Sharks and Humans 165
a shark nearby. That people don’t see them more often attests to their abil-
ity to hide, or their tendency to flee, rather than to their absence. Because
sharks usually don’t want to be spotted, seeing them in the wild usually
involves going to a place where they are known to aggregate and often in-
volves luring them with food.
Shark encounter diving, or shark ecotourism, has grown tremendously
in the past few decades. Many more people want to see sharks than catch
them, and people are willing to spend large sums of money for the privi-
lege. Since the same shark can only be caught once but can be watched over
and over, economics clearly favor shark watching over shark fishing. Vari-
ous studies have calculated how much a live shark is worth compared with
one dead on the deck of a boat. In the Bahamas, a dead shark may be worth
$40 to $50, whereas a live one is worth $750,000. In the Republic of Mal-
dives, a dead Gray Reef Shark has a onetime value of $35 but an ecotour-
ism value of $3,300 to $33,500 per year depending on locale. In Moorea,
French Polynesia, Sicklefin Lemon Sharks (Negaprion acutidens) form the
basis of ecotourism diving, with the lifetime value of each shark estimated
at $2.6 million. And in Palau, Western Caroline Islands, where diving tour-
ism is a mainstay of the national economy, a reef shark is worth $108 for
its fins and meat but $1.9 million live and swimming around the reef. Not
surprisingly, Palau has declared its entire territorial waters a shark sanctu-
ary, outlawing the killing or capture of all sharks.
While you may be fortunate enough to encounter a shark anywhere you
dive, a few places have capitalized on shark and ray abundance, seasonality,
water clarity, and boat access:
■ Established White Shark cage diving occurs near Isla Guadalupe in Baja
California, Mexico; near Cape Town, South Africa; at the Farallon Is-
lands off San Francisco; and off Neptune Islands, South Australia.
■ Whale Shark encounters, estimated to be worth $47.5 million dollars
annually, can be had at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia; the Sea of
Cortez and Yucatan Peninsula areas of Mexico; Belize and Honduras in
the western Caribbean; Donsol Bay, Luzon, the Philippines; Sodwana
Bay, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa; and the Maldives.
■ Viewing hammerhead sharks requires long-distance plane and boat
travel, as they are usually in places and at depths accessible mostly to
experienced divers. Where they occur, they can be found in spectacular
numbers. Reliable spots include the Cocos Islands of Costa Rica; Green
Island, Taiwan; the Wolf and Darwin islands in the northern Galapa-
gos Islands; and Malpelo Island, 235 miles (378 km) west of Colom-
bia, where they have been best studied and where large aggregations of
Silky Sharks also occur.