MadWoffen said:
I didn't notice you lived in the Cape. So why not, you can still make a week-end trip to enjoy it. If you like it, ok...if not, at least you didn't make such a big trip for that. I mean, some pepople may find themselves disapointed by being "handled" from start to finally only be in cage for 10 minutes just after paying the fee. Imagine someone coming from Europe, he could be rather dispaointed.
As being disrupting to the white shark, that's a tough question I think even a marine biologist would not be able to answer properly to this question. Great whites are amongst the most intelligent hunters and one of the only shark in the world to see above water (read: to have conscience of a world above the sea). They are also migratory and their social interaction is still a mistery and lot has still to be discovered. I think this would be the main point for a biologist against white shark feeding: to "pollute" the social study of the shark with artificial interferences.
A small side note: the great white is in fact...blue. Only the belly is white but according to some witnesses (serious ones) and oral tradition, there is a real white shark between the western region of Australia (IIRC) and Madagascar which length would be of...20 to 40 meters! None has ever been captured but there are some few physical evidences: in 1954, a merchant ship thought it hit a reef. When they entered the dock for repairs (in Adelaide), they noticed a circle of 2 meters arount the propeller made of teeth of 20 cm of average. According to specialist, that shark should be at least of 24 meters... Quite an huge monster and twice the size of the bigger white shark captured/killed. These same teeth have been found by an oceanographic ship, the Challenger, in the 19th century. These teeth were not fossilized but correspond point to point to ancient sharks' teeth considered vanished now for several thousands years: the Megalodon.
But a tooth is not sufficient for modern biology to acknowledge the existence of an animal. You need to have one complete to do so.
There are still a lot to explore in the deeps. ;-)
P.S.: diving isn't that expensive altough it depends which system you use. Make a check among the several diving federations you must have in SA.
"Amor e morte": any Portuguese origine by chance ? (I'm born in Angola).
Oh, misunderstanding, I don't live in the Cape, I live up here in Gangster's Paradise, Gauteng, more specifically, Pretoria. The closet beach to me is 8 hours drive, but that's on the North coast, no Great Whites there. I have to go down to The Cape, which is about 16 hours drive with a car. That's why I meant it's a bit impossible for me to do regular visits to learn how to dive
It's not really the equipment and lessons I'm worried about, more the distance, accomodation etc....kind of eat into ones pocket
You are right, proving that cage dives are harmful to them is unclear. I've been looking around on the web now, a question was raised about the fact that they see the humans as bait, because everytime they have this food falling from above, there are humans about, and through the process of conditioning they might eventually be more aggressive towards humans. However, this is being disputed because Great Whites are such nomadic creatures, their territories range over vast areas, even continents (I didn't know that) and research shows that they never stay in one spot long enough to become conditioned. Also the fact that sharks cannot mentally seperate the cage from the humans inside plays a factor in that statement.
I knew about Great Sharks being blue and the belly white, but the story you told of the Giant Great Whites is completely news to me. I never really questioned why they are called Great Whites. Truly interesting that. I would think twice about cage diving if that was the standard size for them
I wonder if it's true, it would be marvellous if it was
The deep sea is a mystical place yeah?
While browsing for info I came across this sad news: 100,000,000 sharks are killed each year by humans, usually through fishing. They are, as a result, on a collision course with extinction. Great White Sharks are the last wild predator on earth that we cannot tame; from that point of view alone it deserves our respect and attention. They cannot replace their stocks to keep up with human exploitation, such as say, sardines can. The Great White Shark female takes approximately 15 years to become sexually mature, and the male about 8 years. At these ages the female will be around five meters long and the male around four meters long. The Great White Sharks' fecundity is low, so the female may possibly only give birth to several litters of pups in a lifetime and these litters are relatively small, ranging from about seven to eleven pups in a litter. So due to the shark's inability to reproduce quickly, stock replacement is not occurring and subsequently the populations of the world are fast diminishing. In fact, they are being wiped out far quicker than most people realise, with many species critically endangered and some species literally on the brink of extinction. And that makes me feel sick
I take it you have left Angola a long time ago, to Belgium then? The African continent is going downhill fast, you can be lucky you don't live here anymore, although, I do think Angola is a tad bit safer than what SA is right now
"Amor e Morte" is Latin, it means "Love and Death"
Sounds portugese doesn't it?
Thank you for all the interesting facts :tup:
