This was posted by a local operator from a shark dive last week in Beqa Lagoon, Fiji. The camera rig was not recovered. Yikes!

There are a couple of operators in Beqa that run these baited shark dives. I’m really not a fan of behaviour modification for my entertainment - when the sharks are trained that boat + splash = food, I don’t want to be the splash! I did this dive 20 years ago and only nurse sharks turned up. Now they are regularly attracting bulls and tigers. I am always thrilled to see them under natural conditions but will stay away from artificial feeding frenzies.

Edited Sunday at 01:30 AM2 days by Troporobo
Typo

I'm not a fan of these dives either.

Spectacular series of shots tho 🙂 Most sharks will n e v e r come close enough for photos w/o something to attract them, which might be fine. An acquaintance diver lost a rig in a similar fashion to a tiger shark in the Aldabra atoll some 20 years ago. Think it made the tv news in his home country (Netherlands) .

The first minute of this video shows what the dive is like. This is the operator’s official version, there are many more on YT that confirm the scene as recently as last week. I understand why some people would find it exciting. It looks like a circus to me, a risky one at that.

To be clear, this is a very good operator that’s done a lot for conservation. I dive with them regularly, just not on the shark experience.

Beqa shark dive

Maybe the shark was offended the diver was only shooting with an action cam?

changing the behaviour of wild animals to associate scuba divers with food

it IS only a matter of time before......

It happend.

In Nouvelle Calédonie a diver was injured the third of january
REQUIN. Le "craquage de bouteille", une pratique mise en cause dans l'attaque d'un plongeur le 3 janvier en Calédonie

With plastic bottle he made noise like the noise when a shark is eating a fish...

The shark came and ... :(

Translation
"Avoiding "an overreaction" and "unnecessary fear"

"I am testifying today because accurate data is the only way for organizations and the government of New Caledonia to make informed decisions about shark management," the witness defended. I want to avoid an overreaction from the authorities, such as the killing of sharks, which often occurs when the facts of an incident are misunderstood. Making the truth known also helps protect the local diving industry from the economic damage that unnecessary fear can cause."
"A very dangerous way of proceeding"

In another testimony, a couple of Australian tourists claim to have witnessed the cracking of a bottle during a dive in New Caledonia in October. "One thing we observed was that the instructors had brought plastic bottles underwater during the dives so that they could create this cracking sound in the water and to attract sharks. "It's a very dangerous way of proceeding," warns the man, "because we don't know exactly how sharks can react to this."

"I think there's a difference between trying to deliberately trigger a certain behavior," she adds, "instead of just observing how the animal evolves in its natural environment."

Like "a devoured fish skeleton"

Unlike shark feeding, this sensory stimulation technique is not prohibited in New Caledonia. Claude Maillaud has been cataloguing attacks for years. Asked about this, he believes that this could partly explain the attack on January 3. "It could reproduce the cracking of a fish skeleton that is devoured by a shark."

A bull shark, to be precise. According to Claude Maillaud, the shark that attacked a scuba diver's forearms on January 3rd at the large bend in Kele reef was a female, approximately three meters long, and was clearly identified

I would have thought that a 3m bull shark could do a lot worse than bite you on both forearms if it was in the mood

18 minutes ago, Mike Saunders said:

if it was in the mood

It wasn't... good for the diver... no?