diverdoug1
Contributor
Hope the bite is not to damaging! Get well Jim!
Abernethy bitten by shark in Bahamas
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nolatom
Contributor
Good news from Jim's facebook page, quote:
quote:
From Jim Abernethy Jan 26, 2011
by James R Abernethy on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 9:27pm
Thank you for your concerns and well-wishes tonight; I’m going to be fine. My concern is for the future of sharks. Each day more than 200,000 are killed - mostly for shark fin soup. Since the 1970s, sharks populations have plummeted by as much as 80 percent, with some species reduced by a staggering 97 percent. I’ve spent the last two decades of my life in the Bahamas with the sharks that I love. Today’s minor incident will not deter me. I will continue my mission to help protect these beautiful animals and share their grace and wonder with others. I am dedicated to promotion and establishment of marine preserves for these creatures and all marine life. This is the only way to help protect the future of our oceans – and the life, resources, and joy it brings to all of us.Thank you again for your concerns and well wishes. I plan to be back out to sea in a few days.
unquote
quote:
From Jim Abernethy Jan 26, 2011
by James R Abernethy on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 9:27pm
Thank you for your concerns and well-wishes tonight; I’m going to be fine. My concern is for the future of sharks. Each day more than 200,000 are killed - mostly for shark fin soup. Since the 1970s, sharks populations have plummeted by as much as 80 percent, with some species reduced by a staggering 97 percent. I’ve spent the last two decades of my life in the Bahamas with the sharks that I love. Today’s minor incident will not deter me. I will continue my mission to help protect these beautiful animals and share their grace and wonder with others. I am dedicated to promotion and establishment of marine preserves for these creatures and all marine life. This is the only way to help protect the future of our oceans – and the life, resources, and joy it brings to all of us.Thank you again for your concerns and well wishes. I plan to be back out to sea in a few days.
unquote
diverdoug1
Contributor
I wonder how long that took to type with one hand?
Only joking cause we know he's ok!
Only joking cause we know he's ok!
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It's great to hear the positive response to this incident. Normally any shark bite is followed by negative criticism and ignorance. Thanks to all for commenting and please keep in mind that this is a man who has devoted his life to shark conservation. What he wants from this is positive publicity, not focus on the dangers of sharks. Jim is doing great and hopes to be back on the next trip.
robbcayman
Contributor
According to a wetpixel poster it was a lemon and wasn't very severe. I wonder what the circumstances were. I wanted to dive with his OP for several years, but when that lawyer was killed by a bull it gave me pause. Now I see he got bit. If he was holding bait and got bit that would be much more explainable.
The bad thing with diving with these creatures is you only have to be wrong once. I hope he fully recovers. The only problem is the Bahamas may ban uncaged diving now that this has happened twice; shark bites bring bad publicity to the islands.
The bad thing with diving with these creatures is you only have to be wrong once. I hope he fully recovers. The only problem is the Bahamas may ban uncaged diving now that this has happened twice; shark bites bring bad publicity to the islands.
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This local news report actually does a decent job of not creating more shark hysteria/fear (Note I said decent job, not great job.). Of course my expectations for local news stations are pretty low.
Shark bite victim flown to West Palm Beach
Shark bite victim flown to West Palm Beach
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RogerAGrimes
Contributor
My hobby is filming sharks and I wish no harm to anyone, but I'm surprised not to see more thread posters protesting the unnatural feeding of sharks (outside of an emergency rescue situation).
Additional injuries, that could have been avoided if the activity was not taking place, does not help the shark.
I'm against fish and shark feeding of any type, even when trying to educate people and take more exciting pictures and video. We do not know, scientifically, how the new learned behaviors impacts these creatures. Does it cause them to fear people less? We don't know. We do know that it does stimulate their eating behavior in ways that does not help them survive over the long-term (without them returning to the unnatural food source over and over). Does it make them fatter? Does it make them lazy? Does it increase their population beyond the natural number? Does it change migration and breeding patterns?
We don't know these answers.
What I do know is that in all of these shark feeding videos, it often causes the casual viewer to be spooked about sharks even more. It shows sharks being wildly excited and aggressively eating meat or fish. Often the ring leader is covered in chain mail and/or just missing being bit. It makes for exciting video, but how is that suppose to calm any normal person and help the shark? On top of that, they are reading about deaths and injuries from these shark feeding events that would not exist except for these operations. Each year there are a few bad events, like this one, and they get global news coverage. Heck, they often end up on Good Morning America and other breakfast shows. And the story line isn't how graceful or non-threatening these sharks are.
I don't know Jim personally, and I won't question his motivations (beyond the obvious motivation of the ongoing revenue stream). But people are getting hurt because of him. Pure and simple. It's likely that sharks are getting a worse public image because of what is happening (i.e. I don't see his harmless shark videos making the breakfast circuit roudns).
And I don't mean to take people's risky fun. I'm a guy with thousands of skydives. But it seems to me that any unnatural interaction between a human and an animal, in it's natural environment, has more downsides than upsides.
Just my opinion. I'm a learner and not a knower. I just wanted to throw my one-half cent into the ring.
Additional injuries, that could have been avoided if the activity was not taking place, does not help the shark.
I'm against fish and shark feeding of any type, even when trying to educate people and take more exciting pictures and video. We do not know, scientifically, how the new learned behaviors impacts these creatures. Does it cause them to fear people less? We don't know. We do know that it does stimulate their eating behavior in ways that does not help them survive over the long-term (without them returning to the unnatural food source over and over). Does it make them fatter? Does it make them lazy? Does it increase their population beyond the natural number? Does it change migration and breeding patterns?
We don't know these answers.
What I do know is that in all of these shark feeding videos, it often causes the casual viewer to be spooked about sharks even more. It shows sharks being wildly excited and aggressively eating meat or fish. Often the ring leader is covered in chain mail and/or just missing being bit. It makes for exciting video, but how is that suppose to calm any normal person and help the shark? On top of that, they are reading about deaths and injuries from these shark feeding events that would not exist except for these operations. Each year there are a few bad events, like this one, and they get global news coverage. Heck, they often end up on Good Morning America and other breakfast shows. And the story line isn't how graceful or non-threatening these sharks are.
I don't know Jim personally, and I won't question his motivations (beyond the obvious motivation of the ongoing revenue stream). But people are getting hurt because of him. Pure and simple. It's likely that sharks are getting a worse public image because of what is happening (i.e. I don't see his harmless shark videos making the breakfast circuit roudns).
And I don't mean to take people's risky fun. I'm a guy with thousands of skydives. But it seems to me that any unnatural interaction between a human and an animal, in it's natural environment, has more downsides than upsides.
Just my opinion. I'm a learner and not a knower. I just wanted to throw my one-half cent into the ring.
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