Another Bad Accident Waiting to Happen?

Shark dives involving baiting or feeding are popular revenue sources for dive operations in many parts of the world, but they are not without incident.

In recent years, diving with tiger sharks has become popular at the Maldivian island of Fuvahmulah, in Nyaviyani Atoll, but alarm bells have started to ring as some fear an accident is about to happen. After all, shark feeding has had its victims elsewhere.

Fiji, French Polynesia, the Bahamas

Stuart Cove's operation in New Providence, the Bahamas, has an enviable track record for safety with a feed that attracts dozens of Caribbean reef sharks; the feeder dresses in a helmet and chainmail suit. However, a shark once caught its teeth in the metal sleeve and, in a struggle to get free, broke bones in the man's hand, arm, and shoulder. No longer a shark feeder, the man now runs a website called bittenbysharks.com.

Before Stuart required helmets for shark feeders, a shark bit Michelle Cove on her head. The injury was so bad the dive boat captain fainted when he saw her climb aboard.

About 18 miles north of West End near Grand Bahama Island, Florida's Jim Abernethy stages shark feeds. In 2017, he was bitten by a reef shark during one of those busy shark moments, leading to a Coast Guard helicopter flight to West Palm Beach, where he was treated for a healthy bite to his arm.

Abernethy, whose dive operation is in Riviera Beach, Florida, was not, himself, his first victim. In 2008, an Austrian tourist died after a shark mauled him during an excursion sponsored by Abernethy's Scuba Adventures. https://tinyurl.com/582jx7mc

Nowadays, Abernethy attracts lemon and tiger sharks by dangling a bait box in the water; the scent is sufficient to lure in the animals. Other dive operators use a frozen barrel of fish bait suspended on a wire.

In Beqa Lagoon, Fiji, operators such as Beqa Adventure Divers and AquaTrek attract up to eight shark species. A feeder equipped with a helmet, chain mail gloves, and sleeves carefully doles out fish pieces with divers marshaled safely behind him. They've had a few anxious moments with a resident tiger shark.

The International Shark Attack File of the Florida Museum of Natural History listed 22 provoked shark bites in 2023. "Provoked bites occur when a human initiates interaction with a shark in some way. These include instances when divers are bitten after harassing or trying to touch sharks, bites on spearfisherman, bites on people attempting to feed sharks, bites occurring while unhooking or removing a shark from a fishing net, and so forth."

The Maldives

Local divers in the Maldives may not be aware of accidents that happen elsewhere. Fuvahmulah Island, about 300 miles south of the capital, Male, was a traditional fishing community until a few years ago and is now one of the more affordable Maldives' tourist destinations, with small hotels and restaurants for tourists. A submerged reef extends deep toward the ocean floor, home to a rare combination of pelagic life, threshers, oceanic mantas, and whale sharks.

Local fishermen have always dumped fish viscera off the island, and a sizable shark population developed to feed in the channel leading to the harbor and the fishing docks. About 10 years ago, dive operators realized that the tiger sharks that inhabit that channel were a draw to divers and started promoting shark dives. Today, there are 13 dive centers.

The operators claim that tiger sharks are not aggressive and they can provide safe diving daily. But big tiger sharks move ponderously and can be quite sneaky at stealing up on a victim. They have a quick burst of speed and a mouth full of exceedingly sharp teeth. Naturally curious, they have a catholic diet and scavenge a wide range of items: paint tins and car tires have been found in their stomachs.

Visiting divers are given a comprehensive briefing and a stick to fend off these big sharks if they become too inquisitive, just as divers are given billy sticks at Tiger Beach in the Bahamas.

Fuvahmulah Dive Center states on its website that they do not feed the sharks. (They don't need to because the sharks have been there since the island was inhabited). However, plenty of online videos show local divers (maybe from other dive centers) who don't even wear wetsuits, let alone expensive chain mail protection, feeding the sharks dead fish with unprotected hands. In fact, local young men are tempted to display bravado with the sharks and attempt to outdo each other in acts of daring.

Saeed Rashid. a well-known photographer and journalist, wrote online, "Even without the sharks, the diving takes place in the mouth of an active harbor with constant boat traffic. That can be scary for anyone, let alone an utterly inexperienced diver. It's at times like these when accidents happen, and we can all see the headlines. Some kind of regulation is clearly needed.

"My hope is that there isn't an accident at Fuvahmulah before rules can be brought in. Whether it involves a tiger shark or not, this fledgling industry, potentially beneficial to sharks, would be in danger.

"When I met the current mayor of the island, Ismail Rafeeq, I mentioned my concerns. He said he was aware of current practices, which he wants to change. Ismail would like to bring in global regulations for all, and extra taxes on the divers to pay for things like an education center and maybe shark rangers to make sure people are diving safely. These all sound like great moves forward but often rely on cooperation between competing dive businesses, which isn't always the easiest to get."

Undercurrent has recently reported on near-misses with sharks at other Maldives' locations, most notably at a dive site close to the international airport. The Maldives Tourism Ministry declared shark-feeding illegal there in 2021, in response to an increasing number of incidents. But that does not seem to have deterred the shark baiters of Fuvahmulah.

-John Bantin, author, Shark Bytes