Sorry Papa, but I disagree. I have had numerous shark encounters, from a wide variety of sharks, without having had to chum the water or tempt them with bait. It's quite possible to see Apex predators without having to resort to this practice, however you would need to accept that you will be treated to an encounter as and when they decide to come by and say hi, there's no gaurantees.Originally Posted by Papa Bear
On the whole, people aren't prepared to risk their siting to chance, and so buy the right to see what they want to see by adding in a bit of manipulation. Good business for the dive centres and the customer gets what they want. Sadly in this case they got a little more then expected.
I've been on a couple of shark feeding dives, the type of behaviour I saw was completely different from that experienced when just allowing sharks to do their own thing. On the first dive, sharks came looking for food as soon as we hit the water, on both dives the sharks were attracted in by the masses of chum with minimal food behind to satisfy them. You could see they were getting frustrated! All in all, the experiences felt false, manufactured, give me a natural fly by any day, I certainly wont be repeating the experience.
Wether or not the pros of shark feeding outway the cons is an ongoing debate, a number of countries and areas are introducing restrictions or total due to concerns the negative effects on the environment, and about safety.
My own personal view point, it's wrong of us to expect to be able to manipulate nature to perform on demand, it affects the natural order of things and can produce unpredictable results.
Nature's secrets are not a comodity to be sold and paid for, if she decides to expose a little more of herself to you, then accept it as a gift and respect it as that. However if you choose to force your way in and take what's not given, don't be surprised if she rewards you with a sharp reminder of who's really the boss.
