Diving With Sharks?

Why dive with sharks? There are several reasons. Here are two good ones:

• First, it’s an opportunity that may not last forever. If we can’t stop the wholesale slaughter of sharks, there may one day be no sharks to dive with.
• Second, once you have experienced sharks “up close and personal,” you are going to find yourself becoming something the sharks badly need: A spokesperson and an ambassador.

Every year, more than 375,000 sharks are ruthlessly slaughtered world wide. In most instances, this is not done for food, but rather to “fin” the sharks (taking just the fins and discarding the carcass).

Why? The fins are believed to be useful in making a powerful aphrodisiac — and, of course, there is always shark fin soup. A number of sharks are slaughtered for no other reason than the belief they are “vicious maneaters” who “must be killed.”

But Aren’t Sharks Dangerous?

Every year an average of 26 Americans die a gruesome death beneath the slashing teeth…of the family dog. In the meantime, an average of fewer than seven swimmers world wide perish each year due to sharks — and virtually all these incidents are cases of mistaken identity rather than an intentional effort to eat people. (None of these incidents ever seem to involve scuba divers.)

In light of these statistics, the notion that we have anything to fear from sharks is absurd. If anything, it is the sharks who should be terrified of us.

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