Shark Feeding Dives...Yes or No

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And just to stir the water in the opposite direction.....
Millions of people watch/participate in feeding dolphins and that's OK.
Cause Dolphins are cute but sharks are misunderstood and therefore scary.

{ Education eliminates fear }
Better example would be tarpon - beside's Robbie's in Islamorada, there are plenty of places in the Keys where they routinely get fed from docks. For the natives it's amusing to watch the tourists who aren't quite fast enough and wind up with a 100-pound fish clamped to their arm (or my old boss, who more than a few times came into work on Monday with the back of his hand scabbed over).
 
Hi @Johnoly

I would never dream of doing a captive dolphin activity. I have really only had 2 close dolphin experiences while scuba diving in SE FL, both in Boynton Beach, while diving solo. The first on was somewhere on the inside reef. I was drifting north. First, one dolphin, heading south swam just a foot or two from me and looked me in the eye, then a second came swimming slowly by and did the same thing. The second encounter was while swimming across the reef, from the outside to the inside. About half way over I saw a dolphin in front of me, then a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth. They swam 3 circles around me, as close as a foot or two, checking me out, and then slowly swam off. It was magical :) One of the top encounters I've ever had

Very similar experience for me in the Red Sea (22 November 2019).

My dive buddy and I were doing a shallow lap (~9m) around a reef crown when a pod of 11 dolphins joined us (to our surprise) and swam alongside us for 10 minutes. The male kept himself between us and the pod and would come closely alongside me and make sustained eye contact. It was clear to me there was cognitive thought going on in his head.

That dive was simply magical.

I wouldn’t have considered or been tempted to feed them.
 
As a biologist who studies animal behavior, I'm adamantly against it. Like @Divin'Papaw, I refuse to spend my dollars with businesses that do this. Others disagree.
It’s really tough to argue with science. I’m in the same camp, though not a biologist.
Good point. I would think the "Don't feed the Bears" signs that we see were put there for a reason...who knows if it transfers to other species.
It absolutely does. I grew up in FL, and it’s quite common to see signs prohibiting feeding alligators. The official signs usually prohibit feeding or molesting alligators, which usually gets a chuckle from people seeing those signs for the first time.

I’ve heard people that advocate shark feeding dives argue that it doesn’t alter their behavior. Somehow, sharks, despite millions of years of evolution, are incapable of operant conditioning. That’s just absurd.

Their argument falls apart when looking at other activities that sharks associate with food. Following shrimp boats, recognizing spearfishing, etc.

I’m against shark feeding dives. It’s illegal in FL waters, and should be illegal in Federal waters as well.
 
It’s really tough to argue with science. I’m in the same camp, though not a biologist.

It absolutely does. I grew up in FL, and it’s quite common to see signs prohibiting feeding alligators. The official signs usually prohibit feeding or molesting alligators, which usually gets a chuckle from people seeing those signs for the first time.

I’ve heard people that advocate shark feeding dives argue that it doesn’t alter their behavior. Somehow, sharks, despite millions of years of evolution, are incapable of operant conditioning. That’s just absurd.

Their argument falls apart when looking at other activities that sharks associate with food. Following shrimp boats, recognizing spearfishing, etc.

I’m against shark feeding dives. It’s illegal in FL waters, and should be illegal in Federal waters as well.
The problem with "arguing with science" is that my first shark dive (or rather, snorkel) experience was with Dr. Samuel Gruber and his interns at the Bimini Biological Field Station, there's a regular rotation of shark researchers who go on the liveaboards to Guadalupe Island and Tiger Beach, and there's a fairly strong history of shark dive operations and researchers collaborating. That's not to say feeding operations aren't critiqued, but it tends to be more in the details of the "provisioning" as the technical term is known. The two most vocal critics in that vein are the former head of the International Shark Attack File (which sort of goes with the job) and someone who's very good at giving media interviews and presenting himself as a font of other people's knowledge without actually contributing much to the field. I haven't met any researchers with serious concerns about changed behavior; on top of that sharks are often hard to study in the wild without using some kind of attractant so it would be a bit hypocritical.
I haven’t heard it advocated there is no change. What’s usually debated is what kind of change and of what demonstrated extent.
Sharks are opportunists, particularly ones with a large range (and by "large" we're talking an individual might cover thousands of miles in a year). Back in the old sailing days it was superstition that if fins were following the ship, someone aboard was about to die. While they definitely did tend to follow ships, I doubt the traffic was heavy enough to constitute operant conditioning; more likely when a large slow object leaving a trail of offal behind it came through the open ocean (which is resource-poor) it rang the same dinner bell as something like a sick whale.

The real danger with terrestrial species is that they tend to be bumping right up against human civilization on a daily basis. In Florida a nuisance gator over four feet is killed (or for a lucky few taken into captivity) because above that size they're territorial and have a homing instinct; you could drop a gator 50 miles away and it would head right back to whatever condo development it got evicted from. Bears are an issue because they tend to start raiding campsites and dumpsters; on top of that they're mammals with parental care which means they bring cubs along for the experience (which can both teach the young to do the same and present the classic "mama bear" danger).

The general consensus with the studies that have been done on baited shark encounters seems to be that there can be some behavioral changes, but there seems to be a lot of variation between species, locations, and even individuals. What I don't think I've seen so far is anything that indicates they change their large-scale movement patterns; with a lot of shark dive operations around the world there are set seasons when the sharks are in residence and free appetizers don't change their plans. I also haven't seen anything showing they're just going to start rolling random divers for lunch - going back to my first experience off Bimini, when the bait stopped coming our mix of Caribbean reef and blacknose sharks split like cats after the can is empty.

In short, my view is that it's not a cut and dried issue; there's instances where I don't think it's a good idea or necessary and practices I don't agree with. I wouldn't for example line up to do one of the Caribbean reef shark dives (not really necessary to see them and they can be stroppy little buggers) and with maybe the exception of Cat Island I'd be nervous about going into a baited scenario with oceanic whitetips ("They don't miss meals," as one researcher told me).
 
The problem with "arguing with science" is that my first shark dive (or rather, snorkel) experience was with Dr. Samuel Gruber and his interns at the Bimini Biological Field Station, there's a regular rotation of shark researchers who go on the liveaboards to Guadalupe Island and Tiger Beach, and there's a fairly strong history of shark dive operations and researchers collaborating. That's not to say feeding operations aren't critiqued, but it tends to be more in the details of the "provisioning" as the technical term is known. The two most vocal critics in that vein are the former head of the International Shark Attack File (which sort of goes with the job) and someone who's very good at giving media interviews and presenting himself as a font of other people's knowledge without actually contributing much to the field. I haven't met any researchers with serious concerns about changed behavior; on top of that sharks are often hard to study in the wild without using some kind of attractant so it would be a bit hypocritical.
Good point. I can understand using attractants to bring in sharks in an effort to study them. I’m sure the researchers would rather study them without doing that, but it’s hard to study sharks that don’t show up to the site.

Research dives are one thing. Regular trips with tourist divers is another.
 
going back to my first experience off Bimini, when the bait stopped coming our mix of Caribbean reef and blacknose sharks split like cats after the can is empty.
This is what I noticed in Tiger Beach also. Once the milk crate was empty, Finch or Ryan would raise the milk crate over his head and the Tiger Sharks swam away.

 
Research dives are one thing. Regular trips with tourist divers is another.

Bullseye.

Unless I’m from a credentialed and serious research activity with scientific objectives that would pass a peer-review, then my assertions about shark feeding, no matter how plain or sophisticated, are just novice rationalization for a personal desire to see a shark.

I think some folks confuse the volume of their assertions or the absence of a bite on their dives as a scientific finding.

I’d prefer if folks were to simply admit they want to see sharks and that the ethical and/or behavioral implications of baited observation are very secondary to their desires.
 
This is what I noticed in Tiger Beach also. Once the milk crate was empty, Finch or Ryan would raise the milk crate over his head and the Tiger Sharks swam away.

This is a little off topic, so I hope everyone forgives me.

Dan, did you find that at Tiger Beach, because it is so shallow, and also because the sharks tend to be several feet away from you when you are photographing and/or videoing them that it was better to use ambient light (and adjust the white balance accordingly) rather than to try to use either strobes or video lights?
 
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