This so upset me when I heard about it a couple of weeks ago.  My biggest thrill when diving is seeing a shark.  OK, turtles too!  I have had 30 to 40 Caribbean reef sharks within feet of me at one time, a Hammerhead 20 or so feet away from me and it thrills me beyond belief.

I did my first shark dive in 2000.  That was my goal for year 2000.  I looked in the water from the live-a-board and could see sharks in the water.  I then thought, maybe it isn't my goal.  :-\  None the less I jumped in and sharks have been a total obsession.  I was in the Bahamas and we went over a black hole.  Sharks just kept coming out of it.  I didn't want the dive to end.

Also did a shark feed dive.  I know they are controversial but my take on it is that it helps if I can leave the dive and tell people how amazing sharks are and we should preserve them, maybe, just maybe people will see that they are not the man eating, blood thirsty creatures that many fear.  As the live-board only goes there once a week for a feeding, the sharks are not dependent on the food.  It is just a tasty treat.  I giggled during the dive thinking they are laughing at the goofy tourists kneeling on the sand in 50 feet of water watching them eat.

Why they just didn't free that shark is beyond me.  They totally destroyed one of the greatest predators of the sea and just, once again...destroyed part of the most amazing ecosystems in the world.  The ocean!

Have I ever mentioned that I don't like many people?  When I say that at work, most people reply...Yes, yesterday!

On a funny shark note, I did a dive a few years ago on another trip.  The dive was only 20 feet deep and it was a night dive.  We were at a wreck in the Bahamas and were going to see the sleeping Loggerhead turtles.  It was a stormy night so only 6 of us did the dive.  For about 30 minutes, I lay on the sand and patted a Loggerhead.  He was about 5 feet long.  He would open his blinky sleeping eyes, look at me and close his eyes.  I knew he could feel that I was touched spiritually.  I had tears streaming down the inside of my mask.

At the end of the dive, my buddy shone his flashlight in a little cave.  There was a sleeping nurse shark.  I guess the light startled him or her and it swam out and stopped right in front of our faces (within a foot) and stared.  It seemed like an hour but was probably only 60 seconds.  I was upright, feet not touching the bottom and my legs were spread apart to stay buoyant.  The nurse shark then swam right through my legs! 

Di

I loved the movie Jaws when I was a child but ever since I became a diver I abhor any thing that makes these beautifull creatures out to be something they are not. Some of my favorite dives have all included sharks as well, and they amaze me every time.

So nice of them to kill this very rare shark!  >:(
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070207/sc_afp/japanwildlifeshark_070207172210

maybe one day one of the fishermen will get caught in his own net....and we can put him on display at a zoo!

I'm not surprised.  There's a lot of protest about the conditions of the "aquariums" here--most dolphins and killer whales
only survive 2-3 years at most.

Plus, You've probably heard about the yearly Dolphin Slaughter that goes on here.
The bay turns bright red with all the blood.

>:( >:( >:(

To me this is a no-brainer: Those sharks live in very deep waters for a reason, just like we live on land for a reason. Why isn't crap like this illegal??? Leave those poor dudes (the sharks, not the stupid people) alone; they never did anything to anyone, except to survive their natural ecosystem. I think it is a flaw that many humans have, is that since we are so "smart", that gives us a right to mess with mother nature. Well mother nature is getting pissed off, and we will pay the price someday for it. "Give a Monkey a Brain, and He'll Think He's The Center of the Universe" ~~ Fishbone

I read other articles about this.  They are usually caught dead or wash up on a beach dead.  It's always sad when a living thing dies.  The silver lining is that by studying creatures like this rare shark when we get the chance, we learn more about the ocean and its inhabitants.  The more the public and scientists know about various creatures and their ecosystems, the more likely those people will be to care about them (and not destroy them, eat them or exploit them).  It's marine biologists & other scientists that have been championing the cause of environmental conservation...