Anderson Cooper and Feeding Frenzies

Ever since Anderson Cooper went free diving with Great Whites people have been sending me the link and asking what I think about it.  Looks like he did it in ‘Shark Alley’, the same place I did it 2004.  I snorkeled and dove on SCUBA, but no sharks came to visit me.  Looks like he was fortunate enough to actually have a shark or two around and I have to give him credit for doing such a brave thing.

Of course, the news anchors had to damage the story by saying things like, “It was an all out feeding frenzy!” and unwittingly referring to the ‘chumming’ controversy.   Let’s clarify:

First of all, no one, not even Andre Hartman or the guys from ‘Jackass’ are gonna get in the water during a feeding frenzy.  Next, a feeding frenzy refers to a large gathering of animals competing for food in a ravenous manner, sometimes even attacking and eating each other in the process.  I can assure you that cage dive operators put one piece of bait in the water at a time, most often attracting only one shark at a time.  If another white shark does appear, the smaller one usually goes away.  Sharks of similar size seem to take turns making passes at the bait in a very ‘civilized’ manner.  The operators do not feed the sharks and actually do their best to pull the bait just out of the shark’s reach.  The few seconds of teeth and gaping jaws shown on TV is the result of editing hours of footage mostly consisting of slow moving, disinterested sharks.

The film ‘Air Jaws’ captured a mass feeding of Great White sharks when the camera crew was fortunate enough to come across a floating whale carcass.  They estimated 15 to 20 large great whites shared the area at the same time, often touching and overlapping fins.  They took turns ripping large chunks of flesh off the whale and never once showed signs of violence toward each other, the camera crew, or the boat.

I’ll talk about the ‘chumming and cage diving controversy’ in the next blog.