Missing Divers - Komodo National Park

[Scared Silly]

What has been suggested is that some animals can be come what is known as habituated to humans. You do bother them and they do not bother you. This does not mean they are tame. Far from it. Even "tame" animals can strike out and kill.

However, once habituated, everyone loses to certain degree. People let their guard down and assume they can go about their business. But then there is the one critter who has failed to read the memo and is a little hungry or happens to have offspring near by and decides otherwise. Or the parents who forget an let their dog/cat/child wonder too far away.

On the other hand there is the dumb tourist who gets a little too close and gets a surprise. I always like it when tourons in Yellowstone get a new a-hole ripped by a bison that they got a little to close to. Some summers there are multiple incidents like this and keeping score is good fun. No matter want it is always a shut out and the bison win.

If folks read the article, Komodo Dragons like many other animals are infrequent eaters. They gorge themselves and then do not eat for days or weeks. After eating many could for the most part careless about the world around them - unless they feel threatened. But when they are hungry lookout.

And if anyone wonders my source for much of this - happen to have a father who was a research wildlife biologists for 50 years. Amazing what you can learn even while screaming and hollering about not wanting to out in field again with your Dad.

 

[peterbj7]

Cheng has family in Indonesia ... both of her parents had been born there. And so even before we were divers we'd spent some time over there. One day while her cousin was driving us around he explained something about driving in Indonesia ... "The only rule of the road here is that there are no rules". The diving's a lot like that as well. Some of us like it that way

That's fine, so long as dive ops there state that in their advertising, that safety is something they don't even provide lip service to. Given that you know that potential visitors will assume basic international standards exist, you need to make it very clear that you fall well below those standards. Then see how much business you get.

Diving here in Belize is well regulated, yet still there's the occasional accident. Driving here is also tightly regulated, but there is a culture of "anything goes" - rather like your description of Indonesia. We have an enormous number of deaths in road "accidents", most recently a friend whose car was crushed under a load that fell off a truck. I suppose you'd call this "freedom" and you like it that way.

 

[SCUBAJENNIFER]

Don didn't say that at all. He was joking about the inconsistency between what you were saying and what experts said. Or maybe that's a bit subtle?

Oh, but he did...

Originally Posted by DandyDon:
The dragons that frequent the tourist trails just might be easier to deal with than the ones on remote beaches. This one had the guys wetsuit in his mouth and went for a second one?

 

[Geoff_H]

To suggest that somehow one is "tamer" than the other is ridiculous...

Animals do get habituated to humans, and change their habits according. We see this at one end of the scale with birds and squirrels in our garden who visit regularly for nuts and other treats we leave out. If we don't put anything out it's not unheard of to have the birds tapping on our kitchen window.

At the other end of the scale, we visited a wild mountain gorilla group in Rwanda and the guides there said they were habituated to humans. A truely wild group of mountain gorillas would never let us noisy humans get anywhere near them.

In diving I've seen Napolean wrasses in Palau that love attention from divers, I suspect they had been fed by guides in the past. Similarly some turtles that live around dive resorts grow accustomed to divers and their bubbles as they get more familiar with them.

It's in no way beyond belief that Komodo dragons display the same behavioural traits and there are tamer ones and wilder ones. Obviously a tamer dragon would be less likely to attack a human being than a semi-starved desparate wild dragon who didn't get free meals.

 

[peterbj7]

On this Caribbean island we have many salt water crocodiles, which thankfully generally keep themselves to themselves. But there is one area where local youths have become accustomed to teasing them with dead chickens on rope. They throw the chicken to the crocs' head, then reel it in to get the croc to follow it. They've been doing this for years.

Yesterday I saw a youth standing in shallow water between two large crocs, no more than 20 feet from either, playing this game. In the water within 100 feet there were three other crocs. Standing on dry land virtually level with the water and no more than 30 feet away was a group of maybe 50 spectators.

Nothing untoward happened, but I wonder if any of these people realised just how quickly these animals can move? Not one of those people, certainly not the youth but not either any of the crowd, at any rate those in the first couple of ranks, could have got away if a croc had decided to attack. It didn't, and usually they don't, but every now and again you get a croc who hasn't read the rules of the game.

 

[DandyDon]

Don komodo Dragons are Komodo Dragons they all have the survival instinct. Even the ones which are well fed that camp out at the rangers stations both on Komodo and Rinca.

Spent many a year running a live-aboard in Komodo and I still have a very health respect for them.

Yes, I'm sure I'd keep my eye out and at a safe distance regardless of where I encountered them. I've been rudely surprised over the years even by domestic cattle who in some cases seemed pretty tame until I found myself spread eagle on the ground in pain. Somewhat similar experiences with women I'd dated but those injuries were not physical.

In many of the articles I've read recently, it seems that the rangers, locals, and tourists all walk around the dragons with respect but still do it while I'd prefer to view them the way one does bears at a national park: inside with the windows up, but that's not an option on those islands.

I was casually referencing the differing actions of the dragons one might find around the camps as compared to the ones in the wilder areas, not trying to prove any points when I said: "The dragons that frequent the tourist trails just might be easier to deal with than the ones on remote beaches. This one had the guys wetsuit in his mouth and went for a second one?" Several others have agreed with the logic of my thots even tho I have never seen a dragon as many of us have seen many other not-domesticated animals who display varying degrees of behavior; Kevin listed a few. She's on a rant that started on another accident thread where she's the only one posting "they planned it!" and many of us have suggested that her statements were unjustified. At one point she accused me there of insulting her personally, but there I was not in the least. A paranoid reaction I suppose. Mostly I just ignore her now as I hate to ask Mod to step in here; that's a lot of work for them and threads often have to be closed for days while they work it in.

I was not suggesting that they weren't dangerous, just the opposite. They command a high level of respect. What I thought was laughable was that someone who has never been there to assume that there are actually "tourist" Komodo dragons. That they bust out the tame 10' foot lizards for us silly tourists.

Another example of her ranting. I really think it best to generally ignore her these days as I would a chat room bully and let her actions speak as they have so recently here today. Like...

Geoff, have you considered seeking professional help for your obsession? Maybe you should start a journal and list your feelings there????

I'm starting to worry about you...

Psychological first responder? Jeeze!

Three weeks ago I was on Rinca filming and photographing the Komodo lizzies, sorry Dragons. I was on the ground trying to get a good angle of two dragons eating. Suddenly a third one came out of the bushes behind my back. He passed behind me at about two to three feet. It wassn't really interested in me. It just walked further on the beach to get some sunshine.

Lucky for you that he wasn't hungry that day, huh? I'm horrible about following my cameras too, ignoring anything else around and I'd want someone to help cover me there. Tourist attacks may be rare, but I'd hate to be the exception.

 

[SCUBAJENNIFER]

Ohhhh, I'm so hurt that Dandy Don doesn't like me....Not sure how I will go on

I'm just crushed...

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

That's fine, so long as dive ops there state that in their advertising, that safety is something they don't even provide lip service to. Given that you know that potential visitors will assume basic international standards exist, you need to make it very clear that you fall well below those standards. Then see how much business you get.

Diving here in Belize is well regulated, yet still there's the occasional accident. Driving here is also tightly regulated, but there is a culture of "anything goes" - rather like your description of Indonesia. We have an enormous number of deaths in road "accidents", most recently a friend whose car was crushed under a load that fell off a truck. I suppose you'd call this "freedom" and you like it that way.

Oh sure ... right.

Diving in Belize is well-regulated. That's why they routinely take people who just got certified yesterday to 150 feet at the Blue Hole ... on AL80's and air ... and then have them suck on the DM's air when they run out, till they can get them up to a hang bar at 15 feet.

Diving in Belize is regulated by the dollar ... just like any other third-world country. There are good ops and bad ops there ... just like any other third-world country.

Didn't they have a dive boat burn to the waterline in Belize last year?

Didn't they lose (as in "disappear") a DM off another boat?

Don't they occasionally "lose" divers in the Blue Hole and other dive sites?

Can you guarantee every diver's absolute safety?

But yeah ... I do like the notion that I am responsible for my own safety. That "freedom" is one of the things that attracted me to diving in the first place ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

... and with respect to the wildlife on Rinca, I was a bit more worried about the water buffalo and vipers than the dragons. You can poke a dragon with a walking stick and convince it to go bother someone else ... can't do that with a buffalo or a big snake ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[DandyDon]

Didn't they have a dive boat burn to the waterline in Belize last year?

Another one break in half when hit by a wave - just like the one I was on for a week, hating it, altho mine only tried to drop a motor.

I did get one day with Peters operation. It was super!