Depending on the design of the cage, this might not actually be the case, as this video shows. No human has ever died by shark attack in a shark cage diving accident, making many believe shark cage diving is safe.
The closest to death anyone has come - on record - to death during a cage dive with a shark was in when a British tourist in South Africa was attacked by a great white while in a cage.
The shark tried relentlessly to bite through the bars and destroyed one of the floatation buoys keeping the cage afloat. The diver was forced to exit the cage and swim to the surface, surviving with the help of the boat captain who fended off the shark by jabbing at its head and disorientating the animal.
While no people have died cage diving with sharks from a shark attack, the practice is certainly not safe for sharks. If the video above was not distressing enough, below is an incident of a shark getting caught on the bars of a cage and bleeding to death before sinking to the ocean floor.
And while this is the only recorded death, there are plenty of other incidents captured and spoken of anecdotally of great whites get wedged in between cage bars, which presents a great risk to both animal and diver. There are also reports of an incident where tourists drowned after a boat capsized during rough weather, causing the shark cage they were in to sink and trap them.
In the movie Jaws, the shark savages a cage tearing it apart. While this might seem like the work of Hollywood, the scene was actually a real shark. In this video, a shark gets stuck inside a cage.
All cage divers escape unharmed, but the cage was badly damaged, as was the shark. The age requirements vary from country to country but often start at around with adult supervision. Some tour operators bill shark cage diving as an activity for the entire family, inviting all generations to get involved in cage viewing. Shark cage diving has its risks, as with anything that involves open oceans and wildlife encounters with predatory animals.
However, shark cage diving is known to be very safe. Its popularity has only grown since it became commonplace at tourist destinations with great whites mainly Australia and South Africa in the late 90s and with no shark-related fatalities, and only a single reported incident of drowning during rough weather, there is little to be concerned about when cage diving with sharks.
This argument certainly doesn't hold up against the page Guadalupe shark-diving code of conduct , which was put in place by the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas CONANP , one of the area's ecotourism governing bodies.
Its rules clearly stipulate that bait lines must not touch the cage or pass over the top. They also require operators to immediately remove the line from the water upon a shark's close approach, and prohibit the use of bait on a line shorter than 40 feet 12m. In recent years, many dive outfits have been opting to bring CONANP reps along on their charters in order to prevent serious mishaps like this one. Had this been the case aboard the Nautilus , we may have seen a very different outcome.
Sharks are certainly not the monstrous murder-machines they're often made out to be that's something we pride ourselves on setting straight , but they can be dangerous and should be respected. Would you set off on a big-cat safari with a bleeding chunk of dead wildebeest tied to your vehicle?
Not likely. In Mexico, the great white is classified as a threatened species, and many of the white sharks in Guadalupe are female. It takes more than a decade for these animals to reach sexual maturity, so the loss of even one adult female can do lasting damage to a population. Though encounters like this one are rare, the unfortunate reality is that every negative interaction with a shark can greatly impact the public's perception of these animals, so we should be doing everything we can to prevent them.
In these situations, a few cases of misconduct can hinder progress made by an entire industry. It was a shark enticed by the scent of tuna, not humans. I suspect and hope that this incident prompts some changes in the operations. Sarah Keartes is a science and wildlife journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.
Follow her on Twitter sarahkeartes. Our planet is a busy, crazy place. And amidst all the noise, voices get lost and some stories are never heard. For our growing team of writers and contributors, those are the stories that matter most: we dedicate our time to them all day and every day. In a world bursting with news, nature is our niche — and we love it that way. Some larger sharks will approach for a better look, but in my experience, sharks very rarely stick around.
They are busy predators hunting their next meal and need to get on with it. As an avid diver, I have been underwater with many, many sharks—in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.
I have had sharks that are larger than me brush up against me, and I have stared face to face into their glowing green eyes. These were exciting moments for me, but also beautiful, spiritual, and most importantly, authentic. Nothing beats watching nature up close, acting naturally in its natural habitat. But sharks acting naturally does not fit our schedules and itineraries, thus shark cage diving operators must resort to the only thing that will get sharks to overcome their apprehension and swim extremely close to boats and humans: blood.
As sophisticated predators, sharks can follow the scent of blood and fish oils in the water, or simply pick up the vibration of a struggling fish. When chum is dumped into the water, humans are triggering a response from all the sharks in the area, without delivering the payload that sharks would expect in the wild. In Gansbaai alone, there are 8 different shark cage diving operations, each averaging 3 trips a day.
Depending on the most conservative numbers provided to me by locals, that equals 5, visitors per week. This adds up to over , human encounters with sharks per year, which equals an inordinate amount of blood and chum being dumped along the South African shoreline every day. A business is in the business of making more profit, which means there will always be the pressure for more boats, more outings, and more tourists.
Though the shark cage diving operations are, for the most part, well-regulated, big money is often louder than reason. Five years ago, a Gansbaai shark cage boat capsized, and two American and one Norwegian tourist drowned. The pressure to make money with nature will always push the limits of nature.
Among wildlife professionals, there is a clear ethical standard that you should never bait a predator. Whether you can compare grizzlies to great whites is another argument, however nobody can dispute the fact that shark cage diving involves the active baiting of predators on a daily basis. In my opinion, luring great white sharks inshore, sometimes within a mile of some of the most popular beaches in South Africa, is sheer stupidity.
Scientific organizations have shown that chumming does in fact, change great white shark behavior. In its current form, shark cage diving is not sustainable, and I only see it leading to more accidents and tragedies, for people and for sharks. Nearly every shark cage diving operation claims to be involved in some form of wildlife conservation, yet deeper investigation yields little results from these claims.
Other than operators taking photos of the sharks and picking up trash from the ocean, I see very little evidence of the shark cage diving industry giving back to the oceans.
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