Spear fisherman kills tiger shark

Being a spearfisher myself, I think its sad that a tiger was killed most likely wrongly, but it also worries me what the public will think of spearfishers. I have never dived with sharks and I dont know how react facing one. But I do know that killing one would be a last resort, for me that is.

That being said I do know thrill of shooting a big fish and a big shark must be the ultimate prize plus it would look good as a front cover....

I just hope that all of this will give spearfishers an even worse rep...

Mads

I'm confused. Which shark is this? In one of the other links, there's another image that shows the guy holding the jaws and tail of the shark that's getting all the attention. Your photo shows guys with a shark that's been brought ashore. These must be two different sharks.

In any event, the fact that they killed the shark and brought it on board to hack off "trophies" certainly reveals that the "remorse" line was total bullshit. If you have to repel an animal to protect yourself, you do that and then you get the hell out of there. You don't spend hours shooting it again and again. Even if self defense was the initial impetus for shooting the shark, once these divers were safe and the shark was no longer a threat to anybody, the motive switched to the usual trophy-hunter stuff. One doesn't take a trophy unless one is proud of what they've done.

-Dan

http://www.merlospearguns.com/fish%20photos/tiger1.JPG

 

 

I count 5 spear holes in the roof of the mouth. BTW, they look really a bit chuffed for guys that were "broken up and somber" on the boat ride home.

Being a spearfisher myself, I think its sad that a tiger was killed most likely wrongly, but it also worries me what the public will think of spearfishers.

Thanks for adding a perspective from a spearfisher's side, meaning that it looks off to you also.

I have never been a fan of hunting, spearfishing etc, And if someone who does pursue it, like you do, is willing to jump into a thread like this (when it is pretty obvious how many are viewing it) is something I consider positive.

Now give up spearfishing and take photos

These guys seems to be very proud of what they have done unlike what the report says they were somber and sad about what they did! They must have planned to kill that shark. The shark doesn't show any aggressive signs towards them!

Good thing that spear fishing is illegal in the Maldives!!!!

Where Ce4jesus found that pic (please note NOT to embed pics you do not have permission for) seems to be another shark shot by someone else (like I said, it happens all too often).

Besides the "ethical fishing' aspect of spear fishing (which is highly contested by former spearos like Ron Taylor). It seems Ryan McInnis was shooting for his Podcast about freediving and spearfishing. DJ Strutz was the uw still photog. With my limited experience with tiger sharks, they would back off if something would fight back. They were chumming for tuna so the sharks would obviously come to check it out. In fact they had a silky photographed by Strutz being teased by the spearos.

http://outside.away.com/travel_photo_galle...?thisSpeed=9000

From that picture, it seems Kirkconnell (the other spearo) has at least fed sharks before. Without judging their choice of 'sport' or whether they actually desired to land a big shark, I will repeat that a speargun is more than enough to push a curious or even aggressive tiger shark back. They have no wish to be injured while hunting. I've seen this in great whites and other sharks. The only time it may not apply is in ambush predation, which this was obviously not. They could've aborted the dives but obviously they wanted to continue to chum and shoot, exacerbating the encounter towards its unfortunate ending.

Here is the CNN clip on youtube:

And here is the interviews on CNN:

Again Clasen seems to feel justified in his actions. Obviously he is VERY experienced but only in terms of swimming with sharks with chum in the water and not interaction. If this is the first time he's seen a big shark swim up to check out a person with chum in the water, then he hasn't seen too many sharks as I've had 2-4m sharks swim very close to me in blue water dives on quite a few occasions, often very frisky and aggressive as they were feeding. I've fended them off with the camera and fins but always got out of the water asap.

Still I do think they are taking advantage of the media frenzy and probably didn't expect such backlash for their hobby. I guess they don't think chumming the water for tuna would attract sharks (especially after 60+ collective years of experience).

It's funny how the negative reaction puts them on TV but yet no real journalist grilled them.

Seems like there is alot that can be asked.

With a tangle of lines hanging off the stern, Kirkconnell couldn't immediately speed over to McInnis. Clasen (nickname: "Ragin' Cajun"), still in the water and with just seconds to act, swam toward his friend, speargun in hand.

They had spearguns, and had the knives, but nothing around to cut the lines when the boat was 150' away and their friends were in immediate danger of a shark attack.

There were also some differences in that was reported, one account:

During the underwater struggle, Clasen speared the shark seven times and even attempted to drown it before finishing it off with a long-blade knife. It wasn't clear how often Clasen had to resurface to breathe. "Once I shot it in the gills I felt a moral obligation to finish the job," he said. "In the end we put a knife in its skull."

while another was

Every time he approached the fish underwater, it would snap violently to life, until finally he took a deep breath of air, swam down to 40 feet, slid under its belly, and wrestled the shark to the surface by its pectoral fins. "I had to bear-hug it to keep it from biting my head off," Clasen recalls. Kirkconnell threw him a rope, which he lassoed around the shark's tail. They dragged it behind the boat until it drowned.

All in all it just seems off....

Thanks for adding a perspective from a spearfisher's side, meaning that it looks off to you also.

 

I have never been a fan of hunting, spearfishing etc, And if someone who does pursue it, like you do, is willing to jump into a thread like this (when it is pretty obvious how many are viewing it) is something I consider positive.

 

Now give up spearfishing and take photos

Dont think that I could give up niether spearfishing or photography. Both is meditation to me.

I just wanted to state that we are not all mindless killers. Most of us only kill what we can eat.

There are much worse ways to catch and kill a fish than with a spear.

Mads

I hate the attention this is getting, especially whilst watching the video clips it is flashing shark attack statistics down the bottom. Just further bad media for sharks.

However in one article, and I agree with others here, if you have remorse you don't hack your kill up and have trophies, but this quote from the link below really bugs me

"Clasen told the magazine that on the way home from the kill, the friends ate a filet of the shark, sashimi-style. It tasted "terrible," he said."

http://news.aol.com/article/shark-video-tr...backlash/381492

I would have hoped that they would have given some numbers about sharks killed by humans instead.

Just wanted to say that none of my previous replies are hostile and i am sorry if they can be read that way.

Mads

Hi Mads

I think your input is very valued by Wetpixel members.

Hope you stick around

Karen

Of course i will stick around. Wetpxel is adictive....

Thanks Karen

Mads

Where Ce4jesus found that pic (please note NOT to embed pics you do not have permission for) seems to be another shark shot by someone else (like I said, it happens all too often).

I guess unauthorized reproductions of CNN video are fine though.

Sorry for the misinformation, the photo I pulled off was off of Scubaboard and referenced the two guys. The photo came from here and its obvious that this is a different shark.

http://www.merlospearguns.com/fishphotos.html

Hello Wetpixel community,

It is terribly unfortunate that my first post here is under these circumstances. I won't ask you to change your opinions but at least you will know that I am accountable for my actions and I respect you as my peers. I'm not here to make excuses nor to apologize, but to at the least give you a few details. I started scuba diving at age 12, 22 years ago. I have a degree in marine biology from UNC Wilmington and have dove in 25 foreign countries. I was a padi msdt for 10 years and I've had major type II dcs hits twice due to a PFO and don't scuba anymore after 3500 logged dives. I've been filming marine life for 12 years as a hobby and spearfish occasionally because I don't buy fish at restaurants or the grocery store. Below you will find my honest depiction of what has transpired, it is the truth, take it or leave it.

- This did happen 9 months ago, and I did put the original footage of the shark in an episode of my podcast. We were in the Gulf to have some fun hunting tuna and create promotional material for a company (please note that the company name nor my podcast were ever mentioned in the interviews). At that time I didn't bring light to the fact that it was killed because it's something we aren't proud of and the animal is very beautiful alive and swimming as seen. That's the type of content I try to capture on camera.

- We had been at the same rig for 2 days, we had used chum for the tuna and had of course interacted with Silkies and even a few Hammerheads. When the Tiger appeared it was the end of day 2 and we were done with our fishing activities. There was no bait or struggling fish around. I was filming squid and in my distraction had irresponsibly drifted about 150 feet away from Craig/DJ who were handing guns up to Cam on the boat.

- I got 'that' feeling, turned around and saw the shark broadside 15' away. I pressed record as it turned and charged. I flattened out and prepared to hit it's snout with the camera. It turned away less than 1' from camera (elapsed time 7 seconds). I yelled for support, Craig/DJ sprinted over to me as the shark came back in. Floatlines were fouling the props so Cam couldn't operate the boat over to us. The shark began a tight circle to our right, arched back and fins down. Craig was in the middle, I was behind and to his left, DJ behind and to his right with an unloaded gun. It turned in towards DJ with aggressive intent and Craig fired into it's gills (elapsed time 35 seconds). It took 3 more shafts, 'wrestling' it to the surface, tailroping and dragging it backwards, then severing the spine with a knife before it was dead (elapsed time almost 2 hours). Leaving it wounded wasn't an option. DJ and I documented all this because we are camera people and that's what we do.

- We unquestionably ate a bite each and then contemplated what to do. The jaws and tail were taken to use for educational purposes, not as trophies. We didn't want to waste the fish completely, I haven't asked Craig where they are but they were intended for a school. The photo of him displaying them was for scale of the size of the shark, he is smiling however, but I feel it is from disbelief/shock not pride, there was no high-fiving taking place. DJ regrets that photo getting out and I'm not sure how it did but it is very misconstrued. I was on the bow of the boat during this saying a prayer for the fish and myself and quietly weeping.

- The OUTSIDE article originated from DJ submitting other pics from that trip and was intended to bring light to spearfishing being an ethical practice and clean fishery. Once the shark incident was mentioned in conversation they insisted on running that in the story but promised to portray it accurately and I feel they did. We aren't the first to have killed a shark in self defense (Terry Maas, Roberto Reyes), it's a rare and remorseful risk when spearfishing.

- An online news article in the UK stemming from the OUTSIDE one ran last week and got 10 million hits the first day. We didn't know this was happening, and the article was grossly exaggerated and inaccurate. It was twisted into a 'hero' battles man-eater with no regard for the truth. A friend brought it to my attention wednesday afternoon and I thought "uh-oh, please don't let this happen...".

- Thursday morning at 6am our phones were exploding from the networks calling to book us to get the story. We really had no choice because the facts had been lost, the story was everywhere and our primary concern was the fallout within the freediving/spearfishing/ocean enthusiast community. If you're reading this then it was for respect for you that we went to New York to face the music. I feel that to have done nothing would be even worse.

It's over now and I'm looking forward to getting back to a peaceful life on the coast. It's so unfortunate that all this craziness came from the worst day of diving in my life. And although I truly believe we had no other option, ask myself daily 'why didn't it just keep swimming?' But I also wonder what may have happened if I had continued shooting those squid for another few seconds and not turned around...

I've turned down Discovery and Animal Planet sensation show offers, but have opened discussion with them about me participating in a shark awareness/conservation production as an attempt to atone for the damage done by this press. I don't expect forgiveness but I want it to be known that for me this isn't over. Regardless, I have even more respect for the ocean now than before any of this and I appreciate all of your input and objections because I truly regret what has come of this. Please PM me if anyone would like further information, there is nothing to hide.

Ryan McInnis

Ryan,

Thank you for jumping on here and telling your story. I should have known better than to make a judgement based on what was in the media. The picture posted was pretty damning when posted, without your side of it. I hope you'll stick around Wetpixel and contribute once in a while.

Steve

- I got 'that' feeling, turned around and saw the shark broadside 15' away. I pressed record as it turned and charged. I flattened out and prepared to hit it's snout with the camera. It turned away less than 1' from camera (elapsed time 7 seconds). I yelled for support, Craig/DJ sprinted over to me as the shark came back in. Floatlines were fouling the props so Cam couldn't operate the boat over to us. The shark began a tight circle to our right, arched back and fins down. Craig was in the middle, I was behind and to his left, DJ behind and to his right with an unloaded gun. It turned in towards DJ with aggressive intent and Craig fired into it's gills (elapsed time 35 seconds). It took 3 more shafts, 'wrestling' it to the surface, tailroping and dragging it backwards, then severing the spine with a knife before it was dead (elapsed time almost 2 hours). Leaving it wounded wasn't an option. DJ and I documented all this because we are camera people and that's what we do.

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for your side of the story. I wonder if you can elaborate on what happenned after the shark was speared the first time.

I neglected to note that the footage provided was very limited because of the graphic content. I only gave in to their requests hoping it would assist in our defense, it did the opposite. The minimal licensing fees required for handling from DJ's media agent will go to a good cause... I'm open for suggestions.

Andre after the first shot the shark dove deep. Craig was rigged for tuna with 2 inline 30 liter floats. The shot was lethal and the fish lethargic once he recovered it to about 50' depth (elapsed time 45 minutes). A second shot was placed in the head from above and we thought it was over. His arms were fatigued so he went down to surface it swimming but upon contact it would come around again thus the multiple follow-up shots. Once finally surfaced it was still alive and every effort we made was to end the struggle, just like we would do for any fish.

Unlike the media's depiction, truthfully the only very dangerous time was in the initial interactions. Once wounded the shark only posed a threat to Craig during the recovery, a risk he willfully exposed himself to in order to finish the deed.

Ryan

I wasn't there, Ryan is clearly a brave guy to post after so many negative responses, and we know how the media mangle a story.

This sounds like another failure of the free press to go any deeper than the superficial "dog bites man... again!" story.

How many thousands of positive shark encounters will be needed to restore the balance?

I despair....

Tim

Welcome to WP Ryan, I too wish it were under better circumstances. It is commendable of you to come on here and brave the criticism and give your side of the story. I'd first like to say that my insinuations about the promotional aspects of this incident came from the links from the Nola and other articles to your company website which showed your podcast. It was not due to the reports from the media directly. If my suggestions are offensive, I apologize for that.

Let's be also be realistic about the media. Most of the TV show variety aren't going to do due diligence and they need to sensationalize it. It also doesn't help when the people who killed the shark claim it was attacking them. So obviously the shark is going to be painted the menace.

According to Ryan's account, the crew was packing it in after a day of shooting, which means there was already bait and dead fish in the water earlier. Sharks can detect blood miles away and any splashing about in the water is investigated. That includes humans snorkeling. As a spearo, I'm sure you know the theory that fish know where our eyes are. The tiger was investigating the splashing and scent and circled behind you. I've had many sharks do that to me, it's unnerving especially when you're bumped from behind by a shark. As was shown by that video from that idiotic TV show trying to depict tigersharks as killers, their normal behavior is to bump and 'test' the 'prey' to ascertain risk. It took hours for a fish filled dummy in a neoprene suit to finally get bitten by tiger sharks. That's their normal approach for scavenging food as predation behaviorologists I know have suggested.

I was on a boat full of spearos in the Mozambique Channel before where we had tiger sharks following the boat because of the trail of fish scent being washed overboard constantly from the kills. A few said they'd shoot the shark for merely fighting over the kill. Fortunately, the boat captain ruled if a shark comes, dump the kill and call to be picked up. Ethics is highly subjective. I'm sure that many people would kill if they felt threatened. The self-preservation drive is in all of us. The point is that the sharks are doing their thing in an environment created by chumming and spearfishing. Without the blood scent, the sharks would most likely investigate from a distance.

Considering Ryan's account, I do stand by my opinion that the experience Craig and other spearos like Terry have do not represent the true animal intent, but are the projections of the spearos themselves. Sharks will investigate and test "prey'. It's what they do when they investigate food opportunities so the killing was unnecessary. It is purely conjecture as to what the intentions of the tiger Clasen shot. If Clasen had the experience to use the spears to fend off the shark for a few more minutes, perhaps it would've continued swimming or at least given the rest of the crew time to board the boat. We'll never know now.

There are many on this board who have dived into chummed waters with many tiger sharks mulling around. A few of them are even operators of shark diving. There are no spearguns on such dives. I also offer evidence by my buddy Monty who was the diver in this video (and whose story has gotten better over the years)

The point of this thread shouldn't be to just condemn the killing but to hopefully educate spearos about shark behavior and help prevent anymore incidents like this from happening. The condemnation is unfortunately part of the process ( and I, for one, am part of it, even if in tongue and cheek mode). What Mike L said is very true. If you are going to put yourself in such an environment, you'd better accept the risks of very hard encounters with large predators.

Ironically, the fact you feel you have to defend yourself for killing the shark is already a step in the right direction. 10 years ago, there wouldn't be as many condemnations. The public are becoming more aware of the plight of sharks, at least in the US. That can only be a good thing.

Ryan, I am sorry that this event has had a negative effect on your life. However something positive can come out of this, especially since you aspire to protect sharks. You can use your influence on spearos to show them how sharks react in approach and that with a speargun as a stick to keep the shark at bay, it is not necessary to kill the shark in 'self-defence' except in ambush attack situations (in which case, you'd unlikely see it coming). If you want to talk to predation experts on this, feel free to email me and I'll put you in touch with them. There are quite a few docos discussing this already, including Ralf Kiefner's Beyond Fear.

Again, I'm sorry to welcome you to wetpixel under these circumstances.

- We had been at the same rig for 2 days, we had used chum for the tuna and had of course interacted with Silkies and even a few Hammerheads. When the Tiger appeared it was the end of day 2 and we were done with our fishing activities. There was no bait or struggling fish around. I was filming squid and in my distraction had irresponsibly drifted about 150 feet away from Craig/DJ who were handing guns up to Cam on the boat.

 

- I got 'that' feeling, turned around and saw the shark broadside 15' away. I pressed record as it turned and charged. I flattened out and prepared to hit it's snout with the camera. It turned away less than 1' from camera (elapsed time 7 seconds). I yelled for support, Craig/DJ sprinted over to me as the shark came back in. Floatlines were fouling the props so Cam couldn't operate the boat over to us. The shark began a tight circle to our right, arched back and fins down. Craig was in the middle, I was behind and to his left, DJ behind and to his right with an unloaded gun. It turned in towards DJ with aggressive intent and Craig fired into it's gills (elapsed time 35 seconds). It took 3 more shafts, 'wrestling' it to the surface, tailroping and dragging it backwards, then severing the spine with a knife before it was dead (elapsed time almost 2 hours). Leaving it wounded wasn't an option. DJ and I documented all this because we are camera people and that's what we do.

 

- We unquestionably ate a bite each and then contemplated what to do. The jaws and tail were taken to use for educational purposes, not as trophies. We didn't want to waste the fish completely, I haven't asked Craig where they are but they were intended for a school. The photo of him displaying them was for scale of the size of the shark, he is smiling however, but I feel it is from disbelief/shock not pride, there was no high-fiving taking place. DJ regrets that photo getting out and I'm not sure how it did but it is very misconstrued. I was on the bow of the boat during this saying a prayer for the fish and myself and quietly weeping.

 

- The OUTSIDE article originated from DJ submitting other pics from that trip and was intended to bring light to spearfishing being an ethical practice and clean fishery. Once the shark incident was mentioned in conversation they insisted on running that in the story but promised to portray it accurately and I feel they did. We aren't the first to have killed a shark in self defense (Terry Maas, Roberto Reyes), it's a rare and remorseful risk when spearfishing.

 

- An online news article in the UK stemming from the OUTSIDE one ran last week and got 10 million hits the first day. We didn't know this was happening, and the article was grossly exaggerated and inaccurate. It was twisted into a 'hero' battles man-eater with no regard for the truth. A friend brought it to my attention wednesday afternoon and I thought "uh-oh, please don't let this happen...".

 

- Thursday morning at 6am our phones were exploding from the networks calling to book us to get the story. We really had no choice because the facts had been lost, the story was everywhere and our primary concern was the fallout within the freediving/spearfishing/ocean enthusiast community. If you're reading this then it was for respect for you that we went to New York to face the music. I feel that to have done nothing would be even worse.

 

It's over now and I'm looking forward to getting back to a peaceful life on the coast. It's so unfortunate that all this craziness came from the worst day of diving in my life. And although I truly believe we had no other option, ask myself daily 'why didn't it just keep swimming?' But I also wonder what may have happened if I had continued shooting those squid for another few seconds and not turned around...

I've turned down Discovery and Animal Planet sensation show offers, but have opened discussion with them about me participating in a shark awareness/conservation production as an attempt to atone for the damage done by this press. I don't expect forgiveness but I want it to be known that for me this isn't over. Regardless, I have even more respect for the ocean now than before any of this and I appreciate all of your input and objections because I truly regret what has come of this. Please PM me if anyone would like further information, there is nothing to hide.

 

Ryan McInnis

so its clear, this is D.J. Struntz...the photographer who was in the water...hmmmm...i've been watching these threads for a few days thinking if i wanted to post...as a photojournalist, my job is to document events where-ever, when-ever and what-ever without bias...i find it interesting that photographers document war, famine, and all types of attrocities against other humans without being demonized...if anything, i think its a sad commentary on humans that this story draws such reaction when so many more terrible and wonderful things are taking place in this world. The photos were originally released to Outside magazine for a feature that was to focus on the incredible diving on the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico...Obviously, the photos of the tiger encounter have quite an impact so they were included by the magazine which touched off this whole thing. The account that ryan gave of the incident is true...there was no chum or dead or dying fish in the water at the time of the encounter...I've been diving with sharks sans speargun for 29 years, and have never had an encounter like this one...if getting into the boat had been an option at the time I would have gladly taken it as would have everyone else involved...Craig had to make a split second decision and it is what it is. He didn't do it for the camera, the are always video cameras in the water when these guys dive so if he had wanted to shoot a shark on film, he could have done it a thousand times over on past trips...he finished it, so he didn't leave a large mortally wounded animal to die over an extended period...Yes there are photos with the jaws...I took those to show scale and if craig is smiling, imagine how much adrenaline was draining from his system at the time...Craig made the best decision he could at the time...Did anyone involved want the sitiuation to end the way it did-NO...If we wanted "fame" it would have gone to press instantly-not 9 months later--the magazine article was supposed to provide an accurate account and had they not included the shark photo, it never would have gone public...at that point, with so much outcry, we felt that a true account of the events needed to be clarified...what kills me is that when I have tried to get photos of shark finning or fisheries bycatch published in the past no one cares, but since this was a one on one encounter, there is outcry...wholesale slaughter seems to be the way to go in our society-no one notices or wants to get involved...I was documenting the cleanest fishery of them all because it is so selective and unfortunetly on this trip, a shark was killed. Hopefully, if the images are as they emotive as they seem to be, it starts a dialogue that both educates spearos and brings focus among the general public on the fate of sharks in the oceans...spearfishing isn't a viable threat to shark populations -commercial overfishing of prey stocks and shark stocks combined with man-made environmental contamination are the real dangers...i would love to see less emotion and more science in this discussion...i spent over 10 years of my life as a dedicated marine research biologist and remain hopeful that my collegues who continue to work day in and day out to protect and conserve our oceans can and will make a difference...

...and baiting in hundreds of sharks to make a dime off tourists IS ethical? There are advertisers on this site, and I bet many forum members that pay or have paid to have someone feed a shark so it's picture could be taken. We know what happens to bears that become conditioned to humans directly or indirectly providing a food source. That's not what we do.

We all live in glass houses.