would you do this with a shark? This diver has some rocks!

[redrider90]

According the to the NBC news report this diver encountered a "Lemon Shark" that approached him and repeatedly bumped him and then finally revealing the shark's underbelly to the diver. Note what the diver finds and then removes from the shark that swam off afterwards.



Notice the hook in the divers left hand that he remove from the shark

[ITSec]

Very interesting! Like Androcles and the lion...

Lemon sharks are not terribly aggressive, and have been used in many experiments to see whether sharks can be trained as well as tests to determine things like their visual abilities, sense of smell, and electrical sensitivity.

I've been pretty close to some sharks while diving, but the idea that one would present itself to a diver like it would to cleaner wrasse is pretty mind-blowing.

[Lannis]

I can see a porpoise reasoning something like this out, and "asking" a diver to pull out a hook or a piece of seine net or something, because a porpoise might think "There's one of those humans, they're pretty harmless, and they've got these 'hand' things, maybe he can help if I ask and don't threaten him ..."

But a shark?   They're fish, down below reptiles and amphibians.   They can get tame but they can't reason like that, I wouldn't think?   He'd be more likely to just bore in and bite him ...

Lannis

[Penderic]

The shark must have come face to face with the hook owner and then got away.

The Shark was pissed and probably looking for that guy ever since.

Like that whale looking for that  crazy Capt Ahab.

[johnr]

It does seem to show a degree of reasoning beyond that which I would normally accredit sharks.

[Tom]

To answer the question.  Yes, but after some initial observation.  I went night time diving to spear fish.  The only reason, I did go was because the lead diver's aumakua (family god) was the Mano (shark).  Ours is the Pueo (owl) and Gecko (lizard).  He did things that I wouldn't do while in the water.  On this dive, after about an hour and 1/2.  The only light was from our flashlights.  He tells us that we're done for that evening's dive.  We get out and on the beach, we asked him why?  He said that he got told to.  On further inquiry, he said that aumakua told him.  I asked him what his aumakua was?  His reply Mano.  Seems they were around us while we were in the water.    In the dark, he said that he got nudged by one.  Time to go.  You have enough fish.    Anecdotal, I know.  His whole family are divers and spear fishermen.  They take only what they need from the ocean and never more.  Leaving the babies to grow up.

http://www.seathos.org/hawaiian-shark-legend/

I never felt 100% confident in the ocean.  Always have had a healthy respect for it and those that work it.

[Kev m]

I've never come across a shark that was large enough and aggressive enough to worry me on a dive. Most run away the second they see you.

But Tom's story reminds me of a night wreck dive in the keys when Jenn and I rounded the base of the hull and my light revealed a six foot or so shark tucked in between the hull and the sand.

It took seconds for the shark to decide it didn't want to stay, but that's when I realized that on a night dive your peripheral vision is crap cause your light beam is so narrow.

I think I spun around slowly for a minute lighting everything I could and looking for any traces of it lol.

[Sasquatch Jim]

 Toms' friend was right, never ignore your amakua.

[Karl Von]

We have a big problem in Florida with killing sharks for their fins to make shark fin soup.   http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article142029049.html

[Tom]

Commentary with the photo from other FL people says that the photo is file and not current to story.  They also say that the shark numbers aren't down.  Finning is wrong for a "cash crop".  If the whole shark is utilized, I have no problem.

[rodekyll]

A lot of sharks are killed by cutting off their fins and simply tossing them back into the water.  Others are killed by drawing them up next to the boat and punching out the fin meat with a big paper punch-looking tool.  These punch-outs become "scallops" in restaurants and fish stores.  Again, the sharks are tossed back, mutilated and helpless.  Sometimes you can see the other sharks swarming them as they sink, bleeding.  Very sad.  I've killed a lot of fish for a living, both as a commercial fisherman and a subsistence hunter.  Many tons.  The boats I have worked on make less money than the butchers, but we always followed the rules and used common sense.

The moral is -- if you're into scallops or shark fin, try to find out if they were harvested legally.

[Sasquatch Jim]

 Those cookie cutters are also used on rays to make the same fake scallops.  Greed over intelligent harvesting.

[rodekyll]

Yeah, rays and skates are also sharks for this discussion, and are fished with a lot of waste.  The poaching is maybe hardest on them.  Sharks get all the press and sturgeon get all the protection.  The bottom feeders get murdered far away and out of sight.

[Arizona Wayne]

There are supposed to be a lot of shark breeds that are not people killers that get all that notoriety  with humans.  Some sharks get a bad wrap.

[redrider90]

Commentary with the photo from other FL people says that the photo is file and not current to story.  They also say that the shark numbers aren't down.  Finning is wrong for a "cash crop".  If the whole shark is utilized, I have no problem.

The photo of the shark fins not being current is not relevant to the story. The boat stopped with the fins was recent: it happened just a few days ago. Any photo of of shark fins would do to serve the purpose of showing people what "shark finning" looks like.

From that article is this quote "Worldwide, shark finning has been blamed for killing up to 73 million sharks every year, with 27,000 tons of fins traded in 2013. The practice can be particularly gruesome: after their fins are sliced off, the sharks are often tossed overboard and either suffocate because they can�t swim or are eaten by other predators.

And the problems caused by overfishing and finning aren�t limited to just sharks. In their absence, smaller fish they eat are increasing, which is decimating populations of shellfish. Over fishing has also become so severe that many species are being killed at a rate faster than they can reproduce, further driving down numbers.

The loss of sharks could also have economic repercussions: shark tourism helps pump more than $220 million annually into Florida�s economy and produces about 3,700 jobs, Oceana reported earlier this month."

[Tom]

[quote author=redrider90 link=topic=89339.msg1413599#msg1413599 date=1491145434
The photo of the shark fins not being current is not relevant to the story. The boat stopped with the fins was recent: it happened just a few days ago. Any photo of of shark fins would do to serve the purpose of showing people what "shark finning" looks like.

From that article is this quote "Worldwide, shark finning has been blamed for killing up to 73 million sharks every year, with 27,000 tons of fins traded in 2013. The practice can be particularly gruesome: after their fins are sliced off, the sharks are often tossed overboard and either suffocate because they can�t swim or are eaten by other predators.

And the problems caused by overfishing and finning aren�t limited to just sharks. In their absence, smaller fish they eat are increasing, which is decimating populations of shellfish. Over fishing has also become so severe that many species are being killed at a rate faster than they can reproduce, further driving down numbers.

The loss of sharks could also have economic repercussions: shark tourism helps pump more than $220 million annually into Florida�s economy and produces about 3,700 jobs, Oceana reported earlier this month."
[/quote]

You missed my post.  "Finning is wrong for a "cash crop."" 

[redrider90]

You missed my post.  "Finning is wrong for a "cash crop.""

I was not taking any issue with you and surely did not miss your point that "finning is wrong for a cash crop". In fact I included and quoted you in my response to make sure I was not "cherry picking" anything.
I was responding to "Commentary with the photo from other FL people says that the photo is file and not current to story. They also say that the shark numbers aren't down".

Clearly shark kill numbers have not dropped. And the photo acknowledged that it was used just to give people an idea what sharks were being killed for their fins and only their fins. The rest gets thrown back in the water.

[rodekyll]

Tom -- "Finning" is the practice of cutting off parts of a live fish and returning the mutilated, still living body to the sea.  if finning is wrong "for a cash crop", when is it right?

I started to do another topic last night on Herring, which for a long time were treated like sharks.  It was too complicated for a WG topic and off-topic for the forum.  So I'll just summarize here:

[RANT ON]

Herring are a tiny fish low on the food chain.  Typically an adult is about 8 - 12" long and maybe up to a pound and a half.  I like mine a little smaller.  They eat plankton and tiny crustatians and in turn are food for everything in the ocean bigger than themselves, including birds and whales.  HUmans fished them for food and oil.  They salted well and packed easily.  Like the cod in MS, they were a strategic resource.  After refrigeration made more meats available for transport, the food side of the herring's value diminished, but the industrial side -- oils and other products -- made the fish valuable into the 20th century in a "rendering" industry, where they were basically cooked down for their chemistry.  As is the pattern in early ALaska history, lack of regulation and corporate greed plundered this vital fish down to unsustainable numbers.  Not only were there no fish for the nets, there was none for the upstream side of the food chain.  Populations of other species plummeted.  Emergency measures were taken, including a total ban on herring fishing, in an effort to bring the population back.  The ban and the discovery of alternative products took the economic incentive out of the rendering industry.

After the demise of rendering in the 50s, the fishery went to "roe" fishing, where the eggs of the fish and not the fish itself is the target of the harvest.  About 25% of weight is roe in a ripe female.  Unlike salmon, herring spawn every year and swim on.  In the wild they can live for up to 20 years. returning to the same coves to spawn every year.  The fishery was taking the herring in nets, killing all, removing roe from the females, and dumping the males and female carcasses to the tune of thousands of tons a year.  This unnecessarily removed enormous numbers of vital fish from the gene pool, and the biomass requires the repeat spawning of a single fish for its survival.  This huge mass of dead fish polluted the shorelines and wreaked havoc with local ecosystems. Treaties and regulations stopped the practice.  Today it's a "limited entry" fishery with only 48 permits (boats) in the fleet.  The boats themselves are regulated for size, crew, and equipment.

They are regulated in their openings to the second.  Early or late with the gear and you lose your season and maybe the boat.  Out-of-bounds or illegal equipment, ditto.  No do-overs, no sympathy.  There may be no wasted biomass -- every bit of the fish must be used.  It's a "quota" system.  There is a weight goal to be harvested.  No more may be taken.  Permit holders can decide to fish competitively or cooperatively.  Depending on the area opened, they might do either.

Since the limited entry/quota system began, the herring population has rebounded.  Although still not at pre-commercial levels, the management is ensuring that enough escape to continue the species and feed the animals that depend on them.  In the managed system there is enough biomass for the major interests -- roe, bait, and subsistence -- to have what they need. 

This is what needs to happen with the shark, skate, and ray fisheries.  They need to be acknowledged as a target fish, agreements must be made among the nations that fish them for reasonable management, and the regulations need to be enforced.  One of the primary management concerns must be for dealing with the "waste".  We can't cut 20# of fin off of a 200# shark and sink the rest for the crabs.  It's not good for the market, the fishery, or the fish.

$0.02

[RANT OFF]

[Tom]

Tom -- "Finning" is the practice of cutting off parts of a live fish and returning the mutilated, still living body to the sea.  if finning is wrong "for a cash crop", when is it right?

Dave.  You got me under your definition.     That's wrong.  I was addressing the topic of "finning" with subsistence fishermen cutting the fins off and selling them but also utilizing the whole carcass or most of it.  etc. shark leather, meat for consumption, bones and teeth.

[rodekyll]

Just clarifying.  :)

[oldbike54]

 It's like buttah .

 Dusty

[keuka4884]

Shark finning is done in many parts of the world. I have seen courtyards filled with drying fins in South America, North America, Japan, and China. It has devastated the shark population in the Pacific.

I saw a video around 5 years ago of a diver who calls the waters off Johannesburg South Africa his backyard. Great whites congregate there in bunches. He found that they do not like the touch of rough aluminum. So he carried a 12 inch round disc roughed up a bit with rear handle. Every time one approached him he rubbed it on the shark and the animal turned away. They seemed to pass the message to the others too.

In Playa Del Carmen in the Yucatan you can do a bull shark dive. Big animal. That is one of the few sharks that will attack a human unprovoked. I first learned of this dive watching a group of 6 German divers about to go on a bull shark dive. All dressed in black carrying a 6 ft piece of PVC cut to a point on one end. That was to poke a bull shark if he got close. Dive masters tell me if you avoid early morning and dusk when they feed you're fine. Barracuda like to observe humans up close.   

[Tom]

There are other predator fish in the ocean.  Kuka (Barracuda), Ulua (Giant Trevally) and Moray eels are some.  They will take a bite out of you too.  Throw in some Killer Whales and other varieties of sharks.  The ocean gets a little crowded. 

[rodekyll]

I was bit-and-released by a blue shark when I was a kid.  I still have the scars across my fingers.  All it did was close its jaws on my hand and then opened them.  Like he was tasting and didn't like it.  It was still enough to shred my fingers.  I shudder to think of the damage he could have done had he been named Mikey.

Along with predators you have broody fish, like the Ling cod, which are territorial.  When they lay eggs they guard their nests with a really pissy attitude and violently attack anything that comes close.  They are so wired to attack when brooding that their huge nesting areas are off limits to fishermen/divers during their season.  Otherwise a local population can be (and has been) completely wiped out.  Lings can exceed 10' and be well over 100#.  Legal keepers are between three and 6'.  Somewhere I have a picture of one with a basketball in its mouth.  If you're diving and one goes after you it can be very bad.  Pacific Octopi can also become very aggressive, but usually when provoked or if you disturb their den.  They don't prey on humans.