There have been some half *** atttempts to study sharks and color and as far as I see none of them are actually worth the paper or electrons they are written on.
Yum, yum yellow is an urban legend.
Most shark attacks are not due to confusion with a seal because I imagine many sharks in Florida, Bahamas etc have never seen a seal.
Very few scuba divers are actually attacked by sharks though snorklers and surfers it seems may suffer a bit more vulnerability.
There are so few shark attacks on divers in general as it is statisitcally IMPOSSIBLE to draw good conclusions and no study to date has either despite attempts to do so--insufficient data should be their conclusion.
If---IF---color did help deter sharks--if--the most likely time of an attack, the greatest vulnerability, would be when the scuba diver is on the surface and here RED would look RED not black for whatever that is worth but of course as a silhouette who knows what the shark sees.
Colored gear would be more useful at keeping the number one potential nemisis of scuba divers at bay---power boats and jet skis. As a power boater myself and a diver the suicidal infatuation with the NAVY Seal Team/Secret Agent outfits in black is puzzeling. Scuba gear these days largely is like the Model T, you can have it any in any color as long as it is black.
I don't need a study to tell me that I can clearly see a diver on the surface in a red wet suit, orange beanie and orange wing/BC more clearly than one in black. Not only that, black/white and other colors because they occur naturally in nature do not command the attention that yellow, orange, red or chartruse/neon colors do because they DO NOT occur commonly in nature and therefore stand out as something to pay attention to by the power boater. While boaters may ignore the dive flag it is my observation that they would prefer not to damage their 500 dollars propellers on a scuba tank and therefore are likely to avoid hitting you if they can see you and I don't need a govenrment study to prove that, perhaps a new study tieing global warming in somehow?
No matter how style'n divers try to be the visual feast that a diver presents with a hubcab in the mouth and an airbag wrapped around them and in a rubber suit and a goofy mask is most distressing--why try to look good at something that defies the potential to even look good at all? diving is not a fashion sport.
Sharks are unpredictable and pretty much do as they wish regardless of what color your fins or wet suit might be. I don't think colored scuba gear is even an issue with them.
N