Sharks and Humans 167
with free food, arriving well before any chum hits the water, with obvious
implications to user groups not interested in having a sharky experience.
Animals that learn to associate people with a free meal can become aggres-
sive if you show up without a handout. An aggressive chipmunk is one mat-
ter; an aggressive reef shark is another.
To minimize such associative learning, White Shark cage dive opera-
tions in South Africa use chum to lure sharks in, and toss out a chunk of
tuna on a rope to bring them even closer, but don’t let the sharks eat the
bait. At other locales, irresponsible dive operators have gone so far as to
stuff old wetsuits with bait, which makes for dramatic video footage but is
almost certainly a bad habit to encourage on the part of the sharks. The
economic losses that could result if an attack occurs (and attacks have hap-
pened, including at least one fatality in the Bahamas) could negate all the
positive economic benefits of the shark watching trade and spill over to
nonshark tourism. Because of such concerns, the feeding of sharks by div-
ers has been banned in several locales, including Florida, the Maldives, the
Cayman Islands, and Hawaii.
How can I see sharks in captivity?
Just about every public aquarium of any size has a live shark exhibit.
Some specialize in local species; others have tanks with both local and ex-
otic (usually tropical) species. Among the large active species exhibited are
Sand Tiger, Sandbar, Blacktip Reef, Leopard, and Spiny Dogfish sharks
and Bat, Spotted Eagle, and Cownose rays. Sawfishes, Nurse Sharks, wob-
begongs, and various skates and stingrays fill out the list of commonly dis-
played elasmobranchs. Sand Tigers are an especially popular large species
because they live a long time in captivity, swim slowly above the bottom,
and have multiple rows of exposed spiky teeth that draw much attention. A
frequently published figure of 30,000 for the number of teeth a shark pro-
duces in its lifetime is based on systematic, daily sieving of the sand at the
bottom of a tank in which Sand Tigers were kept.
Many public aquariums feature shallow “touch tanks” where visitors can
get up close and very personal with small, relatively harmless species. Touch
tanks allow viewers to contact animals in a friendly, supervised manner.
Popular prisoners in these interactive exhibits are Bonnethead Sharks, Bat
Rays, and Cownose Rays, the latter two with their barbed stings clipped.
A touch tank with Cownose Rays is even available next to the right field
stands at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, home of the Tampa
Bay Rays baseball team.
Smaller tanks typically display species that also show up in the home
aquarium trade. These are usually small (less than 1 m, or 3 ft, long) Epaulette