Shark Attack – Does Cage Diving Increase The Risks?
If you’d like to go shark cage diving but a little voice is telling you it’s wrong because there is a suspicion that the practice leads to an increase in shark attacks then read this for some clarification. There is a massive debate raging about whether cage diving is causing shark attacks to increase in frequency. The cage diving detractors say that we are conditioning sharks to associate humans with food because many of the cage diving operators use food thrown overboard into the water to attract the sharks closer to the boats. This practice is known as chumming. They also make use of bait on a hook to bring the sharks closer to the cage once the divers have climbed inside. The reasoning is that when the sharks find humans in the water at other times they will be expecting food too and this causes attacks on swimmers and surfers in the area to increase. South Africa is at the forefront of these allegations because the cage diving industry is based on the Western Cape shoreline there
