MAN & SEA
powerful animals. It is much easier
to stand up for a shark when it is
perceived as a majestic animal.
One of the great difficulties in
studying the behaviour of sharks
is determining how much of their
behaviour is due to human interaction.
This is complicated further when
a study tries to determine how the
behaviour of sharks changes due to
specific activities such as scuba
diving, surfing or fishing. As mentioned
earlier, most divers report seeing
sharks swimming away when humans
are present. Does this behaviour persist
when divers leave the water? In other
words, do sharks avoid areas that are
frequented by scuba divers? Conversely,
when shark feeding regularly occurs
on a dive site, are more sharks present
even when divers are not? Are there
more reports of shark bites in places
such as Tiger Beach, Bahamas, where
shark feeding is done frequently?
Data are kept on incidents involving
sharks by the Shark Research Institute,
a scientific research organisation that
conducts research on sharks and
promotes their conservation. According
to the “Global Shark Attack File”, which
is maintained by the institute, peopleBELOW: A diver feeds bull sharks in
Beqa Lagoon, Fiji
IMAGE: Brook Petersonbitten by sharks in the Bahamas
average about two or three each
year. This number has not changed
since the late 1990s despite the
enormous growth in the dive industry,
particularly in areas such as Bimini
and Tiger Beach where shark feeding
is common. This suggests that baiting
the water for sharks has no effect on
the number of people who are bitten
by sharks. In fact, since 1996, there
have been 40 reports of shark bites in
the Bahamas, with only five involving
scuba divers. The vast majority of bites
were on spear fishermen.
Researchers from the University of
California Santa Barbara and Florida
International University teamed up to