Like most people who have weighed in on this subject, I'm very sorry to have heard that this incident occured and my condolences to the Groh family and friends. I've recently been assigned to do an article on this issue and I'm trying to look at it objectively from my perspective as both a photographer and biologist. I'm wondering if anyone knows of scientific studies (not performed by operators) that have focused on regular feeding or baiting sharks and their behavior.
Ethan
www.oceanstockimages.com
My experience, in a seven year study involving identification and keeping track of close to six hundred sharks relative to six feeding locations, interspersed with swimming with the residents in between feedings, was that sharks AVOID biting companion animals at feedings, and at other times, presumably due to the harm they mutually inflict with their bites. They see humans as other animals in the submarine community, not prey.
This shark attack mania tendency is really corrosive to any thinking about sharks.
Ila
