Ok. Seriously?? If you watch the following video closely, you’ll see that these guys have a hunk of tuna baited on the end of a throw-line off the back of their boat. So they have a tiny little plastic dinghy in the water with 2 big guys in it with a tuna bait line in the water right beside the skiff and 2 great white sharks circling around. What the heck did they think was going to happen. The poor sharkies.
I am sorry to rant but this is exactly the kind of human behaviour that gives our big beautiful white friends a bad reputation and can actually be injurious to them. It’s disrespectful to the sharks. The poor sharks in this video aren’t trying to attack the dinghy – rather they are being lured in by the scent of some nice smelly tuna tied onto a rope and then being teased when the tuna is yanked just out of reach by the humans on the surface. The sharks are at risk anytime they are on the surface. They are depleting their vitally important store of energy every time they lunge at the bait but have little hope of success. AND their natural behaviour is being modified – white sharks are apex predators and very smart and learn by adaptive intelligence – which means that these sharks may start identifying tiny little plastic dinghies with tasty hunks of tuna.
I say let’s tie some monofilament around these guys pints of beer and jerk the glasses away every time they try to take a drink… Fair is fair.
Dive safe and come to sea and share our love of sharkies..
Captain Mike
