Everything you thought you knew about sharks is wrong!

I didn't know that, but it confirms what I said, that he was operating in an environment and with animals he did not understand. He knew crocodiles from a lifetime of working with them. He understood them, and could wrestle them in relative safety because he knew how to act in any given contingency. He did not know or understand stingrays or the ocean environment in general.

It is tragic that this great man, with a big heart, who devoted his life to educating people about the environment and working for conservation, should have allowed himself to feel that his expertise with crocs would automatically enable him to work safely that close to an entirely different wild animal. His tragic flaw was believing that he understood all animals just because he understood crocs. His death is a terrible loss to all conservationists. But it says nothing about the aggressiveness of stingrays, and nothing at all about sharks.

 

That story is over two years old.

 

There are animals on this green Earth that are just plain magnificent. This is not to speak only of their size. Some are not large at all. But often they are large. We humans like to capture such animals and put them in cages where we can ogle them, and in an earlier and more naive age, we would often toss morsels of food at them. But the opportunity to see such animals in their own natural place in the world is truly spectacular, and fortunately for us, the industry of eco-tourism has arisen to make such opportunities possible. While the majority spend their vacations tanning on a beach or lounging on the deck of a floating hotel, some of us would rather visit the church of mother nature, whether it be on safari in Kenya or hiking in the nearest nature preserve or park.

There are animals that probably cannot be safely approached in the wild. I don't think I would visit polar bears without some safe conveyance to ride in. The African buffalo (not the same animal as the American bison, sometimes wrongly called a buffalo) cannot be safely approached even in a Land Rover, and I would not get close to a hippopotamus. But there are others that can be approached to one degree or another if you know and understand the animal, or are accompanied by a guide who does.

There are risks associated with all activities, and we decide whether the payoff justifies the risk. We drive to work because we want the paycheck. We fly to Peoria because we want to visit Grandma. I have seen elephants and giraffes and lions and dik-diks in Kenya, and the experience was powerfully emotional, enough to justify the small but real risks of travel. I seldom see big animals when hiking in British Columbia, but the spectacular beauty of the place far more than justifies the risks of injury in the great outdoors, and the one time I saw a grizzly fairly close up, it was so magnificently beautiful that it far outweighed the very small risk posed by these powerful but shy animals when encountered in a mindful fashion. (Grizzly attacks usually happen when the human is not being mindful and comes on the bear suddenly, without warning, and often rapidly, jogging or bicycling.)

What do you see when you see a shark? Do you see a horror-movie monster, all teeth and maw, dedicated to ripping human flesh? If so, you are letting your primal fear get the better of you. I see a powerful, sleek, and above all a beautiful animal. I experience an overwhelming awe at the wonder of nature and the magnificence of this animal that has changed so little in 200 million years, since before dinosaurs set foot upon the land. Yes, there is some risk in approaching some species of shark. (97% of shark species have never attacked a human.) But if done in a mindful manner, with a guide who understands the animals, and following the do's and don't's of the guide, the risk is very small. Far smaller than the risks of travel to get there. Some posters above have ridiculed this statement. These people take far greater risks every time they drive their car on a public road, but somehow cannot grasp that fact, or they just see no benefit in the experience of nature's animals in nature's own world. I find that sad.

I choose my risks carefully. But I judge based on real levels of danger, not on my own subjective level of fear, and thus I am able to do things that scare me if a rational analysis tells me the actual risk is small. When hiking I turn around if I judge a trail to be too difficult for my (very low) skill level. But I feel sorry for people who decline an activity that presents relatively low risk merely because they fear it. I also feel sorry for people who experience no awe in the presence of an elephant or a grizzly bear or a shark in its natural habitat.

It was only on this latest trip that my eyes were opened about sharks. I still find those jaws frightening. But now I know my fear is out of proportion to the actual risk, and if my health holds (always an unknown at my age and with my family history) I fully intend to swim with sharks at the next opportunity, which looks to be November of this year. Anyone who feels so inclined is welcome to PM me so we can coordinate dates.

By the way, the most dangerous animal in Africa is the mosquito.

 

Yes, I was wrong when I assumed that folks here were unaware of the truth about sharks. My thread title should have been "Everything the general public thought they knew about sharks is wrong!"

I don't think the board allows thread titles to be changed.

 

The folks who do cage diving with sharks want the sharks up close. So the operators chum the water all around the cage heavily. The sharks go for the chum, and slam into the cage. That's what the clients want, and the operators deliver. It's not faked. But it is orchestrated.

 

No. It's not fake. You don't need a cage to swim with sharks, even Great Whites. But you do need a cage if you're going to dump great buckets of chum all around.

Non-cage shark swims, you see the sharks pretty much just swimming around. With a cage you can be in the middle of a feeding frenzy. Two different experiences; two different requirements.