Have you ever dreamed of diving with great white sharks? Did you ever want to know, how they film those amazing underwater scenes you see in the movie theaters and on television?This is your chance to do both! Join Shark Diver and Emmy award winning un…
When it comes to how the media covers any sightings of a great white shark, it never ceases to amaze me how their articles are devoid of any real facts and full of disinformation. Take this latest coverage by the Inquisitr of a sighting in lake Macquarie. You really have to wonder who these experts are, that they refer to in this article.
They are saying “A 9-foot-long great white shark has been spotted in Australia’s Lake Macquarie, close to the scene of another recent sighting, along with a smaller, unidentified fish that some researchers believe could be the shark’s offspring”.
Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO Shark Diver
About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at staff@sharkdiver.com.
What is our obsession with taking pictures of ourselves with subjects that seem just a bit inappropriate? Now that smart phones have turned us all into photog wannabes, the rush to get pictures published on social media sites has also lead us to be wannabe reporters, as well. Recently two sharks, a bull and a hammerhead, washed up dead on the shore of Miami Beach. One was bloated, the other with its fin cut off. Once beach-combers saw the poor creatures, the camera phones came out and the snap-shot taking crowds were enough to make any paparazzi, surrounding a Hollywood celebrity, pale in comparison. There was even a grown adult who pulled up on the head of one shark to get its mouth to open. What a photo op! “Hey kids, come gather around!”
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Where is the respect? It’s just an animal. Who cares, right? WRONG! Are we another ‘Me Generation’ or have we never left it? This is 2015 folks. We’ve scratched our way out to escape the errors of our ways. After fighting for equality in several different arenas, freedom of religion, the push to reuse, reduce and recycle, ‘save our planet,’ ‘plant a tree’…have we not arrived? What has happened to the rights and respect for those with which we share this slowly, dying planet?
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| Source: Inquisitr.com |
Back to these dead sharks: No one knows what caused their deaths, and apparently no one is investigating. A fin was cut off! I was told by an authority at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission that maybe if there was a bunch of these guys washing up on the shore with their fins hacked, there might then be an investigation. How many have to lose their lives in order for that to happen? Maybe this is just a prelude of what is to come. Since shark fin soup is served in restaurants throughout Florida, and yes, Miami, maybe this was the result of someone trying to cash in on the evil craze. Does that mean finless carcasses are on their way to shore like a message in a bottle? Are we going to read it and do something about it or are we going to throw it back in for the next generation to deal with? Did you know that 24 states according to the Animal Welfare Institute, serve up the controversial delicacy, shark fin soup? You can find it on the menu at South Garden Chinese Restaurant in Miami for $12 a bowl.
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It’s a shame; it’s a crying shame that an 8 foot animal is tortured for its 8 inch body part and left to die, rotting in its ocean home, only to float to the shore to be mocked as part of social media fodder. To the person(s) who did this: “At least, eat the rest!” I discourage anyone from killing these animals and it pains me to see their fins cut off and then the shark dropped back in the water to try and survive. Would the same thoughtless individual do that to their pet? They’d be put in jail.
These sharks are intelligent, beautiful, and are an integral part of our oceans and were here way before you and I. Respect them. Wouldn’t a picture of you with a live shark be cooler to take?
Join us for live shark selfie-taking starting this August at Guadalupe; Bahamas starting in April and Fiji year-round.
Let’s go shark diving!
‘Ocean’
Shark Diver
About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at staff@sharkdiver.com.
Stop the presses! News alert! A Great White Shark is “prowling” in the ocean off the coast of Washington. A headline in the vancitybuzz is screaming “Large great white shark prowling Washington State shores” with a large picture of a Great White Shark …
Every year we get hundreds of emails from people asking us, how they can get involved with shark research. This has lead to Shark Diver teaming up with Nicole Nasby-Lucas from MCSI to offer special science expeditions to Guadalupe Island. These special…
I want to introduce you to some of the sharks we have met over the last 14 years at Guadalupe Island.Thanks to the Photo Id project we are able to individually identify the sharks and keep track of who’s visiting the Island each year. We are now at ove…
When it comes to sharks, the news coverage is pretty atrocious. It seems like they either portray the sharks as mindless killers, or harmless pets. The people that get coverage, are invariably doing something stupid, or flat illegal.
An example of the stupid kind is the latest report by the “Mail Online“. They are posting an article that features a diver taking “selfies” while leaning way out of a cage, while diving with great white sharks at Isla Guadalupe.
This picture reminds me of a professional photographer that was leaning out of a cage, filming a shark and never realized that a second shark was coming at him, with his mouth open. If it wasn’t for another diver smashing his camera against the sharks nose, it would have taken the photographers head off. After the dive, the photographer didn’t believe that there was a shark behind him and to this day, doesn’t believe that he was within inches of being bit.
It is not the shark that you see that will get you, it’s the one you never know is there.
The full article is here.
I don’t understand why people who say they love sharks, feel the need to portray them as something they are not. Are those people somehow ashamed that great white sharks are apex predators and not harmless pets.
If you want to come face to face with a great white shark and believe in doing is “safe and sane”, give us a call at 619.887.4275 or email staff@sharkdiver.com.
We are looking forward to showing you these awesome sharks from inside a cage.
Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO Shark Diver
About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at staff@sharkdiver.com.
Today’s headlines of a few Australian newspapers scream “Shark Attack In Australia Had Pro Surfer Ryan Hunt Kicking For His Life”, “Top surfer who survives shark attack after kicking it in the head“
and Surfer undergoes surgery after shark attack near Old Bar, NSW.
So what happened? Another surfer attacked by a great white shark?
The reports are stating things like “A surfer survived a shark attack after kicking it in the head as he rode a wave. Ozzie Ryan Hunt, 20, was attacked by a shark while surfing at Wallabi Point in New South Wales. The beast went for his foot repeatedly during the terrifying incident at around 5.30pm, biting through the board.”
and “A shark attack in Australia had a young professional surfer named Ryan Hunt kicking for his life when the shark kept coming back for him in the waves.”
Wow, sounds like this guy was lucky and barely escaped with his life! Of course, after reading the reports a little more carefully, you get the real story. After writing the headline “Shark Attack in Australia Had Pro Surfer Ryan Hunt Kicking for his Life” the “Inquisitr” states “The 20-year-old surfer says the shark attack occurred while he was surfing small waves at dusk. According to Hunt, he was “pretty unlucky to stand on the shark’s head” while at Wallabi Point, which is on the coast of New South Wales, Australia. Needless to say, the shark was not exactly pleased to have a human standing on its noggin.”
So the guy actually stepped on the sharks head, OK, still, pretty lucky to get away with his life after being bit by this “beast”. How big was that beast? Well, lets see what they say about the size. “I tried to kick it off and it bit down again and then it swam up between my legs. I had my hands trying to push down its head, it was about 10 inches wide.”
Wow, the head was 10 inches wide!!! Imagine a 10 inch wide shark coming at you, ……. well, never mind. Another typical hyped up headline.
And how about the injuries sustained in this “terrifying” “attack”?
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Granted, that’s a pretty good gash, but by reading the headlines, you’d expect much worse. As to calling this a shark attack, seems to me that the shark was just reacting to being stepped on the head.
Surfer attacks shark, would have been a more appropriate headline.
Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO Shark Diver
About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at staff@sharkdiver.com.
Frightened of the water? Go swimming with great whites. that is the heading of an article in the “Telegraph”, published a couple of days ago.
Catchy phrase! So is this article really about conquering the fear of sharks? Well, I don’t think so. The article is really about Jean Marie Ghislain, one of the guys we have written about here when we talked about the out of cage diving that is going on at Guadalupe Island on various occasions. We all know that it is illegal to do so and, if anything were to happen on those dives, could threaten all the shark diving operations there.
Jean-Marie Ghislain posted pictures like this.
When we wrote about him, he of course was outraged by my comments and responded with this statement.
“Hello Martin, I am the owner of those images and I was very surprised to see them on the blog article you posted. I would like to ask you to immediatly remove them from the web as well as the comments that concerns them- which dont correspond to the reality in that specific situation. The person who is facing the shark had to push the shark away as it was a very intrusive personality and he touched it as little as he could and the dive was aborted immediatly. I don’t want the images to be used in a provocative way when they don’t reflect the reality of what happened. And I especially don’t condone or encourage physical contacts with sharks, but in this specific instance, it could not be avoided by the diver- as I said, he got out of the water right away after the occurence. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon, Thank you, Jean-Marie Ghislain”
So after removing the “offending” pictures and publishing his response here, he is now featured in this article on the “Telegraph”
Jean Marie Ghislain is quoted as saying. “One day in Guadalupe [an island off Baja California in Mexico] three of us were swimming with two great whites. One was a young macho who just wanted us out of the water. But there was this huge, five-metre female who was the coolest shark I’ve ever met. She played with us for one and a half hours and she wanted the contact – she was free to move wherever she wanted, but she clearly wanted company.”
When I said they were not having shark conservation on their minds, while they did this out of cage diving, but rather did this for a “look at me” publicity stunt, Ghislain was outraged and asked me to remove that comment immediately. He said that it didn’t correspond to the reality of that specific situation and that they left the water immediately when the shark got too “intrusive”. Now Ghislain has the guts to publish the comment above.
Turns out that the article is not really about conquering the fear of sharks, but rather a promotion for his book “shark: fear and beauty”. Again, no self interest involved here at all! “sharkcasm” intended.
It is really bad, when guys can blatantly disregard a law, endanger all the other operators at Guadalupe and pretend it’s about shark conservation. Make no mistake, this is not about shark conservation, or getting people to conquer their fear of sharks. This is all about self promotion and making money.
Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO Shark Diver
About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at staff@sharkdiver.com.
Just how rough a life do Great White Sharks have? We have talked about the amazing healing power of these amazing animals here and it looks like they really need that ability to heal. Chugey, the shark we were talking about in that blog, is back at Gua…
