Shark attack, Egypt, Brothers islands

[scubaozy]

@dmaziuk , I disagree. You cannot compare two countries in this context. There are no voters as there is no democracy and people bitten are all foreigners bringing very much needed money to the country. 2010 was exactly jaws material, sharks attacking and killing several swimmers by the beach over some successive days.
In 2015, a German swimmer was killed at a resort right next to the marina where all liveaboards return. Presumably owt following the boats returning to marina.
This year another tourist was killed while swimming, not far from Elphinstone where owtips are often seen and dived. During owt season, (September- December) we offered dives from land In Elphinstone. It is easily accessible by speedboats. This attack is first serious one on a diver.
I cannot comprehend how culling a nomadic shark will fix anything. There will be new ones coming attracted by the boats. If you close the site, they will end up in other sites that are not closed or much worse, at the resort beaches.

 

[InTheDrink]

@dmaziuk , I disagree. You cannot compare two countries in this context. There are no voters as there is no democracy and people bitten are all foreigners bringing very much needed money to the country. 2010 was exactly jaws material, sharks attacking and killing several swimmers by the beach over some successive days.
In 2015, a German swimmer was killed at a resort right next to the marina where all liveaboards return. Presumably owt following the boats returning to marina.
This year another tourist was killed while swimming, not far from Elphinstone where owtips are often seen and dived. During owt season, (September- December) we offered dives from land In Elphinstone. It is easily accessible by speedboats. This attack is first serious one on a diver.
I cannot comprehend how culling a nomadic shark will fix anything. There will be new ones coming attracted by the boats. If you close the site, they will end up in other sites that are not closed or much worse, at the resort beaches.

Agree with your post in general but some of your specifics are incorrect. Anyhow let’s not argue and agree that something would seem like it needs to be done. I don’t want another injury or fatality.

 

[cerich]

Big difference. GWT nibbles don’t tend to end up that well. I’m a total shark hugger. They rarely pose a threat. I’m just concerned this time that something weird is happening and I don’t understand it. Which makes it a little bit more risky.

OWT are sharks that are aggressive compared to most and used to eating bigger prey than most sharks. (most sharks prefer smaller than themselves prey unless they are scavenging (say a GW on a whale carcass), OWT are quite used to eating from bigger animals being pelagic in They generally exhibit less fear of man that other sharks and if they are associating food with.. well it's predictable.

@dmaziuk , I disagree. You cannot compare two countries in this context. There are no voters as there is no democracy and people bitten are all foreigners bringing very much needed money to the country. 2010 was exactly jaws material, sharks attacking and killing several swimmers by the beach over some successive days.
In 2015, a German swimmer was killed at a resort right next to the marina where all liveaboards return. Presumably owt following the boats returning to marina.
This year another tourist was killed while swimming, not far from Elphinstone where owtips are often seen and dived. During owt season, (September- December) we offered dives from land In Elphinstone. It is easily accessible by speedboats. This attack is first serious one on a diver.
I cannot comprehend how culling a nomadic shark will fix anything. There will be new ones coming attracted by the boats. If you close the site, they will end up in other sites that are not closed or much worse, at the resort beaches.

they aren't attracted by the boats, they are attracted because they now associate the boats with food. Because operators feed them. They could care less about the boats per say.

A cull would do something in killing off the OWT that have come to associate the boats with food. It's not at all ideal, in fact it would be horrible that the OWT have to pay for humans stupidity.

The thing that would have most impact is stop feeding them, but as people want to dive with them and operators want to deliver what the divers want, they will. Even if it means lying about feeding them.

to your "they will end up at the beaches", yeah not very likely as OWT aren't hanging out there being deep water pelagics. The only reason they are hanging out and following boats is because the boats are feeding them.

 

[InTheDrink]

OWT are sharks that are aggressive compared to most and used to eating bigger prey than most sharks. (most sharks prefer smaller than themselves prey unless they are scavenging (say a GW on a whale carcass), OWT are quite used to eating from bigger animals being pelagic in They generally exhibit less fear of man that other sharks and if they are associating food with.. well it's predictable.

they aren't attracted by the boats, they are attracted because they now associate the boats with food. Because operators feed them. They could care less about the boats per say.

A cull would do something in killing off the OWT that have come to associate the boats with food. It's not at all ideal, in fact it would be horrible that the OWT have to pay for humans stupidity.

The thing that would have most impact is stop feeding them, but as people want to dive with them and operators want to deliver what the divers want, they will. Even if it means lying about feeding them.

to your "they will end up at the beaches", yeah not very likely as OWT aren't hanging out there being deep water pelagics. The only reason they are hanging out and following boats is because the boats are feeding them.

I’m sorry but you are in general wrong. Nearly all boats don’t fish or feed.

A cull would be both stupid and wrong. These are Pelagics. They don’t hang around much.

They are attracted by boats.

You are right. They do not exhibit that much fear towards humans altho usually keep their distance.

They are generally fine however I will go out on a limb here and say the diving there is now too risky. I don’t say that lightly.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

With all the talk of boats attracting the sharks, I feel obligated to point out that this is the ocean. Sharks are there; the boats go to those locations because of that. It's not like the sharks materialized once it became a dive spot. The Red Sea has a reputation for OWs dating back to the Cousteau expeditions in the 1950s, and they unnerved divers then. If anything it was probably a lot wilder as fishing hadn't really bitten in; not sure whether pressure has eased in the last 20 years or so as it has in the US (which has also caused a lot of people to cry about the sharks being "more aggressive;" my take is they're just seeing more of them now).

Looking to that report of the boat traffic out on Daedalus, if you have 24 boats each putting an estimated 26 divers in the water on a single day, that's over 600 divers onsite. If the group shown in the original clip is a representative example of how divers are behaving at those sites, I'm not shocked people are getting hit.

 

[Rooster59]

Just my thoughts ... If sharks are being artificially attracted to an area, there will be more sharks, but not necessarily a corresponding increase in food to support them. So you get more sharks, and those sharks might be hungrier sharks. Being hungrier will likely change their behavior, less cautious, willing to engage in riskier feeding behavior. Humans might start looking like a medium-well done New York strip steak with a baked potato and steamed broccoli.

 

[InTheDrink]

With all the talk of boats attracting the sharks, I feel obligated to point out that this is the ocean. Sharks are there; the boats go to those locations because of that. It's not like the sharks materialized once it became a dive spot. The Red Sea has a reputation for OWs dating back to the Cousteau expeditions in the 1950s, and they unnerved divers then. If anything it was probably a lot wilder as fishing hadn't really bitten in; not sure whether pressure has eased in the last 20 years or so as it has in the US (which has also caused a lot of people to cry about the sharks being "more aggressive;" my take is they're just seeing more of them now).

Looking to that report of the boat traffic out on Daedalus, if you have 24 boats each putting an estimated 26 divers in the water on a single day, that's over 600 divers onsite. If the group shown in the original clip is a representative example of how divers are behaving at those sites, I'm not shocked people are getting hit.

I’m sorry but that’s also not correct. The Oceanics have become much more present since boats. They weren’t around much before then. You can read the literature.

 

[cerich]

I’m sorry but you are in general wrong. Nearly all boats don’t fish or feed.

A cull would be both stupid and wrong. These are Pelagics. They don’t hang around much.

They are attracted by boats.

You are right. They do not exhibit that much fear towards humans altho usually keep their distance.

They are generally fine however I will go out on a limb here and say the diving there is now too risky. I don’t say that lightly.

you are now claiming that no boats there feed? because certainly there are conflicting reports. To be attracted to boats ALL boats don't need to be feeding, only one will do it.

A cull would be wrong, however it could be effective with the current OWT that have come to associate the boast with food. They are Pegaics that are already "hanging around" why is that I wonder? Oh yeah the folks that are saying the shark attacked because annoyed by the divers.. because animals annoyed by the presence of divers will swim in among them versus..oh I don't know, stay away? They aren't annoyed they are a curious breed of shark, aggressive and by reports acting unusual even for them. They have been fed.

I am very much pro shark, but I am pro person more and these sharks have been conditioned imho.

 

[cerich]

I’m sorry but that’s also not correct. The Oceanics have become much more present since boats. They weren’t around much before then. You can read the literature.

yes, read the literature. They have a reputation to follow boats to feed. That can be garbage thrown overboard, humans thrown overboard (they loved following slave ships back in the day) or people are simply feeding them for amusement or in this case money.

They don't just follow boats because they like the sound of the props and engine..(or in the days of sail whatever they sensed)

 

[scubaozy]

Pelagic shark’s longest range sensor is hearing followed by smell. In the open ocean, they will follow whatever they sense and investigate and stay with it until they get more signal from something else. They probably have also seasonal moves to compensate temperatures and breeding and all the other things that they do that no one knows yet.
Feeding is not common practice, there are some black sheep like in any other business. But foodrests will be released when the dishes are being washed, so make sure you finish what is in your plate or better to polish it with a piece of bread.
In my personal view and experience, owt behavior has not changed that much over the years. They were already very aggressive towards the divers as the literature also suggest. We have become overly complacent with low incident rate and too many unprepared divers are going into the water because they are told “it will be fine” by the others.
I am always wary of diving with owt and every single dive I did with them, I observed a moment that could go wrong, even they were not extremely agitated.