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Special Great White Shark Expedition

Shark Diver is excited to announce that we will have a very special expedition to Guadalupe Island this fall. From Sept. 8-13 we will have both Nicole Nasby-Lucas, the scientist responsible for the Guadalupe Photo ID database and Tanya Houppermans, a world-renowned underwater photographer on board. Nicole has been studying the white sharks of Guadalupe Island, Mexico since 2001. Her research includes satellite tagging and tracking studies to examine migration patterns and behavior. She also…

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23
Jun 2021
By Shark DiverUncategorizedLeave a comment

Man attacks shark! Sharks are demanding “man cull” to mitigate the danger!

According to an article in the Daily Telegraph, a man was attacked by a wobegong shark. The article states that “Mr Porter had no advance warning when he was attacked.
“I had no idea what was happening — it just clamped on and that was the first I knew about it,” Mr Porter told The Daily Telegraph today. “It sort of bit through the flipper and went through to my foot.”Shark diving is fun. Diving with Great white shark. Swimming with Bull sharks, cage diving with Tiger sharks

Wait a second, the shark “attacked” Mr. Porter? Wobegong sharks are carpet sharks, that usually rely on their camouflage to hide from prey, so they can ambush it. So most likely what happened is that Mr. Porter stepped on the shark, which bit him in return.

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to have a headline that says “Port Macquarie shark bites man after being attacked by him”? Shark had no advanced warning, when Mr porter viciously stepped on it’s head!

Injuries caused by shark bite

And the injuries to the man you ask?  Here is a picture of the “severe” wound the “shark attack” has left on the “victim”

Now this type of human/shark interaction is really what I call worthy of newspaper headlines. There are thousands of people who step on a stingray each year and get stung in return, in some cases causing injuries more severe than the ones caused by this shark bite.  Do you recall any newspaper headlines describing those incidents? As soon as a shark is involved, there are headlines, it’s always characterized as an “attack” and it almost never states that it was provoked.

Where is the harm in having headlines like this? You may be aware of the shark cull that is going in Australia right now. It is mostly based on the public’s fear of sharks and has very little to do with actually protecting the people. Headlines like these, perpetuate that fear and can cause real harm, not only to the sharks, but the entire ocean Eco system in turn.

I know I’m banging my head a against a wall, but had to get this off my chest.

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@sharkdivercom.

14
Mar 2014
By Shark Diverstupid headlines, UncategorizedComments Off on Man attacks shark! Sharks are demanding “man cull” to mitigate the danger!

Are sharks apex predators? Does it matter?

We commonly refer to sharks as apex predators. Are they really? If they are not, does it matter? A few Australian researchers have come up with some answers to both questions.

First, are sharks apex predators? According to their findings, the answer is yes …. and no.

Example of an apex predator!

Here is what they found. “While size can be important in terrestrial ecosys- tems, size is crucial in marine ecosystems — which tend to be dominated by indeterminate organisms that grow continuously throughout their lives (Trebilco et al. 2013). Individual function changes due to onto- genetic diet shifts as organisms grow in size (Karpouzi

& Stergiou 2003, Pinnegar et al. 2003). The conse- quence is that size-structuring within communities, rather than species identity, is an important factor in determining the strength of competitive and predatory interactions (Dickie et al. 1987, Kerr & Dickie 2001). For example, studies have shown high overlap in diet between similar-sized sharks regardless of maturity state and species identity (e.g. Bethea et al. 2004). Therefore, designation of marine species into apex and mesopredator categories should consider the life stage and size of individuals.”
I’m not a scientist, but what I’m getting is, size matters!
But so, why should we care? We are not scientists, (well, you may be, but I’m not) so what does a classification matter? 
Here is what they have to say to that. 

Example of a meso predator!

“Our size-based view of the classification of predatory roles raises important questions about what objectives to manage, and how these objectives can be best achieved. Protection of reef communities through marine protected areas (MPAs) or fisheries regulation (or indeed, naturally on those few locations far from human population centres) would ensure the mesopredator sharks on these reefs are sheltered from fishing pressure. However, the same may not be true for apex predators because their broad movement patterns and large home ranges (Meyer et al. 2009) would expose them to a greater diversity of fishing fleets and gears, and thus a greater overall mortality than the smaller-ranging, reef-dwelling mesopredators. Hence, the apex pred- ators of coral reefs may be silently eliminated by offshore pelagic longline fisheries, unbeknownst to those managing reef diversity and function (Cox et al. 2002). Therefore, reef-based MPAs are not adequate to protect these species”

So basically they are saying that we need to do more than establish MPAs to adequately protect apex predators.

Here is a graphic that may be a bit more clear on the subject.
 

This graphic shows, that without MPAs prey species would greatly increase, while both mesopredators and apex predators decrease. With reef scale (small, local) MPAs, the mesopredators thrive, keeping the prey species in balance, but the apex predators still decline.

 

In practical terms, this means that we have to protect apex predators on a much larger scale than the less migratory mesopredators. In order to do that, we need to know both where they are and when they are there. With that knowledge we can push for local and/or seasonal protection for these migratory apex predators. In order to get that data, we need data that shows the migratory behavior of the various species of apex predators. 
You can read the entire paper here.

Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO

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

12
Mar 2014
By Shark DiverShark travel, swimming with sharks, UncategorizedComments Off on Are sharks apex predators? Does it matter?

What’s the best place to dive with Great White Sharks?

And the answer is…….. drum roll please!….. Guadalupe Island!According to champion free-diver and ocean conservationist William Winram, “Guadalupe Island, 260km off the coast of Mexico is the best place on the planet to see great whites.”  He…

03
Feb 2014
By Shark Divershark expedition Eli Marinez, shark tourism. Great White Adventures, shark vacation, UncategorizedComments Off on What’s the best place to dive with Great White Sharks?