Croc kills diver - Dehiwala, Sri Lanka

[Ayisha]

I like crocodiles and don't care to fear-monger toward them, and I'm not sure how much dive tourists need to be wary of them (e.g.: how much risk is there, how much can you really do to mitigate it, and how much are visiting divers warned about them...

This is about as close as I was getting to hanging out with Tito, a resident croc in the mangroves by our liveaboard off Jardines de la Reina, Cuba.

Other divers did go for a swim with him, though. It definitely looked like both the swimmers and Tito kept a watchful eye on each other.

The liveaboard encouraged people to swim with him and a baby croc, Nino. They said that the crocs had never hurt anybody, but if we saw the biggest one Franco, nobody would want to get in with him.

These particular crocs were very used to humans, and the liveaboard fed them meat scraps often.

I get close to various sharks and take pics, but that was close enough for me.

 

[drrich2]

Species matters. The American crocodile is a brackish water species that can be dangerous. The salt-water crocodile of Australia and nearby regions is by reputation a whole other level of dangerous.

That said, I’d be leery of diving with a very large American crocodile.

 

[Dan]

In regards to Tiger Sharks, I have seen Tiger Sharks underwater in a non feeding site (in Cocos) that would just swam away when I made eye contact with them.



Some of the Tiger Shark attacks I read were on the surface where swimmer splashing like wounded animal or in the shallow murky water where the Shark just bite test the victim legs to see if it’s edible.

Finch, the Tiger Shark feeding guide of Dolphin Dream emphasizes the importance of eye contact with the Tiger Sharks in Tiger Beach. Forget about the Lemon, Gray Reef Sharks cruising by you. Just keep eyes on those Tiger Sharks, otherwise they would get curious and bite test you or your gears.



When the water gets murky, I prefer to stay out of the water, as bite tests would more likely happen.

 

[Skeptic14]

Despite the obvious point of many small fish darting away from encroaching divers, yes, that's what I'm getting at, as it pertains to large sharks and dolphins. While many sharks tend to avoid humans if not baited in, I cannot imagine getting as close to a wild African leopard as I've been to tiger sharks. And smaller carnivores, let's say a badger, wolverine, coyote or fox, probably wouldn't tolerate a human getting as close as the sand tiger sharks on the deep wrecks out of North Carolina, or the lemon sharks aggregating out of Jupiter, FL, in winter. For that matter, it's often possible to get close to goliath grouper - what wild land creature of similar size lets humans approach?

Even herbivores tend to flee (deer, granted they are hunted), or fights (e.g.: hippos). Wild elephants object to close human approach from what I understand.

Yet people snorkel with whale sharks.

Granted, a sand tiger shark can't curl its lip back and snarl at us the way a leopard can, but still, there seems to be a marked difference in the animal's reaction when a human is in near proximity.

The difference is that sharks have never looked at humans as a food source, and until relatively recently had little interaction with humans. And like other animals, if you know their behaviors, one can usually avoid an incident.

Large land predators, and most wild animals have had centuries of interaction with humans and have been trained over time to avoid humans, for their own good, whether humans were on the menu or not.

Right now the interaction between bears and humans is being renegotiated in California, I don't think it will be good for either, in the long run.

There could be something to the idea that humans are more of an unknown curiosity to aquatic species so there's less fleeing vs counterparts on land with more potential instinctual fear from 500k years of being hunted by bipedal homo. But to reach that conclusion seems to rely heavily on cherry picking experiences / anecdotes. And keeping it simple, all species I think typically error on the side of false positives vs the opposite to avoid being eaten, otherwise the species wouldn't still be around, so maybe there is more fleeing from you going on than you recognize.

As an underwater photographer getting close to things is paramount and most times subjects don't allow it I find from my experience. As an example, for every good shot of a turtle I have, there's been way more times a turtle barely came into view, stayed on the edge of view and when approached (even slowly) it easily and swiftly swam away.

Which comes back to the crux for me; the environments are different. What we consider close proximity in the water is shaped by our experience in our natural environment on land.

Seeing a sea turtle 20 feet away we think of as close proximity because we can't get that close to a lot of skittish land animals.

Sight, sound and smell are very different underwater than above water. Sight is extremely limited below water compared to above, so immediately that is a dramatic change in what proximity means. Sound carries much better below water, so sensitivities toward hearing things and judging proximity are different. And the way we think of smell above water is much different than the counterpart below water.

All this means the environments and way animals interact in these environments is going to be different. What is considered close is going to be different, compounding this is how much more dense water is than the atmosphere which changes locomotion which again I think changes what fleeing looks like below water vs above. A deer might need to put 100s of yards between itself and something new it sees but a fish doesn't.

 

[CuzzA]

In Florida once a gator loses fear of humans, often because people have fed it, it will be culled.

Because gators are protected and we have a highly regulated hunting tag system here their populations are about as healthy as they could be outside of losing territory to human development.

Celebrating the death of a human at the hands of a croc is deranged thinking.

 

[Skeptic14]

Finch, the Tiger Shark feeding guide of Dolphin Dream emphasizes the importance of eye contact with the Tiger Sharks in Tiger Beach. Forget about the Lemon, Gray Reef Sharks cruising by you. Just keep eyes on those Tiger Sharks, otherwise they would get curious and bite test you or your gears.

When the water gets murky, I prefer to stay out of the water, as bite tests would more likely happen.

That's what I read from a very detailed explanation of tiger beach.

That you are supposed to always being cycling through counting the tigers to ensure you see all of them that are currently in the vicinity.

To me that emphasizes that they're opportunistic feeders just like land predators; so don't give them what appears to be an opening, and because they have sufficient size to feed on a human sized prey vs the vast majority of sharks that divers encounter.

To each their own, as a uw photographer getting some great photos would be awesome, but I think as divers we tend to personify \ downplay danger from big sharks more than warrantied.

 

[Searcaigh]

I'm going to throw this into the mix too.

An ex-colleague of mine who studied to be a park ranger in S. Africa told me that the brains of reptiles think differently that those of mammals.

She told me that people who keep large constrictor type snakes (e.g. pythons) as pets, it's only a matter of time when that snake is big enough to think it of eating its "owner"

 

[Skeptic14]

I'm going to throw this into the mix too.

An ex-colleague of mine who studied to be a park ranger in S. Africa told me that the brains of reptiles think differently that those of mammals.

She told me that people who keep large constrictor type snakes (e.g. pythons) as pets, it's only a matter of time when that snake is big enough to think it of eating its "owner"

The reptilian brain is more primitive so I think that's an accurate assessment.

What's interesting also is that as species become more intelligent killing isn't always just for food. There's evidence in primates and big cats of playing with prey not to eat but just because for curiosity sake.

 

[CuzzA]

Indeed, a couple studies show your pet cat would likely kill you for fun if it were big enough.

Here Is Why Your Cat May Be Plotting To Kill You

Not all cats are the same. But how well do you know your cat? See what the Kitty Cam Project, The Oatmeal, and a cat psychological study found.

www.forbes.com

 

[CuzzA]

I think we're getting off point here, though.

The bottom line is all large apex predators pose risks to humans. Be it lions, tigers, bears, crocs, gators or sharks. Some interactions are trained behavior due to humans, and some are just unfortunate interactions due to being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

This incident sounds like the latter, but the croc is described as being very large and has now attacked a human and should be killed as it now sees humans as a food source and given the opportunity, it will kill again. Croc and gator attacks are not the same as a shark mistaking a swimmer for food.