Shark conservation at Guadalupe?

How many times do we have to put up with those idiots, diving outside the cages at Guadalupe. It seems like every week there is another article, glorifying that illegal activity. The latest installment of “look at me, I’m so cool” comes from “Fins Attached”, a non profit out of Colorado, that is supposedly into shark conservation.

In a piece on channel 13 in Colorado Springs, their founder, Dr. Alex Antoniou is quoted as saying
“An ambush predator by nature, researchers have found simple eye contact keeps the massive predators at bay. “As long as you stand your ground and maintain eye contact you’ll see it coming toward us and it’ll just veer off,” Dr. Alex Antoniou, founder of Fins Attached, said.”

I guess the good Dr. is still new enough to think he’s got the great white sharks figured out. What could go wrong?! But let’s assume for a second that the guy is right. Can you tell me, how the guy in the video below is maintaining that eye contact?
 

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This is just another idiotic attempt at self promotion. These guys don’t care that their actions endanger every other shark diving operator and in turn the sharks themselves. When someone is finally going to get hurt or worse, everyone might get shut down. If that happens, I doubt that the poachers will stay away for long and who’s going to look out for the sharks and make sure, their fins do stay attached.

If you want to contact “Fins attached” and let them know, how you feel, you can contact them here.

At Shark Diver we believe that only “safe and sane” diving with sharks can help conservation. These illegal activities are simply publicity stunts and do more harm than good.

Why can’t we accept these awesome White Sharks for what they are? They are predators, not harmless pets.

Viewing them from a cage is legal, safe and you get plenty close to the sharks.

Close enough? They swim right by the cages and look you in the eye. No need to go outside the cage and endanger everyone.

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@sharkdiver.com.

How to conquer fear of sharks? Break the law?

Frightened of the water? Go swimming with great whites. that is the heading of an article in the “Telegraph”, published a couple of days ago.

Catchy phrase! So is this article really about conquering the fear of sharks? Well, I don’t think so. The article is really about Jean Marie Ghislain, one of the guys we have written about here when we talked about the out of cage diving that is going on at Guadalupe Island on various occasions. We all know that it is illegal to do so and, if anything were to happen on those dives, could threaten all the shark diving operations there.

Jean-Marie Ghislain posted pictures like this.


When we wrote about him, he of course was outraged by my comments and responded with this statement.

Hello Martin, I am the owner of those images and I was very surprised to see them on the blog article you posted. I would like to ask you to immediatly remove them from the web as well as the comments that concerns them- which dont correspond to the reality in that specific situation. The person who is facing the shark had to push the shark away as it was a very intrusive personality and he touched it as little as he could and the dive was aborted immediatly. I don’t want the images to be used in a provocative way when they don’t reflect the reality of what happened. And I especially don’t condone or encourage physical contacts with sharks, but in this specific instance, it could not be avoided by the diver- as I said, he got out of the water right away after the occurence. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon, Thank you, Jean-Marie Ghislain”

So after removing the “offending” pictures and publishing his response here, he is now featured in this article on the “Telegraph”

Jean Marie Ghislain is quoted as saying. “One day in Guadalupe [an island off Baja California in Mexico] three of us were swimming with two great whites. One was a young macho who just wanted us out of the water. But there was this huge, five-metre female who was the coolest shark I’ve ever met. She played with us for one and a half hours and she wanted the contact – she was free to move wherever she wanted, but she clearly wanted company.” 

When I said they were not having shark conservation on their minds, while they did this out of cage diving, but rather did this for a “look at me” publicity stunt, Ghislain was outraged and asked me to remove that comment immediately. He said that it didn’t correspond to the reality of that specific situation and that they left the water immediately when the shark got too “intrusive”. Now Ghislain has the guts to publish the comment above.

Turns out that the article is not really about conquering the fear of sharks, but rather a promotion for his book “shark: fear and beauty”. Again, no self interest involved here at all! “sharkcasm” intended.

It is really bad, when guys can blatantly disregard a law, endanger all the other operators at Guadalupe and pretend it’s about shark conservation. Make no mistake, this is not about shark conservation, or getting people to conquer their fear of sharks. This is all about self promotion and making money.

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@sharkdiver.com.