Shark Feeding in Playa del Carmen

[scubawife]

And BTW...here's a completely dangerous dive filmed from one of their dives... YouTube - diving with ~12 bull sharks part 1 of 2 Good luck with that!

yeah, that's gonna be fun until the feeder gets his hand or arm chomped! I cannot believe this yahoo is doing this in just a wetsuit and bare hands!

To chum or feed or not is a controversial subject with divers and shark enthusiast. All I'll say is at least the well known live-aboard shark dive operators in the Bahamas are going well off-shore to areas that aren't well trafficked tourist destinations. They also take precautions to at least attempt to keep it as safe as possible... Doing these feedings not so far off shore in an area like Playa is asking for all sorts of trouble.

A Playa dive operator told me this past weekend that the turtle population at Tortugas is decreasing because of higher numbers of bulls being attracted to the area because of the feeding. Any truth to that?

 

[scubajcf]

Habitat: Continental coasts of all tropical and subtropical seas; the only shark to come a very long way up into rivers and lakes: the Amazon, Mississippi, River Gambia, Zambezi, Limpopo, Tigris, Chatt-al-Arab, Ganges, Lake Nicaragua, Lake Yzabel (Guatemala), Panama Canal, Lake Jamoer (New Guinea) and Lake Macquarie (Australia). Often found in muddy waters. Not found in any lake not connected to the sea (for reasons of breeding). Ascends the Amazon as far as Peru (3,700 kilometers). Tolerates the hypersalinity of St. Lucia lake (53% instead of 35%) in South Africa. Has survived for 15 years in captivity.

Food: Very Varied like that of the Tiger Shark, from turtles through all saltwater and freshwater fish to other sharks. Even eats young of its own species, birds, dolphins, antelopes, rats, dogs and sloths. The only difference in diet from Tiger Shark is that it is less fond of refuse. This is perhaps the most dangerous shark of all, even more so than the Great White or the Tiger.

The dive operator may be correct. However, that is probably more speculation than fact. Declining turtle populations could be caused by a number of factors including dive site intensity (over-visitation).

It is unusual for the Bulls to be around this late in the season. Feeding may be a cause of that.

Nonetheless, feeding bull sharks is a bad idea.

jcf

 

[driftwood]

Does anyone there speak English enough to write more than 5 word sentences? And I believe they are VERY proud of what they're doing. How they get so many folks to do this dive, I have no idea...? :confused: I would be wary, regardless of whatever country I am diving in, if my response came back like that.

And BTW...here's a completely dangerous dive filmed from one of their dives... YouTube - diving with ~12 bull sharks part 1 of 2 Good luck with that!

I hear you, but I was talking to someone in a country where English is not the primary language. I could probably do as well as she did if someone was speaking to me in German or Russian. While it is not a big comfort to me that things will get lost in translation, that doesn't mean that she is incompetent.

Phantom is not doing anything illegal, just stupid and greedy. All the while, they are generating some very bad karma. From what little I know of Mexican Coast Guard regulations, I am sure that their boats will not pass an inspection.

 

[PlayaCountryBoy]

I hear ya Driftwood. Maybe I was a little harsh. All I am saying is that I my experience of travelling around and divng different parts of the world...there is always a dive operator where or a few that are geared more towards the English speaking like us. They will have Aussie, English, American or Canadian guides, which I like to have when I'm out there paying for dives, not to mention they'd have a couple European guides speaking about 4 languages fluently. After 15 years of working around the world I can now speak, read and write 3 languages. And I dont just make 5 word sentences when writing back to my European or Mexican guests either. I know the people over at Phantom...have for years. I like all of them. I used to hang out with Angie (Angela) who wrote that actually. I practiced my Spanish with her. Anyway, back to the subject...Here is a video I made about 3 years ago right before shark feeding really took off. It was made at the sandy bottom of a wall called Moc-Che deep. It shows a bull shark stalking a turtle. Then he sees us and moves on. but they definely eat turltes. I've seen it, just haven't caught on film yet. And probably won't now shark feeding is such the rave!:cool2:



Also to add, we did the Bull shark dive yesterday right after two operators went down with food. They both came up, said they only saw 5 then went down without food thinking maybe still around...nothing! It's too late in the seaon, and you're ONLY going to see them now if you bring them a huge bucket of food.

 

[Geofish Dive in Playa]

The CASF, the Coalition Against Shark Feeding. Who is in? We can have it for all areas for example the Coalition Against Shark Feeding in the Yucatan or any other places where shark feeding is apparent. Just an idea, but I think I am going to look into starting it if any of you would like to jump on board.

 

[Ed Hatfield]

I have sent a message to DAN asking for an opinion as I think that this is a 'diver safety issue' as well as an environmental concern. It seems to me that a dive operation that lists itself as an 'official DAN centre' should meet some standards with respect to safety. If DAN can review this and categorically state that there are no safety concerns then I will respect their opinion. Should a respected authority find that safety concerns DO exist then I believe that will provide a platform to attempt to ban the practice in the short term. There is nothing that draws more attention and panic and LOSS OF BUSINESS than a shark attack in a tourist town.

 

[Ed Hatfield]

I thought I should post the reply I received from DAN.


06 Apr 09

Dear Ed:

Thanks for your email regarding shark feeding. Though it is a relatively new endeavor in Playa del Carmen this has been a practice in other locations ËÂnd a topic of discussion ËÇor many years now. Chumming has been used at many dive sites to encourage shark presence for caged or uncaged divers. As you can imagine this practice lends itself to healthy debate on both sides of the aisle. DANs position is that we depend on the local governments, dive community and commercial ventures to work together to establish proper guidelines in situations such as this to provide for all interests, including environmental, dive safety and commercial to name just a few. We do, however, stand ready to assist divers who might experience problems for this or any other diving activity in which they participate. If divers decide to participate in this activity, care should be exercised because as you know, sharks can be unpredictable.

Thanks again for writing.
Jeff



Jeff Myers
Chief Operating Officer
Divers Alert Network

 

[driftwood]

I like Jeff! What a wonderful nonanswer to a question, he should run for elected office.