HalcyonDaze
Contributor
I can come up with a list of things the State of Florida has "determined" which are of questionable factual merit, but that might be going off topic.
As far as "natural fear" of humans, I do question 1) how much of that sharks actually have and 2) if they do, whether or not we have caused a loss of it by feeding. My one and only tiger shark sighting from the Emerald thus far was a single individual that I barely glimpsed before she vanished. Randy Jordan was right behind me with several fish on his stringer; it was the last day of lobster season and we were doing a hunting dive as the first drop of the day. She gave him the same treatment - quick look at the edge of visibility, then bye-bye before Alan Egan could get a snapshot. We later had one lemon shark cruise right past without stopping. I've done three of the Emerald's Zion Train trips and my grand total count for five heavily baited dives on those wrecks is three lemons, one nurse shark (all on the same dive), and one bull that couldn't be bothered to come closer than about thirty feet. On my experience with a feed in the Bahamas (which was supervised by Sonny Gruber), the reefies and blacknose sharks split after the food stopped coming down. It was like a bunch of cats. "No more food? **** you, we're gone!" When his interns were setting the anchors they had a great hammerhead come up from behind and spook the crap out of them; that shark was nowhere to be seen afterwards.
