Are there any wildlife that actually want to harm us?

[flfishhead]

some species of triggerfish are seriously aggressive if you accidentally swim too close to their nest. I got attacked by one last week, and was on high triggerfish alert after that.

I had a triggerfish that kept nipping at my earlobe on a dive years ago. Only time that ever happened. Although rather painful, it, luckily, didn't draw blood (and I kept my earlobe).

 

[Tigerman]

I had a triggerfish that kept nipping at my earlobe on a dive years ago. Only time that ever happened. Although rather painful, it, luckily, didn't draw blood (and I kept my earlobe).

And on that topic, bleeding at depth is kinda fun as the blood don't look red anymore, but a creepy shade og green

 

[KeithG]

And on that topic, bleeding at depth is kinda fun as the blood don't look red anymore, but a creepy shade og green

try telling that to the people flogging camera filters ...

A decent light will bring out the real blood red shades o green.

 

[Tigerman]

Those guys are just killjoys

 

[Mr Carcharodon]

Those sarcastic fringehead are mean b******s.

 

[going2aussie]

I'm more worried about the cougars on shore. There's nothing in the ocean that systematically attacks or preys on people. Shark attacks are mostly just mistaken identity. Even the white shark attacks are mostly just mistaken identity. They don't typically chow down.

 

[Dendrogyra]

Triggerfish are aggressive towards anything...once when I was working on a project, there were hundreds of triggerfish on site that day and every time I put down a wrench or bag of screws I'd turn around to find one or two triggerfish attacking it. I also once suffered an attack in an aquarium exhibit by a territorial guineafowl puffer.

 

[Iralub]

This thread caught my eye, because on a recent dive trip I got attacked by a coral grouper. The damn thing attacked me from behind, without provocation and bit two of my fingers, drawing blood. It took me a little while to figure out what was that green thing coming from my fingers! It then followed me and tried to take another bite - had to chase it off with my camera.

There were about two dozen sharks around on that dive and I get attacked by a 30cm bright red fish! No idea why it decided that my fingers would be tasty.

 

[Diver0001]

Any time on tv that they show divers in the water with sharks, they have chummed the water.

This makes me wonder, what would happen if this type of activity stopped? What if while diving, sharks and other dangerous animals were able to approach on their own terms, not in a feeding frenzie?

Are there any animals that no matter what we did, if they got near us, they would try to purposely harm us?

In 30+ years of diving I have never encountered any animal under water that I saw as a threat.

I did see a very large oceanic white-tip once that approached us with a very aggressive stance. He/she broke off the attack stance at the last second and started circling. In all the years I've been diving I've never seen anything that was scarier than that.

I did see a diver get bitten by a barracuda. It was a dive-guide. He was floating a few meters ahead of us. The barracuda swam up right between me and my buddy and was probably a little more than a meter long. For a barracuda it was huge!

It swam up to the guide, went under/between his legs and then turned and BAM! It bit his regulator with a speed an ferocity that I had never seen before. To his credit the DM remained entirely calm. He took the reg out of his mouth and "chased" the barracuda away with bubbles. After the dive he told us that he may have appeared calm but he wasn't. He told us that the local dive guides feared nothing other than solitary barracuda.

R..

 

[Bottom Boy]

Urchins.

This^^^^^^^. Without a doubt the most dangerous creature in the ocean. My run-in with an urchin was the most painful experience of my life.

Although I have never had a problem with one, bull sharks seem to have a bad attitude.