Are we training our sharks?

Ok so in our office we have a rather spectacular salt water aquarium and out of the 25 workers in said office I usually give the fellas a feed every day. As a result they clearly recognise me when I walk in as evidenced by them all swimming to the glass. Even more so if I have the jar of fish food in my hand they're practically leaping out of the water. So the question is, if a humble clown fish can be trained to associate me with food then what is cage diving teaching our sharks? Boat plus people in the water = food. Combine that with the chum line down our coast from all the cray pots during the season and it's not too hard to draw some conclusions. Is my logic flawed or should we be taking a serious look at how the people making money off the ocean have some responsibility in the ever increasing human/shark interactions?

By extension of the training logic there is some good un-training going on around the world to prevent human/animal encounters. For instance when Polar bears hang around camp too long they catch them and terrorize the hell out of them in captivity for month before relocation them, the association for them is humans = bad. If sharks had bad experiences (other than death) when around humans rather than getting a free feed we'd surely be going a long way to reversing the current trend?

I don't think your study and research really counts your talking about little fish in a aquarium not big fish in a friggin huge ocean....

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southace said..
I don't think your study and research really counts your talking about little fish in a aquarium not big fish in a friggin huge ocean....

Mr southace, sir,.. this one comment from you indicates that you know nothing about it. Absolutely nothing.
Everything Gradient says is spot on.

Why do you think big fish in a big ocean would make the slightest bit of difference?
I don't see why it would make any difference at all and my bet is that it makes none.

The one and only controlling factor in any environment, big, small natural or contrived is free food and the risk involved in getting it.
Once any creature determines that there is free food available with no risk in getting it, they will be there. to take advantage of it.

I've seen it in any species I've come across, from reptiles up to large animals.
And reptiles have the most primitive brain structure there is, but they still behave the same way.
Their natural reaction is to escape from humans but within a year, with very little training, this can be reversed to the point where they will follow you to see if you will give them any food. Even just a small amount is enough to overcome their natural fear of people and their inclination to escape.

We have trained sharks to associate people with free food and we have taken away their fear of people by not harming them when they come up to take it.
We can hardly now be surprised to find they are not smart enough to determine who wants to see them up close and personal, and who does not.

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southace said...
I don't think your study and research really counts your talking about little fish in a aquarium not big fish in a friggin huge ocean....

You're joking, right?

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southace said..

I don't think your study and research really counts your talking about little fish in a aquarium not big fish in a friggin huge ocean....

No your wrong, there was a study where researchers have bred fish in captivity and when feeding time come around they had an under water speaker which would play a certain sound and the fish learn't that sound was associated with food.
They then released around 5,000 of these fish out into the ocean, automatic feeding station were setup on large buoys with underwater speakers and the same sound was played, after sometime they caught the mature fish when feeding around these buoys and recovered around 30% from memory.

Unfortunately, I think we are 'training them' or at least not discouraging them, from hanging around beaches where people swim. Naturally this is going to result in more attacks.

Alright Southface, I think you missed my point, small fish aren't that smart yet they learn very quickly because food is the best motivator for an animal to modify it's behavior. To give you a more easily understood example, I worked on rigs offshore for the last 15 years and every platform on the NW Shelf has a resident shark population. At an exact time everyday (depending on the facility) the sharks congregate below said platform in the area where all the left over food is discharged, they have it down to a tee because its worth their time. Same deal up and down our coast where you can hand feed the stingrays, they know people and actively approach for a handout.
So my pint was that we're actively training the sharks to hang out with us, we need to to the opposite and make human encounters a bad experience. All the drum lining will achieve is to lure more sharks to our coast line, of course they'll catch more and thus justify their use. There is a way to do the morally right thing and conserve the sharks whilst protecting ourselves but we have to do the research and find out what that is. It would be interesting for example to tag a dozen GW and monitor their movements for 2 years, then catch them and stick them in one of those fish farm enclosures and torture them every time humans are in the water over a period of a few months and then release and see if it's behavior has been modified.
Anyway if nothing else I think cage diving needs a serious looking at.
BTW sharks are perfectly capable of feeding themselves, they dont need handouts but if they get them they'll look for more so no I don't think not feeding them offshore will bring them closer inshore.

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southace said..

Ok and if we didn't feed them the tonnes of tuna chunks annually do you think it's possible that could cause a increase in sharks on our local beaches searching for a feed?

Or would the sharks catch the "tonnes of tuna chunks" themselves...?

And people are squawking that a hideous food chain imbalance will occur if we dare interfere. Ironic much?

And it would be so easy to test that theory.

Set up one cage dive location, burleigh the water to bring in great whites then hit them with a cattle prod, do that for one month and check if the big ones are still coming

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sebol said..

And it would be so easy to test that theory.

Set up one cage dive location, burleigh the water to bring in great whites then hit them with a cattle prod, do that for one month and check if the big ones are still coming

Something i found out is that Cage diverting operations actually don't chum that much. They dive were sharks are already in the area and find that when the chum the sharks behaviour is a little more agitated so they tend to only chum very small amounts. Its not like they are chucking entire dead sheep over board or anything. Its my understanding we are talking cups or small buckets over an entire day.. A couple of Cage divers don't even chum as they don't have a license to do so.

Every bit of footage I've seen of cage diving shows big hunks of meat in the water, chum, bait whatever the sharks come for a reason but I agree they're only a part of the overall trend to bring sharks in for close human interaction.

One thing I've noticed from spending time offshore observing sharks is they're pretty skittish and hate surprise even from from very minor things. I had a mate who had a thing for throwing nuts and bolts at sharks, every platform we went to he'd gather a depot of nuts and bolts at each corner of the rig so that whenever he saw one cruising on the surface he could throw something at it. He was a bad throw and I never actually saw him hit one but without fail even the biggest bronzies and tigers would bolt when something landed next to them. Having said that the sharks seem to have a thing for flying fish and the sound of one of them landing 100's of meters away would send packs of sharks tearing after them so sounds (or vibrations) that they recognise and are very sensitive to produce a certain response. I also observed a GW for about an hour down in Albany just cruising up and down a beach (at times within 10m of the beach!) whilst flying my paraglider. Eventually I decided to spiral down to him for a closer look but when my shadow passed in front he bolted full bore for open water and went deep. I wonder if the helicopter patrolling our coast has the same effect? These are the sorts of responses/behaviors we need to explore to develop personal protection strategies. Combine a workable personal protection device (the coloured boards and wetties seem a great start) with a concerted effort to stop feeding them and encouraging to come near us and I reckon we'd be a long way to stopping the attacks.

Some local fisherman got into trouble for feeding a old Dolphin that regularly comes near the boat ramp, they thought they were doing a good thing, apparently not. You are not even allowed to near dolphins, as per the same for whales.

One would have to imagine the days of shark cage diving would be limited.

Coming into Hillary's boat harbour (from the sea) i passed 9 large fish heads just floating in a line. Dropped by rec fisherman

Many are out and actively training

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Mark _australia said..
and also we protect sharks from fishing so numbers are higher than before we got here

I guess Mark is the only one older enough to confirm this. How do you know numbers are higher than before we got here ??