Talking Sharks While Surrounded by Sharks

If media released the still frame below with the title "Shark Attack" people would be eager to believe it, gobble it up, repeat it, and even add more to the story.  Why is it so disappointing for us to find out that instead of conflict and violence this was just two animals sharing space in water without any problems at all?  That's just one of the many questions that falls under the umbrella of rethinking who the real monsters are.

Aliwal Shoal, South Africa, oceanic black tips.
We'd been on scuba a few minutes before this so had just finished and were just returning to the boat. The dive guide, Walter Bernardis, is also very against the shark nets and said, "Why don't you say a few things about the sharks while you're still in the water with them at the surface." Then they started throwing bait around me to keep the sharks in the area (otherwise they leave rather quickly).  So it was unplanned and unscripted.

Here's the dialogue from the video: "I can see the beautiful dorsal fins of the oceanic black tips we just went diving with. I can feel them bumping my legs below me, they're surrounding me, going around me. At any time obviously, these sharks, as apex predators, could take me out...effortlessly. Why aren't they? Well, these are the questions you have to ask to begin rethinking the shark, to think about their role on this planet. It has nothing to do with us...it has nothing to do with killing us or eating us. Obviously it's choosing the fish - not only is it choosing the fish, it's making a specific effort not to make a mistake of biting something it doesn't want to bite. Why would that benefit the shark? It doesn't. They don't go out looking for us. They don't even want to bite us when they have the opportunity to bite us. We don't need nets.

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