Eco-Tourism is the sharks only hope!

There has been a lot of blogging going on from the trash talking blog-dogs out there lately. Mostly on how to interact with sharks and how to conduct an eco-business. Here is the deal when it comes to Eco-tourism from my perspective - shark diving tourism, and catch and release shark fishing are the sharks only hope. I am not going to go into catch and release fishing in this blog, but regardless of my opinion, or your opinion, it is a necessary evil. Not everyone is going to dive with sharks, and sport fishing is the largest spenders of trickle down economics in the marine world. So more on them later.

Here is the deal - As I said, Eco-tourism is the sharks only salvation. The reality is, whether you like it or not - Governments do NOT care about sharks, or saving sharks - or the environment - THEY NEVER HAVE, AND THE NEVER WILL! What they care about are two things...money and votes. So if you have a lo

t of money you can convince the government to protect sharks, by throwing them large sums - then sharks will get some protection. But, if you do not have a shit load of money, then you better have the votes behind you to keep their butts in office. Other than that, they don't care about the cause, they care about their own agendas, and keeping and sustaining their power.

For a government official to care about creating marine protected parks, or shark sanctuaries, they need to have a good reason, and that reason is money - and money now. A government officials term is short so they need to make and steal as much as they can before their term is up, or they get booted out. A shark diving tax is a great incentive that puts money into a government officials pocket today and is a great way to ensure that sharks get protected in the long term. Right now the fishermen are the ones putting this kind of money into the officials pockets, so who do you think they are going to support when it is time to vote?

Anyone who believes that a government official is going to do the right thing is gravely mistaken and by the time they admit it or figure it out, it is going to be the death of the species. So the thing that is going to lead the charge for protecting sharks is creating shark parks, or shark sanctuaries, or marine reserves, or whatever you want to call it. Then bringing in eco-tourism to create a trickle down economy

that will benefit and stimulate the local economy, as well as tacking on a shark tax that could go into the appropriate hands to ensure that sharks will remain protected indefinitely.

I think that continuing to protect individual species of sharks globally is a noble effort, but is it enough? Truthfully - I believe that protecting individual species is a bandaid to a much bigger problem. Honestly - Do you really think that an Indian fisherman, or an Asian fishermen in a little panga in a third world country is gonna throw back a full grown oceanic whitetip, or a scalloped hammerhead because CITES has ruled that these species are uncatchable and must be thrown back. Hell no! If they can't sell it, (which they always will be able to, regardless of any CITES ruling), they will just eat it. They are just surviving, trying to feed their families, making money anyway they can. So government meetings and agendas, and conservationists hopes mean shit to them.

I wrote about this back in April but its worthy of a reminder...

-A true conservationists job and efforts needs to go into creating marine reserves, or shark parks, or shark santuaries. Of course these sanctuaries will fly better with officials if there is already eco-tourism in place. (they will see money much faster that way.)

-Another division of the conservation/eco-operators (joint effort is a must) job is to help create a policing effort to protect the parks. Funding must be created and raised for this very important job. Parks are pointless without protection.

-MORE Eco-operators need to be invited in to help stimulate the local businesses and creat trickle down economics. This is always the hard part, as shark operators are often greedy and hate to see competion come in. Trust me on this one, I am very well versed in this subject.

-At this point science should be invited in to find out where these sharks are going to breed? Or where these sharks are migrating to when they leave the area. That information could then be used to help create more shark sanctuaries...and the cycle begins again.

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The problem right now within the shark diving world, is there are too much politics. No one is communicating with each other, lots of back stabbing, and crying, and I'm right-they are wrong, BS. None of it works. We all don't have to like each other, we don't all have to get along, but if there really is any love for these animals, then we all need to set aside our egos, agree to disagree, and get the fucking job done.

Shark diving Road Trip Remembered...and planned! Venice Louisiana!

Its been a slow blogging month. Sorry about that. It is not that I have had nothing to blog about, it was that I was busy finishing up issue 20 and getting it ready for print. Now that it has left our office I am back in the groove of blogging and updating you all on our latest shark gossip. Currently the next adventure is planned for mid-May when Andy Murch comes thru town, we will visit with him and dive Venice, LA with my buddy Captain Al Walker.The Sdm cre with Capt. Al (L-R) Raf, Al, Andy, and me.
Captain Al runs his trips out to the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. These are always EPIC dives with intense shark action. This time of year, we could expect to see makos, or duskies, or scalloped hammerheads. This is the gulf and you never know what your gonna see out there, all I know is that it is going to be an intense dive. When your 60 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico, everything gets big, and the sharks are all skittish and amped up. One because we are chumming for them, and the sharks are on scavenger mode, and looking around for a free meal. My very favorite road trip pic from our film shoot Summer of the Sharks. Barbequeing, and drinking beer for our dinner, talking shark after the days dive, and drying gear in the hot Louisiana sun. It was perfect!
Venice is also the location of one of the most EPIC road trip stops I have ever been on. I am all about off the beaten path adventures and Livin the Dream...and so on. So when we arrived at the marina on our first day of this adventure I was blown away with the setting. It was super rustic, the fishermen had all come in after a long day on the water, their catches were all 100-200 pound tuna, and mahi, and wahoo. We had so much bait for our first day on the water, we had to throw a bunch a way. Its like Andy said in our film, Summer of the Sharks, "We have too much bait for tomorrow, you can't have too much bait, thats like saying I have too much money!"
Want big sharks? Use big bait!
I remember being in bed about to crash out on our first night there, when Capt Al called Rafa on his phone. I did not know what he was saying, all I could here was Rafa saying "No I don't want to go, but Eli will." I am am looking at him like he was out of his mind. I was dead tired and wanted to rest for the morning dive. I was shaking my head 'NO' at him. Rafa then said "ten minutes, yes he will be ready." My eyes went wide with anger. He hung up the phone, and I started saying, "Raf, what the hell man, I am in bed..." Raf cut me off and said, "Crawfish boil!" I jumped up, threw on some clothes, totally stoked about my first real Cajun crawfish party. Me and Rusty ate like crazy that night, and blew our chance to film or photograph it, because we did not think to bring the camera. I woke up hung over, but happy for our first day on the water, and totally burned my eyes putting on my contacts in the AM, due to the spices used on the crawdaddies.
Leaving the mrina there is so amazingly cool, we had to go out through this long channelto get to the ocean, and it was such an amazing setting, so fitting for a Luoisiana dive story. The boat ride was super rough,and it beat the hell out of us, but was so worth it. When we hit around 60 miles or so, Captain Al dropped anchor on a sea mount, and within 20 minutes or so, we had something like 20-30 dusky sharks around us. It was totally insane. Such an EPIC time, then at the end of the dive, not sure if it was our first or second day of the dive, another boat called out that they had just seen a whale shark not too far from where we were, so we hauled ass after the shark, breaking our rule that you don't leave sharks to find more sharks. And we didn't find it...in fact it found us. We turned off our boat, and just sat there scanning the water, before we knew it, a whale shark surfaced right next to the boat. Rusty was like, "What is that?", a huge head of a shark just surfaced, it was a mad scramble for gear and cameras. Such an awesome memory... such an awesome time.
So we head back there on May 9th, and this time it is me, Andy Murch and his fiance, Claire, Paul Spielvogel, and Nathan Meadows. All SDM shooters, together for one last hurrah before Andy leaves to Australia. Am totally stoked
13 days and counting!

Gulf of Mexico Bull shark project begins!

We kicked off our bull shark project yesterday. Me and photographer/artist Heather Ryan began by heading out to South Padre Island, Texas to talk to the local fishermen, and the shrimp boat captains to see when and where they normally see sharks. We went ahead and asked about the sharks they see, instead of trying to be too specific. The fishermen were a wealth of knowledge when it came to telling us where to find sharks and where to find bulls, as well as the peak season for finding sharks in the Gulf. After they found out we were with SDM, they invited us to join them this summer to see what it is all about. I would like to go and see what kind of sharks they are pulling up, maybe get a chance to tag them, and get some measurements on them. They normally keep what they catch, but I am hoping after reading a few issues of the mags that I left them, they might change their minds about catching and killing sharks. Always hoping!
After we left them we went to the harbor, to where the shrimp boats are kept. I jumped off to talk to them about their boats and what kind of sharks they see when out at sea. They said "It all depends on where they go." Out in Texas waters, they say they are infested with blacktips. Out near Louisiana, they always have a lot of scalloped hammerheads, as well as makos, and sometimes oceanics, and sometimes bulls! I was listening to these guys and I was just drooling, and getting so fired up about going shrimp boat diving again. But then I remembered why I was there, and focused on the project at hand.
The one thing we did notice, was there were a lot of 'for sale' signs on many of the shrimp boat warehouses. The shrimping industry is collapsing here in Texas, and after talking to the shrimpers and listening to their stories of how far out they have to travel to find shrimp, I can see why. A good trip will keep the boats out for maybe 35 days, but if they are having trouble finding shrimp they might stay out an extra 10 days to make the trip pay out. 45 days at sea is a long time to be away from your family, and wait for profits.
We also went down to the sea turtle conservatory, to see who and what the current programs are here on the island. These people are in charge of the conservation of sea turtles here on Padre, watching out for turtles that come on the beach to lay eggs, watching out for stranded or injured turtles and so on. They had this dead turtle on display which looked like it was killed by a tiger shark. This is how a tiger normally attacks and stalks its prey. From behind, biting off a fin to keep it from escaping. That was pretty cool to see. The turtle people would not be happy with my excitement, but shark people can understand!
So over all it was a good day on the beach, driving around asking questions, and getting invites from the fishermen and the bay shrimpers to watch them work. Not that I want to see sharks getting killed, that would hurt too much, but as ironic as it sounds, fishermen are vital in the efforts to help save the species. So we will see how the rest of the summer goes. Stay tuned for more info on our project...
Photographer/Artist Heather Ryan draws out our new logo for our Gulf of Mexico bull shark project Note the map behind her showing the gulf.