have was unending passion, perseverance to the point of asinine stubbornness (no shit!), and heaps upon heaps of talent.

So this lack of inspiration must have been particularly hard.
Great to see that he's been able to dig himself out of that hole, as witnessed by his beautiful choice of words when describing the process.
The most incredible collection of charismatic, intelligent sharks on the planet?
Indeed! :)

Welcome back buddy!

Cristina - another great one!

Pic: Unexso

Please read this latest post by Cristina.

Great stuff, by a person who really loves but above all, understands and respects the animals she works with. And... she's a Shark Angel! Just goes to show that not everyone there is a narcissistic bimbette! And here's a another brand new interview!
Brava!

And I did a bit of rummaging around.
Did you notice her description of the students, those who get it and those who then go home to boast? A great example of the former is Marina Gottlieb Sarles who wrote this beautiful piece after having just watched Cristina do her magic - really, really nice, and kudos for that.

And the others?
I'm still searching - but fear not, I've already found a couple of rather epic pagliacci!
Keep watching this space! :)

Sea Shepherd in Fiji - WTF???

Definitely NOT a bimbette - as proven by the many comments!

Oh for crying out loud.
I really loathe giving more bandwidth to that disrespectful fiasco - but now, Julie Andersen has really crossed the line.
So there.

So, apparently, this is all a terrible misunderstanding.

• The bombastic video? A misunderstanding!
  It turns out that there was really no intention of creating a rapid response force to do battle all over the world, and that, really, nobody is actually gonna be putting their lives on the line to fight the battle no-one else would take on!
  So what is this - just a lot of self congratulatory bullshit aimed at impressing the credulous sheeple and perpetuating the myth of the death-defying pirates? Probably - and it works! Case in point: They risk their live to saving wildlife, they are the best!!!
  So what are we to believe? The sanctimonious assurances on the project website or the on-camera statements by the self enamored Leaders? Talk about a case of institutional schizophrenia and of trying to brazenly upstage Stefanie and her Pacific Shark Initiative!
  


• The plan to come to Fiji? A misunderstanding!
  The first press release of May 14 reads, and I cite: Captain Watson will captain one of at least two ships that will leave Australia next month for Fiji to begin the hunt for illegal shark finners. Most certainly a misunderstanding!
  And Paul Watson's statement that The Sea Shepherd South Pacific Shark Campaign Operation Requiem is departing the Solomon Islands for Fiji under the leadership of Shark Angel Julie Anderson? A misunderstanding, much like the article in the Fiji Times!
  Anyway, tempi passati. We now learn that they have made a new plan (= by changing the one that did not exist to start with?) and that the floating babemobile is going somewhere else, and thank God for small favors.
  Whatever - right?
  


• And the involvement of the Shark Angels? A misunderstanding!
  Despite of the banner suggesting the exact opposite, I learn that this is really an initiative by Sea Shepherd only, because Shark Angels is a separate organization! For once, I am really tempted to take this at face value, the more as the blog is on the SSCS website and that a press release informs us that Julie Andersen, founder of Shark Savers and Shark Angels, joined Sea Shepherd to lead the organisation's global campaign to save sharks from extinction.
  So let's take that to the bank - Andersen works for Sea Shepherd.
  The obvious question being, does Shark Angels even want to be associated with this shit, and has anybody there even been consulted?

And now, she is here.
So much for Again, Sea Shepherd has no intention of entering Fiji!
David describes it as follows
Told they weren't needed, told they weren't wanted, asked to stay away to avoid causing offence but still they go and the first thing they do? Start spreading longlining propaganda only two weeks away from the decision as to whether Fiji introduces the world's greatest shark sanctuary. Has Sea Shepherd crossed the line from tasteless self promotion to the totally indefensible? Three years of hard work jeopardized for a PR stunt... and Patric has posted this.

Those posts are about this utter stupidity.
So some pampered bimbo from the US has made the mind-boggling discovery that fishermen are just ordinary people trying to make ends meet like everybody else, and that they do not like it when somebody tells them not to fish. Wow - and to top that off, the representative of none other than Sea Shepherd (!) comes to the conclusion that conservation is not just about taking a black-and-white stand! Priceless!
And in communicating these revolutionary insights to the uninformed masses, she is offering the guy a global platform for asserting that the fishing industry has not been consulted (a bold faced lie), that the Shark Sanctuary will be useless and that it won't happen anyway because there is no consensus from the fishermen, as if the latter was ever gonna be a realistic option.
And this on the website of the SSCS???

And that's not all!
After complaining about having been obviously denied permission to act as a volunteer teacher, she then has the audacity to go to a remote village and teach? And to then brazenly pose (again!) with the kids? And maybe even film?
Because it didn’t matter what the government thought?

And all of this on a tourist visa???

Needing and loving the light?
Indeed: the limelight, and this at any price! I mean, seriously, how many more pictures of Julie Andersen can the world possibly stomach! Look at me me me me ME!
No she is neither bad, nor is she a political activist, or whatever - quite to the contrary, she is probably well intentioned. But she's not very smart, lacks substance, understands nothing and is quite obviously a narcissist and rather shameless self promoter.
Not to worry, given time these things tend to sort themselves out.

But here and now, it is simply unacceptable.
This noise is now directly affecting the Fiji Shark Sanctuary Campaign.
Please do read this post by Shark Defenders. These are the facts (e.g. four consultations!) and these are the organizations government has chosen to invite and engage with when considering Shark conservation measures.
Fiji is awash in NGOs big and small, and the marine conservation community is tightly knit and pervaded by a spirit of cooperation despite of the inevitable competitive aspects. With some notable and rather inexplicable exceptions, they all have tacitly agreed not to interfere and to let the campaign run its course and when asked for opinions, they all tote the company line and defer to the decisions and leadership of the project team.

This is a process.
It includes regular information and consultations, and now that government has announced that a decision is forthcoming, several entities are starting to discuss ways to facilitate the implementation after a possible, but by no means certain (!) positive outcome - and let there be no doubt that this crap is certainly not helping!
The specific strategies will vary depending on the specific content of any forthcoming Shark decree - but from what is transpiring now, they will certainly neither involve pointy boats with green volunteers playing deputy sheriff, nor will there be a need for parachuting in foreign volunteer teachers and the like.
Teaching is the exclusive domain of the Ministry of Education and when it comes to outreach & awareness, the local NGOs are more than capable of deploying their Fijian staff who know exactly what they are talking about, and how to best get the message across.
Having said this, any assistance from abroad will be welcome - provided that it is being solicited and that it is genuine and not merely showboating for the media.
But not now.

This is why I am so pissed off.
This very much smells like the attempt at yet another brazen conservation heist - Palau all over again. The org is not welcome, and the individuals representing it have been told in no uncertain terms to wait and not to interfere. And yet they do and to my dismay, it very much appears that somebody here in Fiji is aiding and abetting.

Look, guys.
You know who you are and I am not going to point fingers because of a sense of local solidarity and in one case, even respect and possibly even friendship. I know that opinions and agendas differ and in the case of the industry, I also understand the need for bums in bunks, and the allure of being featured in the media. But with all due respect, this has now gone far beyond being private for family and friends and simply diving with Sharks.
The way I read it, those people should not be here to start with. And now that they are, instead of acting like legitimate tourists, they are upsetting the process at a critical time, and need to be reigned in. As a minimum, tell them to enjoy their holiday, keep a low profile and above all, to shut the f up!

If this continues unabated, it will end in tears.
Everybody here knows where they are now, and where they are going to be in one week's time. There is a strong indication that this involves capturing commercial media and if so, your identity will be eventually revealed - and you may want to make sure that you are not going to be embarrassed when it does?

Just a suggestion!

PS Patric on conservation boondoggling and St. Paul here!
PS2 David here!

The Shark Show!

Tony de Brum with Ratu Manoa in Suva - source: Fiji Sun.

I'm still inspired by today's Shark show.

Wame did a brilliant job.
Personable and charming as always but above all, incredibly well prepared, he knew exactly where he was going and interviewed his guests with intelligent, informed and relevant questions. Jill of course was her usual stellar self in eloquently developing a coherent, pragmatic, science- and fact-based case for the need to protect Sharks.

But who really did blow me away was Senator Tony deBrum.
The words that come to mind are Leadership and Vision - and this not only because he has been one of the key architects of the Marshall Islands Shark Sanctuary, but also because he appears to be a key player within the impressive PNA, and because of many of his other initiatives and some of his more private statements.
Very, very impressive indeed!

But of course I'm once again digressing.
DeBrum is uniquely positioned in being able to describe the effects of a strict and highly enforced Sharks Sanctuary which in essence amount to higher revenues from fishing licenses, higher revenues from the sale of Tuna and an enforcement regimen that is already more than paying for itself. In brief, smart conservation can be good business, too!
He also convincingly explained why a full, rather than a partial ban is the most efficient and effective solution, and certainly the cheapest to enforce.

The discussion then focused on the situation in Fiji.
I spare you the details about the minutiae because really, they are ultimately irrelevant. It really matters not who exactly catches exactly how many Sharks where, and for which reasons, and whether they are true bycatch or targeted, whether they are finned or not, and whether they end up as Shark fin soup or steaks or stir fry or in the lovo.
What matters is the fact that Fiji is exporting a huge amount of Shark fins and that various observers are reporting a sharp decline in Shark numbers in the wild.

The take-away message is ultimately this.
If there is one thing that defines the Pacific Islanders as a people, it is the Ocean.
For centuries it has been their home, shaped their culture, provided for their food, determined their daily life and in modern times, it has been the principal driver for the establishment of a vibrant tourism industry in many Pacific island countries. It is not by coincidence that the region is called Oceania, and its people are truly People of the Sea.

And now that Ocean is under attack.
The principal hazards are Anthropogenic Climate Change and Ocean Acidification; Overfishing; Habitat Degradation; Pollution.
Many are not caused locally but are the direct consequence of the reckless behavior of the most developed nations, and of Asia - and there, all we can aspire for is some form of smart adaptation that is especially crucial for the smallest and less elevated island states.
But reducing our own contribution to Habitat Degradation and Pollution is certainly possible!

And we can certainly address Overfishing!
Much of it is perpetrated by the same more developed nations that having exhausted their own resources, are now attacking Oceania with their distant water fleets. And let there be no doubt that despite of their rhetoric and development aid, they simply do not care but will grab what they can and then move on to greener pastures, and leave us to confront the long-term consequences.
To witness, keep an eye on the Cooks where a large Chinese fishing conglomerate is already embarking on test fishing after having treated several key fisheries officials to lavish junkets to China!
And, we must even start to manage the small scale fisheries as populations continue to grow - whilst the fishing grounds do not!
Yes it is difficult and fraught with political considerations - but this is our ocean and the obligation to nurture and protect it is ours alone!

And the Sharks?
They are the one crucial element that keeps a balance in the Ocean.
Contrary to the bony Fishes, they are essentially a non-renewable resource that needs to be protected now, as long as stocks in Oceania are still in relatively good shape when compared to the catastrophic situation elsewhere.
We simply cannot afford to procrastinate because once they are gone, our Ocean will not be healthy anymore.

And without a healthy Ocean, the islands will lose everything.
Their beauty, their food supply, their tourism and ultimately their unique culture and way of life. Look around - in some places, this is already happening.
Think about it.

Anyway, great show with great people!
Wame - can you please have it posted to YouTube - if you do, this will be seen by millions and FBC will be famous all over the world - and you, too! :)

Fiji - Sharks on FBC!

Bull Shark in the SRMR - hopefully soon protected throughout Fiji.

Please tune in to the following.

From the GoldFM website (links are mine).

• Speak Your Mind, with Wame Valentine.
  
• When: Thursday July 19th at 12pm
• Every year an alarming forty million sharks are slaughtered for their fins. On the show this week is Fisheries Director as well as a Marshall Islands senator instrumental in creating the world’s largest shark sanctuary in the Marshalls.
  Should Fiji follow the Marshalls lead? Should we ban trade in shark products and commercial shark fishing throughout our waters? Tune in on Thursday to find out!

The show airs live on Gold FM (100.2 FM), live online around the world on goldfm.fbc.com.fj and delayed on FBC TV every Tuesday nights at 10.30.

Baited Shark Dives and Shark Attacks?

Outright Shark feeding - even worse than chumming?

Oh well.
So much for being too busy to blog.

There has been a Shark strike in Western Australia.
From what I can discern, it very much appears to have been a predatory attack (Christopher???) and it comes right on the heels of Mr. Moore's decision to preemptively ban cage diving there. The apparent reason for that politically motivated stupidity was that South Australia had restricted cage diving there because Barry Bruce et al had discerned that berleying (= chumming) had caused a minimal change in GW distribution.
Nothing whatsoever to do with Shark attacks - but who gives a shit provided that one can engage in populist grandstanding, right? And this? Indeed: Neanderthal reactions!

Which brings me straight to the following.
I rather despise those couch farting Shark lists - but people do keep me in the loop about the rare noteworthy discussions; and so I got sent this remarkable, and provided that you got a sense of humor, incredibly witty post by the Grand Mufti of Shark behavior, non other than the forever unequaled Doc.
I hope he doesn't mind me re-posting it verbatim in all of its glory.

A key criticism of the ruling in Western Australia is that researchers were not able to show a causal link between shark attack and chumming at shark dives. Lets see how they might prove such a link using the scientific method. How about setting up two dive sites within say 5 km of each other. At one you use chum and feed the sharks from a feeding tube or box. At the other you attract sharks by low frequency sound attraction and again feed shark from some device that precludes odorant from getting to the test-beach 5 km distant.

Now if there are sharks around I wager they will very quickly be attracted to the baiting station due to currents which rapidly brings the olfactants to their nostrils---so you might get them trained up in just a few days. For the acoustic attractions the sharks have to be within about 500 m of the hydrophone and be fairly motivated at the time. This might take several months but eventually the sharks at both sites will be feeding regularly, and reliably but probably seasonally.

To be further certain about your experimental study population you would have to tag the sharks and possibly take genetic samples to be sure you are working with different animals at the two sites...ok it could be done. Thus you have established two relatively equal feeding sites with a control and a treatment trial....good!

So after about two years of preparations you can now set up an hypothesis: H0, the null hypothesis is that there is no statistical difference between the control and treatment groups with respect to shark attacks; H1 is the proof of the pudding---There is a statistical difference between the two.

Ahhh, but here's the rub: You would of course have to continue your trials until you collect and adequate sample size for your appropriate statistical tests that you would used to either accept or reject H1 or H0. Based only on the annual rate of shark attacks world wide, this will take on the order of 1,000 years depending on the seasonality of the sharks. Considering the paucity of attacks and the time required for a human generation, you should put in your will that for the next 50 generations your offspring must continue the experiment on a daily basis until each season ends, then start again next year when the season begins. Get my drift? So it goes for all such shark-attack research.

OK...I put it up there now you shoot it down. I personally would love to understand the motivation of why sharks bite naked apes. (see Gruber, S.H. 1988. Why do sharks attack humans? Naval Research Review 40(1):2-19.)

Bingo! :)
As I've said all along, those musings about Shark attacks amount to nothing more than conjecture, i.e. sometimes plausible but ultimately untestable hypotheses.

But is the whole story?
Is there really no evidence whatsoever to point us one way or the other?

I believe that in fact, there is.
Yes George the great doyen of Sesselfurzing should indeed finally creep out from behind his desk and have a reality check by doing a couple of Shark dives; but in this specific specific case, he may even be useful by staying right where he is, smack in the middle of his Sammelsurium of Shark attack data - and ditto for Collier!

What I'm suggesting is this.
Get a Masters student to mine those data and to analyze whether globally, there is any statistically relevant correlation between the location of Shark strikes and that of baited Shark dives!
Of course correlation, even if it were found, is not causation. And, this would not be testing the hypothesis that baiting leads to more Shark attacks. For that, one would have to proceed like Doc suggests and wait for several centuries. But it would at least give us an indication about whether the hypothesis is at least plausible and thus, worth testing!

Betcha the result it is a big fat zero!
And if so, wouldn't that be all the more surprising as common wisdom would suggest the exact contrary! Here's the long version of why this should be the case - but if you can't be bothered, here's the synopsis.

For there to be a Shark strike, a person and a Shark need to be in the same place at the same time (dooh...) and consequently, anything increasing the rate of such encounters increases the probability for such a strike.
When it comes to baited Shark dives, it thus follows that, equally trivially

• the more Sharks are present, the higher the risk of a Shark bite
• the more divers are present, the higher the risk of a Shark bite
• the more dives are being conducted, the higher the risk of a Shark bite
• the closer the divers and the Sharks interact, and the more frequently those interactions occur, the higher the risk of a Shark bite - meaning that protocols are incredibly important!

And then there's also the element of location, i.e. where those baited Shark dives are being conducted.
They are obviously being conducted where there are Sharks (dooh...) - but often, they are even located where Sharks aggregate naturally to mate and feed, e.g. around Dyer and Seal Islands in South Africa, the Neptunes in Southern Australia, Guadalupe, etc., meaning that those places are more dangerous to start with, something one may want to consider when analyzing the data.

But then again, maybe the above is a fallacy.
Maybe Shark dives habituate the Sharks to the presence of people, meaning that they become more relaxed or "tame" and thus refrain from biting. Let's not forget that agonistic (= essentially, defensive) behavior may well be one of the principal causes of Shark bites on divers! And if we put too many divers in the water, the Sharks may well decide to simply go away.
Yes as always it's complicated!

So how about it.
Will those guys finally let somebody analyze those data, and will those stupid assertions be finally outed for what they really are, nothing but rubbish and completely unsupported and probably even falsified by the very data collected by the people proffering them!

PS Patric here (thanks!) and Jillian here!
PS great comment on the attacks here!

Zombie Ecosystems!

Painting of intact coral reef - increasingly becoming science fiction.

Please read this.

Not much to add is there.
I know that Rick the Mac and others are attending, so expect more informed analyses to hit the blogosphere soon.

After the folly of Ipanema the question remains.
Where is the f&%@ing leadership?

PS great post by RTSea here!
PS2 dissenting opinion here!

Surprise!

Very dapper indeed! :)

Cool!

Photographer and Shark Expert Jim Abernethy thought he was getting some photographs and video of a blue marlin, but he wasn't alone.

Photographed in the Bahamas in May along with Guy Harvey and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation. For more on sharks and the problems they face, check out the new film, This is Your Ocean: Sharks.

Enjoy! :)

Empty Seas!

Got no time for writing lengthy posts right now.
Thankfully, there's plenty of other good Sharky stuff out there.

Case in point, this post by CJA Bradshaw.
Cory is one of the foremost thinkers in Conservation, and a brilliant blogger to boot. Please do take the time to explore the links, and the links contained therein. It's the disheartening saga of how Indonesia is annihilating its Elasmobranchs - and having personally witnessed the shocking decline I may add: all other Fishes as well, small and big alike!
This has led to the rise of poaching along Australia's Northern coast and with South-East Asian fisheries in general not being far behind, these developments are the likely driver of the rise of Shark fishing in the Pacific, Latin America and possibly even Africa.

Indeed: holy f&%k!

Pew - new Bible!

According to trade data from the Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong, 83 countries exported more than 10.3 million kilograms (22.7 million pounds) of shark fin products to Hong Kong in 2011 - click for detail!

Kudos, once again, to Pew.

Someone there has been working really, really hard.
The result: the most comprehensive compendium of Shark management and conservation measures to-date. Navigating Global Shark Conservation Measures: Current Measures and Gaps is a remarkable feat of meticulous research and when coupled with the other excellent resources by Pew, it offers all the information and arguments every Shark conservationist should dispose of.

Executive Summary here, full report here - synopses here and here.
Or article here - the Bull is Nani, pic by Vitaly.

Required reading for everybody!

Barnacle Fishermen!

David is right.
This is a really, really nice documentary!

Enjoy!



Story here - equally brilliant Making Of here!