Shall we start the Fiji reports with the shark feeding dives?

It has been an exhilarating holiday and there’s just a massive amount of topics that came up during this period and that’s not solely because of the interesting animals we saw, the places we went to and the somewhat new nature of the dives we took part in, but also because of the interesting people we met.

Prior to going to Fiji, I talked with my good friend Mauro Resnitzky, an experienced diver who had joined just the same liveaboard (the Fiji Siren) for a 7 day trip in April 2014. His advice was: “If you think Fiji is going to be all about sharks you may be disappointed. Fiji is much more than sharks, keep an open mind about the dives”.  He was right, Fiji is much more than its sharks, we saw a lot more, but I think that the sharks were the best part! We saw blacktips, whitetips, greyreefs and lemon sharks – all of which we had already seen – plus hammerheads, bull sharks, nurse sharks, silvertips (although you don’t immediately notice what they are since they are similar to whitetips) and the TIGER sharks, the main event! Of course seeing the other ones was amazing, all of them, but there was some expectation built up on seeing the tigers as they are much harder to see.

 

When we went to Tubbataha earlier in 2014, there was a lot of talking about a large tiger shark in the area. The captain of our ship, who had been going there for many years, was not interested in anything else, even the guitar sharks were not a big deal for him – only the tiger mattered. But we didn’t see the tiger in Tubbataha, and the other sharks were all very skittish, which was a bit of a disappointment to me. Now Fiji was a different story and I guess the reason should be pretty clear by now: THERE WAS FOOD IN THE WATER.

In many parts of the world, dive operators have started feeding or enticing or chumming sharks so that divers can be around them. This offered visitors an almost guaranteed way to get close to this feared animal, take photos, see their behavior and go home with an amazing story to tell – for a price. Sharks feeding dives are quite expensive; usually 2 or 2.5 times the price of a regular dive – and that is obviously the force driving the dive operators, who also put their lives (and more commonly their fingers) at risk in these dives.  Of course feeding/enticing/chumming sharks have stirred a lot of controversy and it’s easy to find people against it, claiming it conditions sharks and generates pavlovian responses in them towards humans and boat engines. There is a very interesting report here about a team who got closely examined by lemon sharks in the red sea only to find out after the dive that the guys who jumped in the water 1 hour earlier was attacked and died. But pay attention to the end of their article and you will notice they have vested interest in advocating being against feeding sharks.

 

There are also those who are all for shark feeding and guess what – they are the exact same people making a profit from it. You can see Cristina Zenato’s opinion here. She has been feeding sharks for the past 18 years in the Bahamas so I think she has a few relevant things to say.

 

In this trip we joined 5 of these dives : one “shark enticement dive” in which Fiji Siren DMs don’t really hand feed the sharks, but the food is made available at the end of the dive;  and four proper shark feedings, with the sharks actually being hand fed. I felt really safe during all of them, never had any major concerns. On the enticement dive, we went to the divesite twice with no food and the sharks were there, not because they were expecting food, but it seems they gather there during this time of  day because of the currents. They did not approach us and their behavior was different from when there was food in the water, so I’m going to disagree with the PUREDIVING team. On the Aquatrek dive in Beqa lagoon, I thought the dive was quite chaotic – there was too many people in the water, too many fish around, I felt the red snappers and the giant Trevallys were more dangerous than the sharks but still, it was not unruly and I thought it was quite safe. There was a maximum number of divers that could join, a specific time to get in the water, diver positioning was predetermined and there was a time to get out of the water. There were DMs guarding the ends of the divesite and they really made sure the environment was under control  – to the extent that sharks could be controlled, that is.

 

The Beqa Lagoon resort dive was even better. There were only tiger sharks, we were only 4 divers and it was much less chaotic. The divesite topography was absolutely perfect and I felt like it was the perfect design for those dives, although there are reports of other dives who went to their divesite and saw no sharks.

Therefore, I am inclined to say that these dives are not risk free for the divers – sharks are really not that threatening under such circumstances but they are wild animals and things might go wrong – but I felt there is no reason to believe that feeding sharks represent harm to sharks or marine life.  If these dives were dangerous, there would be more accidents with sharks on these dives than on non-feeding dives with sharks, which doesn’t seem to be the case (according to Steve Weible, the marine biologist implementing the Beqa Lagoon Resort shark feeding). There is also significant research showing that the feeding, if done properly, does not change shark behavior.

 

I don’t want to dwell on it, but I felt like as long as the dive operators are making money with these dives, they will protect the region from shipping routes, the fishing industry and even the local population (you can see how local fishing harm sharks here). In economics, a “second best solution” is sometimes preferable to a “best solution” if it is more stable and attainable. Leaving the sharks alone and their habitat pristine and untouched in obviously everyone’s first choice, but it is borderline impossible these days. There are even some institutions advocating shark interaction as a means to protect them here, and their motto is For Sharks’ Sake, Take a Vacation.

As an underwater photographer, it seemed to me that these dives were an amazing way to come close to the sharks and likely the only way I could take good shots of them. I absolutely didn’t mind paying for them and I will join these dives whenever they are available in my future holidays. Just to help the sharks, of course.

 

Ps.: You can see all the Fiji dive pictures here