Dramatic Cage Dive Photos Show What Not to Do Around Sharks
A viral photo has stirred debate over the ethics of cage diving.
Don't try this at home: Touching sharks during a cage dive is against Mexico's guidelines.
PHOTOGRAPH BY DMITRY VASYANOVICH, CATERS NEWS
By Brian Clark Howard
PUBLISHED JANUARY 26, 2016
Photos of tourist divers touching a fearsome great white shark have taken the Internet by storm this week, inspiring shares, likes, and questions over how to interact with wild animals.
Moscow-based diver Dmitry Vasyanovich, 47, posted the pictures to Facebook, saying he took them on a recent dive to Guadalupe Island, off the Baja peninsula. It's a popular spot for the controversial practice of cage diving. In the photos, the divers can be seen luring sharks close by dangling chunks of bait, a practice that some conservationists have criticized as interfering with the natural behavior of wild animals.
On its website, dive tour arranger Guadalupe Great White Sharks says: “Mexican park regulations require that you stay within the cages at all times including keeping your arms, hands and cameras inside. Feeding the sharks … is strictly prohibited.”
Violating those rules can put divers at serious risk of injury or even death. It can also put the sharks at risk, scientists say, by teaching them to associate people with food.
"Sooner or later one of those guys will lose an arm, and then it will become a shark attack," says George Burgess, director of the Florida program for shark research at the Florida Museum of Natural History. "File this under "s" for stupidity."
Many people know not to feed bears, alligators, or other animals on land, but when it comes to the water many people haven't gotten the message, Burgess adds.