Mini-Season is Far More Dangerous than Shark Feeding

[letterboy]

Bag limit for majority of Florida is 12 per person during mini season. Normal limit is 6.

 

[Ana]

Florida's FWC does not care about "public safety." If it did, mini-season would have been outlawed many years ago.

....

The dive operators that take part in this dangerous event should be ashamed of themselves; they do it only to make $$ and they know is it incredibly dangerous. Why are they not trying to end this event due to its horrible history of deaths and accidents?

I believe these are 2 different subjects.
First, to define what FWC cares about is rather difficult, they have a conveniently vague mission statement: "Protecting Florida's natural resources and people through proactive and responsive law enforcement services."
The mini-season brings stupid money to the state, I bet it represents a big % of the FWC budget. If Florida (meaning most of the Florida residents) would really care or want to, they could change the rules,

I don't know if the fatalities tend to be non-Florida residents, divers I know make a point to stay out of the water during these 2 days. A life is a life regardless of their address, but it may make a difference if the fatalities were all Floridians.

Based on what I've seen as the years go by, I think the lobster would benefit if every year or two the season would be greatly reduced, I remember not having to measure them to know they were legal, because there was plenty of big bugs to get your limit.

As far as the dive operators. Of course they only do it to make $$, but to make a blanket statement that they should be ashamed for making a living is less than reasonable. I would venture to say that at least 90% of the dive ops are out for mini-season and only few of them do anything different than what they do on any other dive trip. The kid that die off Pompano today was diving off a boat that has been around at least 20 years, are they supposed to be ashamed for having a business for several decades?

Maybe this season's fatality was a great diver and did everything correctly it was just his day, can you legislate that out?

Also you can't fight stupidity, if one or several persons that never dive suddenly decide they are going to get lobster during mini-season, how are you going to stop them, these people are a special breed. To regulate everyone else based on that small group doesn't seem reasonable to me.

 

[tkenney]

And every year Deer Hunters die from being out of shape and have heart attacks .Rather those unfortunate deaths than being ripped apart by a Tiger Shark.. You guys are getting almost as creative as SeaWorld with the reasoning why its a good thing..

 

[sportxlh]

After looking at your previous posts I find this thread completely ridiculous. It is obvious that you have a pro shark diving stance. That alone is just fine. I don't have all the facts of this case. But I'd be willing to bet that he was not bit to death by the lobster. Diving itself is inherently dangerous no matter what your purpose for diving is. I personally don't have an anti-shark diving bone in my body. In fact I think I might rather like it. If your stance is truly anti-lobster instead of pro shark then there are many other arguments that you could have used to make your argument more convincing.

I'm not pro-shark feeding (not exactly sure I'm anti- either), but I did think the original post was ironic and in a morbid sense, a bit funny.

 

[Doug Kahle]

I believe these are 2 different subjects.
First, to define what FWC cares about is rather difficult, they have a conveniently vague mission statement: "Protecting Florida's natural resources and people through proactive and responsive law enforcement services."
The mini-season brings stupid money to the state, I bet it represents a big % of the FWC budget. If Florida (meaning most of the Florida residents) would really care or want to, they could change the rules,

I don't know if the fatalities tend to be non-Florida residents, divers I know make a point to stay out of the water during these 2 days. A life is a life regardless of their address, but it may make a difference if the fatalities were all Floridians.

Based on what I've seen as the years go by, I think the lobster would benefit if every year or two the season would be greatly reduced, I remember not having to measure them to know they were legal, because there was plenty of big bugs to get your limit.

As far as the dive operators. Of course they only do it to make $$, but to make a blanket statement that they should be ashamed for making a living is less than reasonable. I would venture to say that at least 90% of the dive ops are out for mini-season and only few of them do anything different than what they do on any other dive trip. The kid that die off Pompano today was diving off a boat that has been around at least 20 years, are they supposed to be ashamed for having a business for several decades?

Maybe this season's fatality was a great diver and did everything correctly it was just his day, can you legislate that out?

Also you can't fight stupidity, if one or several persons that never dive suddenly decide they are going to get lobster during mini-season, how are you going to stop them, these people are a special breed. To regulate everyone else based on that small group doesn't seem reasonable to me.

The point of my post is somewhat limited in its application.

Here, in Palm Beach County, we are dealing with a lot of opposition to shark feeding based on the argument that it is "dangerous," whatever that means. The FWC handed out citations and stated it was a "public safety issue."

Keep in mind, there has never been a death or bite in the State of Florida attributed to shark feeding. Recently, we have been doing it for 19 months; and, prior to the banning of shark feeding in state waters in 2001, it had been going on for years.

Yet, the FWC and these dive operators have no problem whatsoever endorsing, marketing, participating, and profiting from mini-season. Again, this has got to be one of the most dangerous events on the planet, considering it runs for only 48 hours. It is almost guaranteed that one diver will die; there are many years where the number of deaths was two to four.

So, I don't want to hear any of these dive operators or the FWC complain about shark feeding, which has never resulted in a death or injury in Florida, when they themselves participate, endorse, market, and profit from mini-season.

 

[DennisS]

Comparing apples and oranges

 

[spoolin01]

The point of my post is somewhat limited in its application.

Here, in Palm Beach County, we are dealing with a lot of opposition to shark feeding based on the argument that it is "dangerous," whatever that means. The FWC handed out citations and stated it was a "public safety issue."

Keep in mind, there has never been a death or bite in the State of Florida attributed to shark feeding. Recently, we have been doing it for 19 months; and, prior to the banning of shark feeding in state waters in 2001, it had been going on for years.

Yet, the FWC and these dive operators have no problem whatsoever endorsing, marketing, participating, and profiting from mini-season. Again, this has got to be one of the most dangerous events on the planet, considering it runs for only 48 hours. It is almost guaranteed that one diver will die; there are many years where the number of deaths was two to four.

So, I don't want to hear any of these dive operators or the FWC complain about shark feeding, which has never resulted in a death or injury in Florida, when they themselves participate, endorse, market, and profit from mini-season.

I don't follow your logic re: shark feeding. Do you think operant conditioning is not a fact of shark nature (Florida sharks?), or is it somehow not relevant? I don't follow shark feeding debates much but wasn't someone bitten during a charter shark feeding dive in the Bahamas or thereabouts? Wasn't feeding implicated in the spate of Oceanic Whitetip attacks in the Red Sea? I recall reading these things not too long back. What makes the Florida experience unique? How is the feeding managed?

It does seem like an apples-to-oranges comparison - hurting yourself vs being hurt by a natural predator possibly trained by someone else to be more aggressive towards you.

 

[Zznola]

Read through some of the reports but no potential cause was listed nor dive op. Hate to dog the dive op if they were not at fault but I do dive pompano and would like to get a full story. Any more info.?


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[HalcyonDaze]

This is not a comparison I would really care to make - I enjoy the shark feeding dive ops, do not think there's evidence to show they are a hazard, and think that over the past few months the practice has been successfully defended on these forums. Making strained comparisons to the casualties of mini-season is risking the validity of the argument for no real gain. I can see the basis of it (FWC pulls out all the stops to go after the Emerald and Calypso​, but endorses mini-season), but it's not something to build an argument on.

I won't argue that at the moment I am quite content to be in North Carolina (sadly, between conditions and the Hatteras boats being booked up it looks like I'm not going diving, but I was overdue for some shore leave anyway) and not contending with Captain Morgan, Ensign Budweiser, and Mr. Gilligan today and tomorrow.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

[h=2]Mini-Season is Far More Dangerous than Shark Feeding[/h]
In order to make this claim wouldn't a reasonable person need to determine the number of participants in each activity versus the number of fatalities or injuries? I'm sure many more people die while riding in buses each year in the US than get killed by base jumping with wing suits... So we are to say base jumping is safe and our public transportation system should be banned because it is too "dangerous".