Pics of Snorkeling & Great White

[gangrel441]

QUITE sensational.. LOVED it! None of us millions who tuned in thought it was going to be a lecture on shark mating habits. lol. Got exactly what we wanted!

Though I must say they conveyed their main point clearly - that the white shark wasn't some mindless wrecking ball that charges & kills anything in the water.
On the contrary, they clearly demonstrated that the shark's actually quite timid and approaches unfamiliar objects (snorkelers) very cautiously. They'd circle and circle, getting closer and closer, and even once they closed in, they'd do gentle bumps and nudges to figure out what they were investigating before committing to a chomp.
Very illuminating. You'd think with the size, speed, and strength they have, that nothing in the ocean could pose a threat and therefore they could just charge in and chomp anything they chose to. But for some reason, that's not their behavior. They acted more timid than the cichlids I've got in my aquarium.

Well...cichlids do have that whole Napoleon complex thing going....

 

[saildiver]

QUITE sensational.. LOVED it! None of us millions who tuned in thought it was going to be a lecture on shark mating habits. lol. Got exactly what we wanted!

Though I must say they conveyed their main point clearly - that the white shark wasn't some mindless wrecking ball that charges & kills anything in the water.
On the contrary, they clearly demonstrated that the shark's actually quite timid and approaches unfamiliar objects (snorkelers) very cautiously. They'd circle and circle, getting closer and closer, and even once they closed in, they'd do gentle bumps and nudges to figure out what they were investigating before committing to a chomp.
Very illuminating. You'd think with the size, speed, and strength they have, that nothing in the ocean could pose a threat and therefore they could just charge in and chomp anything they chose to. But for some reason, that's not their behavior. They acted more timid than the cichlids I've got in my aquarium.

:sharks:
Aloha Cra2. You're right -they are not a mindless wrecking ball but a highly specialized predator that clearly knows and plans its attacks. It didn't attack anyone because it didn't want to. But its no cichlid! Having seen dozens of programs showing the habits of great whites,though I didn't see this one-and reading about this sharks behavior most of my life as well as spending alot of my life swimming with the other big sharks and studying them as well-I wouldn't be suprised if every once in a while you could come across a great white that will just circle you and leave you alone-maybe he's just eaten a meal or he's sick or you smell bad or whatever-BUT I would not press MY luck too many times. That would be like seeking out lions or tigers or grizzlies or polar bears in thier natural habitat-you may find some who will just walk around you and just let you take thier picture-but one day............... remember-the great white is the oceans top predator(except the Orca)-and sooner or later-IMHO,you will be the prey if you swim with him long enough...be safe,smart and respectful when you're in the great white's turf....Peace...Saildiver. :sharks:

 

[cra2]

I've never dived with them either, so both of us are theorizing out of our respective wahoos... but, in all the shows I've seen about them, sharks don't bolt in out of nowhere and tag unknown food. Grizzlies, polar bears, even moose and hippos DO.
Well, it's not the "food" they're after. It's the defense of their young or their territory.
They OFTEN (on video) charge people and vehicles, full speed, right out of the bushes.
Have yet to EVER see the sharks do that on video.
Seems they all circle around carefully and often even nudge a few times before they hit (whether you were aware of their presence or not).

It's just so amazing to see them that careful and calculated when you think about how powerful and fast they are. They could LITERALLY hit scuba divers waiting on the surface by coming up from directly below at a full speed charge and the diver would have no defense and would never know what hit them. You know how FAST they are in a full charge?! And with maw WIDE OPEN, they'd take in half your body in one gulp.

But that's just not how they do it. Even when they DO finally hit, it seems to usually be a "test"-bite first, and most shark attack victims walk away with a single nibble.

amazing.

 

[gangrel441]

I've never dived with them either, so both of us are theorizing out of our respective wahoos... but, in all the shows I've seen about them, sharks don't bolt in out of nowhere and tag unknown food. Grizzlies, polar bears, even moose and hippos DO.
Well, it's not the "food" they're after. It's the defense of their young or their territory.
They OFTEN (on video) charge people and vehicles, full speed, right out of the bushes.
Have yet to EVER see the sharks do that on video.
Seems they all circle around carefully and often even nudge a few times before they hit (whether you were aware of their presence or not).

It's just so amazing to see them that careful and calculated when you think about how powerful and fast they are. They could LITERALLY hit scuba divers waiting on the surface by coming up from directly below at a full speed charge and the diver would have no defense and would never know what hit them. You know how FAST they are in a full charge?! And with maw WIDE OPEN, they'd take in half your body in one gulp.

But that's just not how they do it. Even when they DO finally hit, it seems to usually be a "test"-bite first, and most shark attack victims walk away with a single nibble.

amazing.

Tell that to one of those seals off the coast of South Africa, where the white sharks come out of nowhere from the deep and breech completely out of the water on the initial hit. Haven't heard of one doing this to a surfer yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did.

I'd love to be on the boat photographing one of those incidents (with the seal, not with the surfer ), but I wouldn't want to be in the water to see it...

 

[liberato]

Yeah, look for Air Jaws or Air Jaws II on Discovery. I think you have to look like a seal to go out that way, though. At least you wouldn't feel a thing.

 

[cra2]

Tell that to one of those seals off the coast of South Africa,...

Like I said, "...but, in all the shows I've seen about them, sharks don't bolt in out of nowhere and tag UNKNOWN food."

 

[Stirling]

Tell that to one of those seals off the coast of South Africa, where the white sharks come out of nowhere from the deep and breech completely out of the water on the initial hit. Haven't heard of one doing this to a surfer yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did.

I'd love to be on the boat photographing one of those incidents (with the seal, not with the surfer ), but I wouldn't want to be in the water to see it...

I think that was the point - sharks do attack their regular prey that way, but it appears that most of the time they *don't* attack people that way. Instead, they approach more carefully and take a bite, as if to test whether the person is edible or not.

From what I have read, that probably means (a) they know we're not their regular food; (b) because they have better eyesight than we used to think they did; and (c) when they know they want to kill and eat something they attack it, often from below, and kill it immediately; but (d) when they don't know what it is, they are more likely to approach slowly and take a sample bite to test it (whether for taste, to see if it fights back, or whatever I don't know).

When there is more than one shark present, they may provoke each other into reacting differently, because each presumably thinks that the other might get something edible before they do if they don't hurry up and bite it first.