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Published Sunday, August 12, 2001
CARL HIAASEN
Stop shark-feeding dive expeditions
No summer would be complete without delirious shark hype, even though bumblebees and lightning bolts kill more people.
Still, in the wake of two harrowing attacks, it's significant to note that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recently decided that there's no reason to ban shark-feeding dive excursions.
While of dubious scientific footing, the ruling was consistent with the state's anything-for-a-buck approach to marine management. At least four outfits in South Florida advertise shark-feeding scuba trips. These are promoted as ``interactive experiences,'' meaning dive operators get to interact with your money.
Giddy explorers descend to a place where sharks are chummed in and hand-fed pieces of smelly dead fish. The sharks themselves have no interest in communing -- they come strictly to eat, which is what nature so exquisitely engineered them to do. They are also engineered for hunting, not begging like stray cats. That's why many dive captains and marine biologists oppose the chumming expeditions.
Supporters say it's educational, helping to raise appreciation for a creature that's being ignorantly slaughtered worldwide, but whose presence is vital to sustaining the bounty of our oceans.
No one can dispute that sharks are maligned and misunderstood. However, teaching them to seek snacks from humans doesn't seem like the smartest way to save them from extinction, or to prevent future maulings.
Not that most suckers care, but a commercial shark dive is hardly a natural encounter. Sharks don't naturally behave like Central Park pigeons.
And pigeons, of course, can't sever a human limb.
In the Bahamas, where these dives have become popular, nine injuries were documented through 1996. Usually the bitten party was the shark handler, not a paying customer.
The Florida expeditions concentrate on nurse sharks, a relatively slow and mopey species. Granted, it's not easy to get nailed by a nurse shark, but it does happen.
Three years ago, an Illinois teenager snorkeling in the Keys decided to tug the tail of a baby nurse shark, which promptly whipped around and chomped him. It did not let go. With the fish firmly attached to his chest, the boy was rushed to a Marathon hospital. There the shark was surgically dispatched, and its jaws were pried off.
The lesson of the story is twofold: Never underestimate any shark, and never overestimate any human. These are two life forms that were never meant to fraternize. It's telling that the supposedly advanced species is the one initiating eye-to-eye contact.
A shark easily can be conditioned to slurp mullet from a diver's hand. If one day that shark meets up with a diver who has no mullet, it might impulsively settle for the hand instead. They are primordially swift and opportunistic. The ones that mangled little Jessie Arbogast in Pensacola and Krishna Thompson in Freeport weren't rogues. They were doing precisely what sharks have been doing for 420 million years -- chasing what they thought was supper.
With its crowded beaches, Florida leads the nation in unplanned shark encounters. The vast majority are nonfatal nips of surfers and swimmers in murky water.
Humans are not a shark's normal prey, and typically it flees after the first taste -- but not always. Last summer, a tenacious bull shark killed a man swimming in a canal near St. Petersburg.
Three Broward cities -- Hillsboro Beach, Lighthouse Point and Deerfield Beach -- have outlawed the offshore feeding of sharks and other marine animals. State officials contemplated a similar ban, then backed off. Instead the FWC asked the dive industry for guidelines ensuring that the excursions will be safe for both the divers and the sharks.
The proposals didn't satisfy some commissioners, so the FWC is supposed to tackle the controversy again next month.
Among the options are prohibiting feedings by hand and requiring chum zones to be located far from recreational beaches.
A smarter idea is stopping the dives, which are about as educational as a rerun of Jaws III. Chumming sharks is nothing but a thrill gimmick designed to hook tourists.
Visitors to Florida needn't feel deprived of a swim with the ocean's most magnificent predator. They're out there every time you go in the water, all over the place.
If you're lucky enough to see one, be bright enough not to try making friends.
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Published Thursday, August 16, 2001
Attack doesn't diminish shark feeders
BY SUSAN COCKING
scocking@herald.com
As Wall Street banker Krishna Thompson recuperates from being mauled by a shark near the beach at Grand Bahama Island, a debate rages about whether popular and lucrative shark-feeding dives conducted in the Bahamas and South Florida contribute to incidents of sharks biting humans.
On Tuesday, Thompson's wife, Ave Maria, and lawyer Johnnie Cochran addressed the issue on NBC's Today show. Cochran said the Thompsons are considering legal action.
``We're certainly investigating the circumstances,'' said Cochran, who could not be reached for further comment Wednesday. ``We think this is a preventable tragedy, you know, and we're looking at the [Our Lucaya Beach & Golf Resort]. They had a duty, it seems to me, to warn their patrons when they attract [sharks] there. . . . There's the role of the lifeguards, and whether or not the lifeguards failed to respond adequately . . . And then finally, the whole idea of shark feeding.''
Because shark-feeding operations exist in Florida, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is expected to discuss regulating the practice at a meeting Sept. 6 in Amelia Island.
Meanwhile, shark-feeding dives in the Bahamas, such as UNEXSO and Xanadu Undersea Adventures, continue to flourish. And about 1 1/2 miles away, tourists continue to swim on the beach where Thompson was attacked.
Last week, Bob Goldman of Birmingham, Mich., took his 12-year-old daughter Lisa on one of those shark-feeding dives. The Goldmans joined 10 other scuba divers 50 feet deep to watch UNEXSO's Woody Woodcock, clad in a heavy chain-mail suit, hand-feed 15 sharks up to eight feet long with pieces of fish.
The 14 Caribbean reef sharks and one nurse shark gave Woodcock a going-over, snapping at his metal-gloved hands, and dislodging his mask. But the divers who were lined up watching him barely were brushed by the sharks' sandpapery tails.
``I loved it. It was thrilling,'' Lisa Goldman said afterward.
The Goldmans did the dive knowing Thompson was attacked Aug. 4. Thompson's leg was amputated above the knee after an unseen shark grabbed him as he swam near the beach off Our Lucaya.
Goldman thinks there is no connection between the shark dives conducted several times a week by UNEXSO and Xanadu Undersea Adventures and the attack on Thompson.
``The sharks that are fed probably wouldn't go near the beach,'' he said. ``They wait for lunch. They never try to bite anyone down there.''
Priscila Sutherland of Burke, Va., was not convinced. Vacationing with her family Sunday at Our Lucaya, Sutherland forbade her two sons, ages 11 and 5, from playing in the ocean.
``We're going to play in the sand, then go to the pool,'' Sutherland said. ``I have a big problem with [shark dives]. I think it's very dangerous. That's why, probably, there was an incident.''
Even Susan Croom, of Vero Beach, who did her third shark dive Sunday with UNEXSO, said she would think twice about swimming on the surface in waters frequented by sharks.
``I'd be afraid of sharks if I were snorkeling because they can mistake you for a floundering fish on the surface,'' Croom said.
Shark scientists are divided on the issue.
George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of History in Gainesville, believes shark dives draw more sharks to an area than would occur naturally.
``In an area where you have feeding operations and the animals have become trained to the feeding, the shark population in the local area rises,'' Burgess said. ``The chances are enhanced for a mistake or occasional attack.''
Burgess has documented about 25 shark attacks worldwide associated with feeding dives -- 12 of them in the Bahamas, and most involving the feeders themselves, not the diving customers.
``That's not a lot, but it's 25 that wouldn't have occurred under other circumstances,'' he said.
University of Miami shark scientist Samuel Gruber doesn't think shark dives contribute to shark attacks. He notes that most of the animals drawn to Grand Bahama's ``Shark Junction'' feeding site are Caribbean reef sharks. Thompson's injuries seemed far too severe to be inflicted by that species, Gruber said.
``Caribbean reef sharks don't eat people; they bite people,'' Gruber said. ``Tiger sharks and bull sharks eat people. I'd guess it was a tiger shark. You can't make any judgments from one occurrence. But if you begin to see a lot of sharks that chase people out of the water, then you'd say something's definitely going on here.''
The general manager of Our Lucaya, Eric Waldburger, declined to comment on the recent attack. The resort's beach is open and no special warnings to bathers are being issued. However, lifeguards were watching the ocean from towers and patrolling the swimming area aboard personal watercraft Sunday.
Several Bahamian residents and out-of-town visitors said the threat to swimmers from sharks is overblown, whether shark dives are conducted in the area or not.
Cab driver Dwight Williams, a lifelong resident of Grand Bahama, noted that the weather the day Thompson was attacked was windy and rainy and the water murky with the passage of Tropical Storm Barry. He theorized that might have driven the shark closer to shore than it normally would go.
``Very seldom [do] you get a shark attack inland like that,'' Williams said. ``That's the very first time I can remember.''
Last weekend's weather was the opposite of the week before. Skies were sunny and winds moderate, sending Memphis travel agent Marion McDonald splashing in the waves at Our Lucaya's beach with her 4-year-old son David.
``I've sent a lot of people here -- shark or no,'' McDonald said. ``I think stuff's going to happen anywhere. You have to be on your guard.''
Monica Molina, 10, a junior lifeguard from Miami vacationing at Our Lucaya with her parents, said she would not let the threat of sharks chase her out of the water.
Said Molina: ``My teacher taught us what to do about sharks: you punch them in the nose.
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Published Saturday, July 21, 2001 BY FRED TASKER
ftasker@herald.com If we tasted like dinner to the average shark, every square inch of water off Florida's Gulf and Atlantic coasts would be a killing zone, and dozens of us would die every year. That's the official word from Florida's icthyologists. In fact, every time we swim, we're probably within a few dozen yards of a shark. ``Just get aboard one of those planes that tows the suntan lotion signs over Haulover Beach any time and you'll see lots of them, right where people are swimming,'' says Robert Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota. But to our great fortune, an ocean full of people is, to a shark, like a colony of ants to a human, Hueter says: ``We could eat the ants if we wanted. But they're not what we'd choose.'' ``By and large, shark attacks are simple cases of mistaken identity, in which the shark misinterprets the actions of humans as that of prey,'' says George H. Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. It might seem like cold comfort in light of two highly publicized shark attacks near Pensacola this month. In fact, shark attacks worldwide soared from 37 in 1990 to 79 in 2000, and from 10 to 34 in Florida, which typically has nearly one-third of all attacks, according to the attack file. But this is not the crisis it seems. The world's shark population is actually plummeting due to overfishing, Burgess says, to the point that some species are threatened with extinction. ``Sharks are definitely endangered,'' says Mark the Shark, a Miami charter captain who has taken tourists fishing for them for 40 years. ``Six or seven years ago we used to catch five to seven a trip; now we might get one.'' The increase in attacks is entirely due to soaring numbers of people in the water, says Burgess: ``There are more people in the world, and there's a huge per-capita increase in people going into the water for aquatic recreation over the past 20 years.'' The Pensacola attacks, in which Jessie Arbogast, 8, was bitten by a seven-foot bull shark on July 6 and Michael Waters, 48, was bitten six miles away on July 16, were the 15th and 16th this year in Florida, putting us just about on par with last year. Daytona Beach's Volusia County led the state in 2000 with 12 shark attacks. Palm Beach County was second with six. No shark attacks have been reported in Miami-Dade or Broward in more than four years. Why does Volusia County register so many more attacks than any other Florida county -- 48 since 1997 compared to 13 for second-place Palm Beach County? In part, it's because the county's long shoreline is jammed with swimmers from Orlando and other central Florida cities, Burgess says. ``Ponce Inlet there has good surf, and it's highly used by surfers, who are particularly at risk. They spend their time right where the sharks are,'' Burgess says. ``And their activities are very provocative -- especially the splashing of hands and feet.'' Shark attacks run in sharp peaks and valleys, with 74 attacks worldwide in 1995 and only 43 in 1996. The same was true in Florida, with 31 in 1995 and just 13 in 1996. ``There's no particular pattern,'' says Hueter. ``The numbers are so low compared to the numbers of people in the water that the changes are really just random.'' Still, 1995 might have been an exception, Burgess says. ``That was a big storm year, with a lot of hurricanes, tropical storms going by. It caused huge surf on the east coast, so you had surfers in the danger zone. And it pushed the water mass up against the beach, which might have driven the sharks inshore.'' The recent attacks have heightened debate over the growing trend of dive boat operators in Broward, Palm Beach and other Florida counties offering divers the chance to swim among sharks that are lured by intentional feeding. ``They condition the sharks to associate humans with food; it's stupid,'' says David Earp, of the Marine Safety Group, a divers association founded in Deerfield Beach. Attempts at a statewide ban are stalled, but Deerfield Beach and Hillsboro Beach have passed ordinances banning the practice. When sharks attack, experts say they use one of three methods: Hit-and-run attacks, the most prevalent, in which a small shark thrashing about in murky water bites a person, realizes its mistake and moves on to a tastier target. Says Burgess: ``Quite often a black tooth or spinner or black-nose shark, usually three or four feet long, will be in the surf zone, in the turbulence. It sees the splashing of humans, especially their feet, and that gives the appearance of a fish. It makes a quick grab. ``But if you don't taste like a fish, it won't come back.'' Bump-and-bite attacks, in which a bigger shark bumps or grazes its victim to size it up before deciding whether to attack. ``It's seeing how big and strong its prey is,'' says Burgess. ``Sharks are not stupid. They want to go after things they can handle.'' Sneak attacks, in which the shark attacks all-out, without warning, often from below and behind its victim. ``The case of that little boy in Pensacola was an out-and-out attack,'' says Hueter. ``These are rare, but they do happen 10 or 12 times a year in the world. A large, aggressive shark will occasionally feed on us. It's because we're not necessarily completely distasteful.'' The attack on Jessie Arbogast was by a bull shark. It's not the most aggressive shark: white sharks and tiger sharks attack more people worldwide every year. ``White sharks are rare off Florida; they're cold-water sharks,'' says Hueter. ``Tiger sharks are more common, but they're still infrequent.'' The bull shark is not the most likely to attack -- that designation goes to smaller sharks like the black tip and others, which usually inflict lesser injuries. But it is the greatest threat off Florida beaches, Hueter says. ``The bull shark is the biggest shark that comes close to shore, so it's the most dangerous in Florida. A bull shark is big enough to attack humans, and it routinely eats prey the size of humans,'' he says. Because the bull shark tolerates fresh water, even seeks it out at birthing time, it is much more prevalent near shore, where bathers gather. And while a bull shark is smaller than either a white or tiger shark, it is an efficient killing machine. What can a person do if attacked by such a shark? ``You can try to go after its eyes, gills and snout -- its most sensitive areas -- and sometimes it will release you,'' Hueter says. ``But very few people have the presence of mind.'' BACK TO TOP
State seeks shark dive guidelines
By Susan Cocking
Miami Herald
scocking@herald.com
Friday, May 25, 2001
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission took a first step Thursday toward regulating underwater shark-feeding encounters in state waters.
After four hours of public testimony in West Palm Beach, commissioners told their staff to draw up guidelines for dive operators who feed sharks and other marine life underwater while customers watch.
Those recommendations will be discussed at the commission's September meeting.
Meanwhile, the four dive operators who conduct interactive marine encounters -- Captain Spencer Slate's Atlantis Dive Center in Key Largo, South Florida Diving Headquarters in Pompano Beach, Captain Jim Abernethy's Riviera Beach dive operation and Deerfield Beach's Dixie Divers -- will be allowed to continue their activities.
The move to draft state guidelines arose because representatives of the recreational dive industry, conservationists and opponents of fish-feeding dives could not agree on how to regulate the practice. And commissioners were not satisfied with proposals from the dive industry group Global Interactive Marine Experiences Council.
``I see the need for regulations,'' commissioner Julie Morris said. ``I'm not ready to prohibit it outright. [The dive industry's] guidelines for food [fed to marine life] are good, but they don't address feeding locations and minimum distances from swimming beaches. They didn't discuss what species are appropriate to be fed.''
Commissioners indicated if the dive industry can't agree with state guidelines, then the commission might go into formal rule-making.
The only dissenting vote came from Commissioner Tony Moss of Miami, who wanted to ban underwater fish feeding dives for reasons of safety and ecology.
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SWIMMING WITH SHARKS POPULAR, CONTROVERSIAL EXCURSIONS ARE `WHAT PEOPLE WANT,' DIVER SAYS
Monday, November 30, 1998
Section: Sports
Page: 1D
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: By Susan Cocking, Herald Outdoors Writer
Illustration: photo: Bob Knotts feeding a shark (a), Caribbean reef shark scattering a school of fish (a)
Caption: JOSEPH H. FROELICH / For The Herald VISITORS WELCOME: A Caribbean reef shark scatters a school of fish off Highland Beach. Interactive dives are drawing people - and critics.
JOSEPH H. FROELICH / For The Herald WATCH YOUR FINGERS: Diver Bob Knotts feeds a large nurse shark in the area known as the Pompano Drop-off.
Comments by Stephen Picardi and David Earp are italicized and [bracketed].
Jeff Torode is sitting 30 feet deep off Pompano Beach, surrounded by four hungry nurse sharks four to eight feet long. The sharks circle close around him and swim between his legs, angling for bits of sardine and bonito in his gloved hand.
A four-footer swims right up to the regulator clamped between Torode's teeth. He gently pushes the shark aside, hands it a piece of fish and strokes its sandpaper-like skin as it glides away.
The shark and its’ companions head slowly toward 20 spectator divers kneeling a short distance away. The animals circle and bump, but don't bite. Several divers pet the sharks while others snap photos and shoot video. [Untrained divers are handling these sharks]
This is South Florida's only interactive shark dive - an exhilarating and controversial adventure. [Controversial because not only the divers but public are at risk]
Each week, Torode and partner Mike Rohrbaugh of South Florida Diving Headquarters lead certified divers, trainees [trainees? They bring uncertified, inexperienced divers into the shark’s kitchen?] and snorkelers into the nurse sharks' kitchen - an area known as the Pompano Drop-off. For more adventurous and experienced divers, the company offers a 70-foot-deep encounter with Caribbean reef sharks off Highland Beach. [very dangerous] Then there's the "Aqua Zoo" - a wreck dive off Boca Raton featuring jewfish and stingrays. and snorkelers into the nurse sharks' kitchen - an area known as the Pompano Drop-off. For more adventurous and experienced divers, the company offers a 70-foot-deep encounter with Caribbean reef sharks off Highland Beach. [very dangerous] . [An over aggressive moray and barracuda have reportedly been killed by the handlers. These jewfish may lose their ability to feed themselves and will not migrate to spawn]
"It's what people want; they want to get close to these animals," Torode said. Added Rohrbaugh: ``It's like Lion Country Safari or Metrozoo. We just do it underwater.'' [Sounds like the WWF to me]
An accident waiting to happen is how George Burgess sees it. The curator of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History says sharks become trained to associate divers with food - sometimes with disastrous consequences. [This has already happened in our area. Many local divers have been aggressively attacked by sharks and morays. So far none are known to have been seriously injured]
He said more than two dozen attacks have occurred worldwide during shark feedings - including the case of a divemaster in the Bahamas severely bitten on the arm and leg by a Caribbean reef shark two years ago while deploying a block of chum. Then there was a German woman who was bitten on the head by a shark at an underwater feeding site in the Bahamas on a non-feeding day.
Burgess said such headline-making casualties contribute to the demise of sharks.
"All these people down there with cameras will get Susie from Des Moines losing a hand, gushing blood and the shark's going to be the loser," he said. "The handlers, if they lose a nose, it's going to be on Inside Edition - `The Vicious Shark'. It's the sort of stuff that will be blown to Kingdom Come."
Burgess says sharks are responsible for an average of 10-15 human deaths worldwide per year in 50-75 attacks. Florida has averaged 16 attacks per year since 1990. Until last Monday's death of 9-year-old James Tellasmon, who was killed while swimming in the surf at Vero Beach, there had been no fatalities since the 1980s.
Sharks are in more danger from people than the other way around, marine scientists and conservationists say. Populations of the predators worldwide are in such bad shape from overfishing that National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed new rules to help conserve sharks.
No one has been bitten by a shark on one of South Florida Diving Headquarters' interactive encounters, but a couple of weeks ago, a four-foot moray eel crashed the party and became a little too rowdy. [That moray is no longer "resident" on that wreck, the one with the free food. Does anyone wonder where it went?]
Looking for hors d'oeuvres intended for the nurse sharks, the eel slithered over to Swedish tourist Robert Hall and sank its fangs into his shin, leaving two shallow puncture marks. Torode lured the eel away with a hunk of fish. The eel let go of Hall's leg, snatched the morsel and swam away.
Hall, not seriously injured, joked about the incident on the boat.
"It didn't like Swedish blood," he laughed. [Torode himself was seriously injured by a moray he was feeding]
Hall said he was more afraid of the nurse sharks than the eel.
"They were really close," he said. "The sharks swim all the time between your legs. That's scary. The dive was very good."
Marcelo Dantas, a fire rescue diver from Brazil, enjoyed interacting with the sharks. "Wonderful, "Dantas said. "I felt like they were little dogs."
Torode said there's not a better species than the nurse shark to combat fear and ignorance.
"Once you befriend them, they treat you like one of them," he said.
Just after Tropical Storm Mitch blew through South Florida, Torode escorted a group of 10 to the Highland Beach site. Here, the divers were hoping to encounter up to four Caribbean reef sharks, which Torode has been feeding on and off for the past three years. [I wonder if the residents and beachgoers of Highland Beach would approve of this]
In July 1997, the sharks disappeared from the reef - suspected victims of longliners and powerheading spearfishers. [It's a fact that longliners took those sharks, they were easy prey, just hanging around waiting for Torode to feed them. They were not powerheaded, they were fished out with the ease of shooting ducks in a pond]
Several animals have returned sporadically since then, which Torode feeds by hand wearing chain-mail sleeves and gloves. He used to use a pole spear but discontinued the practice because he didn't want sharks associating spears with food. [This is just great. Now the shark associates the human hand with food.]
On the day after Mitch's passage, only one Caribbean reef shark showed up, darting in from the gloom of 20-foot visibility to snatch a hunk of fish from Torode's gloved hand and dash off again. A six-foot nurse shark appeared briefly for a snack and departed.
Torode said Caribbean reef sharks prefer good visibility."When the visibility's [bad], they're scared of you," he explained. Howard Chalfin of New York City said he figured he was safe on his first shark dive - especially since Torode and his crew had done it often without being harmed. "These guys dive it every day, and they're here to dive again," Chalfin said. But, pointed out his dive buddy, the feeders wear protective chain mail. Replied Chalfin: "If the shark really wanted to get them, he would."
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State officials plan to ban feeding sharks
Fear of aggressive fish spurs decision that could hamper dive operations
By Susan Cocking
scocking@herald.com JACKSONVILLE -- The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Thursday gave preliminary approval to ban underwater shark feedings by divers.
The eight commissioners voted unanimously to draft a rule prohibiting dive operators, recreational scuba divers and snorkelers from feeding sharks and fish in Florida waters.
About five dive operators conduct feeding tours in South Florida's clear waters -- one in Broward County and several in the Keys. They feed fish scraps to sharks, barracuda, stingrays and moray eels while their customers -- who have paid $50-$100 -- watch.
The practice has angered some environmental and spearfishing groups, who contend the feedings train sharks and other marine creatures to associate humans with food, making the fish more aggressive.
Commissioners are expected to vote on the proposed rule at their May meeting after FWC staff members draft a specific proposal. There should be a public hearing to gather more information.
There have been no deaths associated with divers feeding sharks or fish, but there have been numerous incidents of fish and eels biting people. Several divers testified at the meeting of other divers being bitten while feeding sharks.
Commissioner Edwin Roberts of Pensacola told of a harrowing dive trip with his children to Sombrero Light off Marathon, where dive operators sometimes feed sharks.
``The nurse sharks ran me and my kids out of the water,'' Roberts said. ``I was having to beat [the sharks] to keep them off my kids.''
Commissioners voted after hearing from a half-dozen speakers -- all opposed to underwater fish feedings. Nobody defended the practice.
Jeff Torode of South Florida Diving Headquarters, who conducts popular shark- and fish-feeding dives at sites off Pompano Beach and Boca Raton, said the move won't put him out of business, but ``will put a huge crimp in our business.''
Reached at home Thursday, Torode was shocked by the commission's action, even though he was once bitten on the hand by a moray eel.
``Unbelievable,'' he said. ``We're going to rally the troops again. We'll get [scuba certification agencies] involved. There's no way they'll allow legislation in Florida governing scuba. We'll have to show up at the meeting and try to change the [commissioners'] minds. It's stupid. It's unenforceable and it won't work.''
But several Broward spearfishers told commissioners the practice is dangerous and should be banned.
``We know of 19 people in the past two years injured on these dives,'' Robert Dimond of Deerfield Beach said. ``We have been harassed by sharks and we're tired of it. When we went to the feeders and asked them to stop, they laughed at us.''
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State addresses shark-feeding issue
By Susan Cocking
scocking@herald.com
Shark feedings by dive operators, new public hunting land at Fisheating Creek and new rules for spotted sea trout will highlight the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission meetings Wednesday through Friday in Jacksonville.
Russ Nelson, director of the division of marine fisheries, is expected to recommend against FWC regulation of dive operators who feed sharks underwater while customers watch.
The practice has drawn fire from spearfishers who argue it makes sharks more aggressive. Dive operators, such as Pompano Beach's Jeff Torode, say the experience educates divers not to fear sharks and to treat them as valuable members of the marine ecosystem.
Nelson is expected to recommend that commissioners create a group of dive operators, spearfishers, scientists, anglers and others to develop guidelines for underwater shark feedings so the commission won't have to create a rule.
The meeting will be held at the Jacksonville Radisson Riverwalk Hotel. For more information, call 850-487-0554 or check out Web site www.state.fl.us/fwc/marine.
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These divers feed fish with no hooks attached
By Susan Cocking, Miami Herald Outdoors Writer
Jeff Torode is sitting on the ocean floor 70 feet deep off Boca Raton, covered with large, hungry marine creatures.
A four-foot stingray is nibbling on his dive console. A 10-foot green moray eel darts here and there, its beady, nearsighted eyes searching for the slab of bally hoo Torode dangles in his finger-tips. Four jewfish - the largest, a 200-pounder with a spear tip sticking out behind its gill - wait open-mouthed for a handout.
Torode hand-feeds each without being bitten, stung or mauled - this time.
The operator of the Aquanaut and Safari Diver charter boats is copying a hugely successful tourist draw in the Caribbean: interactive. diving. Over the past two years, Torode has cultivated a relationship with the creatures inhabiting the Sea Emperor - a I10-foot4ong sunken barge one-quarter mile southeast of Boca Raton Inlet. He and other Broward and Palm Beach dive operators have escorted hundreds of customers to feed and observe the marine life.
"It's the most popular aspect of this sport," Torode said. "Everyone's getting into it. I just love playing with these animals on the bottom."
So do his customers.
"It was one of the most exciting dives I've ever had, to be in shallow water with large fish," Marty Larkins of Atlanta said. "It was exhilarating."
Abridged page to article:
Hand-feeding fish has its mishaps
But there's a downside to the fish free-for-alls: The tame jewfish shot illegally by a spearfisherman; increasingly aggressive stingray and eel behavior; the potential to draw sharks harassing unsuspecting divers.
Torode himself was seriously injured when he tried to feed two eels at once. While he was watching one eel, the other bit his hand, severing one tendon and crushing two others.
"That's the only problem I've ever had," Torode said. "We feel like we do it with safety in mind. We don't put divers in the water to do the interaction by themselves."
But another dive operator who doesn't feed the wildlife, captain Tony Coulter, said he has been harassed.
"The eels are so aggressive since they've been fed that I have to tell customers to tuck their hands at their sides," Coulter said. "I've had the eel bump me in the chest and wrap around my leg. I got bit by the stingray on the knuckle. I looked at my knuckle, and it was skinned."
Coulter says he spearfishes for cobia on the wreck once or twice a year with friends, but blames the feedings - not the spearing - for the animals' aggression.
~~~~Torode is calling for a halt to spearfishing on the Sea Emperor. He's asking dive operators and spearfishing clubs to cooperate.
"People that go down there on an interactive dive will say, 'How can you kill animals like that?'" Torode said. "I'd like to see this made into a marine sanctuary."
Voluntary cooperation - not governmental protection is about all Torode can hope for right now, according to Palm Beach County artificial reef coordinator Jim Vaughn.
Vaughn said it's doubtful the Florida Marine Fisheries Commission would agree to ban spear-fishing on the wreck - especially since the agency declined to act on a similar request last year from Broward County sportfishing interests.
"They don't want to get involved in this kind of controversy," he said of the MFC.
Vaughn said he's working with his counterparts in Miami-Dade and Broward counties to develop a regional management plan for artificial reefs to present to the MFC. He said the plan likely would include restrictions on spearfishing, but not an outright ban.
"Certainly, it needs to be regulated. It's not one of my favorite activities," he said.
Meanwhile, he has no problem with Torode's fish feedings.
"I think it's an enjoyable, worthwhile, educational thing they do as long as it's not abused,' Vaughn said.
Steve Picardi, president of the South Florida Spearfishing Club, is adamant that Torode should quit feeding the wildlife.
"It's illegal to feed alligators and bears. It should be illegal to feed any predators," Picardi said. "I'm waiting to see a tourist get bit real bad by a shark. It'll be on Channel 7 News and everybody will be afraid of sharks again."
Letter sent to the editor in rebuttal:
June 11, 1998
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Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304
Via facsimile to 954/ 527-8955
Upon reading Susan Cocking’s article on fish feeding I was left with an empty feeling that yet another species (or more) will fall to man’s innate desire to interfere with the natural order merely for commercial gain. What the article doesn’t discuss is the fact that these predators that are being hand fed are likely fall to any "bait" presented to them. These dive operators hand feed cut ballyhoo, the choice bait of many anglers, to moray eels, sharks, rays and jewfish. These creatures are accustomed to feeding primarily on live prey and are likely to fall victim to an anglers bait. The article also states that these operators would like to ban spearfishing on this particular wreck. Merely by their actions they are causing spearfishers to avoid this site. A site that was intentionally placed there to attract game species and to fuel Florida’s tourist trade. Furthermore, spearfishers do not target moray eels, rays, sharks or jewfish.
One of my concerns, one that was not touched upon in the article, is the fact that many tourist divers visit our reefs each year. If divers aren’t on a "fish feeding excursion" boat and they happen to dive in an area where predatory marine life are hand fed, they are likely to encounter an aggressive shark or moray looking for a handout. To make this more clear, picture yourself in Yellowstone National Park with your family when suddenly a 10’ Black Bear approaches you for a hand out. Are you ever going to return to this tourist destination?
As a spearfisher, and speaking for the majority of spearfishers, I do not arbitrarily kill fish. I take from the ocean only what my family and I will consume right away.
There is no "by catch" or need for catch and release when spearfishing although I do commend anglers for the practice.
I was "quoted" in the article stating "I was waiting to see a tourist get bit real bad by a shark". I emphatically deny that quote. I initiated this story by alerting the author of my abhorrence toward the abuse of these predators and the danger initiated by hand feeding them.
I did quote a Reuters article titled: "Up close and personal shark dives endanger thrill-seeking tourists" Copyright© 1998 Nando.net, Copyright© 1998 Reuters News Service Byline MIAMI, March 6, 1998. The article discussed the possibility of a tourist being attacked. George Burgess, biologist and University of Florida director of the International Shark Attack File was quoted in the article. An excerpt: Burgess said the inevitable accident provoked by the dive tour encounters will be spectacular tabloid television fodder and will ruin the work of scientists who have fought to tame the public image of the shark as a man-eating predator since the 1970s-era movie "Jaws."
"Almost certainly when it happens, it will be videotaped and that tape will appear on one of the tabloid TV shows," he said. "The shark will be blamed for the attack. The image of the shark will be refortified."
It would seem that the most intelligent people could understand the reasons we should not feed bears, alligators or Key Deer. It is not in their best interest and certainly not in ours. Marine predators are no different; we are just less able to study then in natural environment. But they are just as dangerous when they lose their fear of man.
I honestly hope Ms. Cocking’s article does not promote or provoke the continued feeding of marine predators.
Sincerely,
Stephen Picardi
President
South Florida Spearfishing Club
www.spearfishing.org
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