Great White Shark vs. Man

Today off our local California coast we had an unfortunate meeting of apex predator versus man. You can imagine who came out ahead...

There are many misconceptions concerning the great white shark, and a general attitude of fear that has been perpetuated by decades of bad press. To set the record straight, great whites are not man eaters as is so often been reported. They rely on fish and pinnipeds (seals and sea lions) as their primary food source. When humans are thrown into the mix it is by accident.

Typical attacks on humans are surface related, where a human is lying, paddling or swimming on the surface and the shark attacks from beneath. The white shark, which typically attacks seals and sea lions (pinnipeds) from below, mistakes the silhouette of the human to be a seal or sea lion.

When a pinniped is attacked, the great white bites, spits and then waits for the animal to bleed out substantially before coming back to finish the job. This method is a self preserving tactic as most of the animals eaten by the white shark have the ability to inflict harm upon the attacker. Weaken the prey before coming back to finish it off.

This bite and spit action also allows the shark to determine if the prey is viable, high enough fatty tissue, or whether it should move on to look for another prey target. But they do not attack everything that looks like a seal or sea lion, as there is risk involved in every attack that could be detrimental to the health of the shark.

With this said, yes...the great white shark attacks humans. Based upon science and the many studies that have involved the behavioral patterns of the great white shark, the answer would be "No". White sharks do not intentionally attack humans.

Today's incident was very unfortunate. Our hearts go out to the family of the victim. But rest assured, you have a greater chance of getting into a deadly car accident than getting bitten by any shark, great white shark included, when venturing into the ocean.

The crew of Horizon Charters Dive & Eco Adventures hopes that a large scale shark hunt is not undertaken. The shark was only doing as it has been programmed to do for millions of years. We humans enter the food chain, knowing or not, every time we venture into the ocean. This is a fact, whether your snorkeling in Fiji or surfing California.

Please join us in shark education. Learn, listen and do your part to protect not only the great white shark, but every shark in the ocean.

Scientists: Mysterious Striped Currents In Oceans Hiding In Plain Sight; 'My God, We've Never Seen These Before'

San Diego, California (Apr 17, 2008 10:29 EST) It’s amazing that nobody has spotted it before. Superimposed on every ocean on the planet there is a striped pattern of currents. Yet what causes them is a mystery.

Between 1992 and 2003, Peter Niiler of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, and colleagues collected data from more than 10,000 drifting ocean buoys, which they tracked with satellites. As expected, the buoys’ movements were influenced mainly by known global currents, which are driven by wind and by differences in the temperature and salinity of seawater.

But when the team analysed the data, it emerged that something else had been subtly influencing the buoys’ paths. It turned out that there were alternating strips of water running eastward or westward, a bit like parallel moving sidewalks. Niiler recalls his reaction: “My God, we’ve never seen these before.”

Satellite measurements showed that the interfaces between adjacent currents were alternately associated with slight peaks and troughs in sea level. When the team looked at this variation globally, they found that the 150-kilometre-wide bands covered pretty much every ocean (see Map).

To confirm that the currents were real, the team set out to measure them directly in two regions in the eastern Pacific. “Their existence is so surprising that we had to prove first that they are not an artefact of satellite data,” says Nikolai Maximenko of the University of Hawaii. Sure enough, they recorded currents flowing in opposite directions at around 40 metres per hour (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2008GL033267). This is slower than most previously known ocean currents, which may explain why the striped flows have remained undiscovered until now. “Only a very lazy canoeist would notice the effect,” says Maximenko.

The flows extend right down to the ocean floor, and the boundaries between currents are alternately associated with peaks and troughs in temperature as well as sea level. This suggests that they influence processes such as nutrient and energy flow around the oceans, but this has yet to be proven, says Niiler.

What causes the striped flows remains a puzzle. “They are a fascinating new aspect to the ocean’s circulation, but the jury is still out on the mechanisms leading to their formation,” says Geoff Vallis of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University.

He points out that similar patterns exist in atmospheric flows on other planets, for example, Jupiter. Whether similar effects are at play here is unclear, he says.

Help Mexico protect their white sharks!

The Guadalupe Island Conservation Fund, managed by Marinebio.org, a US 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, has been established by the members of the scuba diving and eco-community to assist the government of Mexico protect the endangered shark population of Isla Guadalupe.

Please do your part and visit www.guadalupefund.org

Sea Watch, doing their part to preserve the Sea of Cortez! Leading by example...

Sea Watch, with your help , and working with Conapesca introduced legislation banning fishing with compressors and hookah in the continental and ocean waters of Mexico.

The destructive fishing methods, that utilize hookah divers with nets and harpoons, that has devastated the reefs of the Sea of Cortez over the last 10 years are being banned by a new regulation adopted in norma 064. This regulation if enforced will stop the killing of over a 1000's tons of reef fish yearly in the waters of BCS.

Here is the letter dated 2/07/08 from a CONAPESCA official.

I refer to your request for information on prohibiting fishing underwater in any of its forms, with scuba equipment and / or equipment hookah in the Regulation Mexican Official NOM-064-CFSP-2006, about systems, methods and techniques that are prohibited for catching fish in the waters under federal jurisdiction of the United Mexican States, which was published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación for public consultation on May 8, 2007.

In this regard I wish to inform you that based on the technical opinion of the National Fisheries Institute (INP), as well as the recommendations contained in the Carta Nacional Pesquera (Fisheries law), the application was deemed appropriate, so the Norma Oficial Mexicana referenced will be published in the (Diario Oficial de la Federación ) shortly and provides for the prohibition of fishing underwater with scuba equipment and / or hookah equipment in continental waters and in marine waters.

In conformity with the above, under the heading of NOM-064 grouping systems, methods, techniques and fishing gear that are prohibited for commercial fishing, sports and recreational fishing, didactic and household consumption, including the method of fishing with harpoons and fítoras from the shore or from boats using the technique of diving with a compressor (hookah) in marine waters and in continental bodies of water, except as authorized by the Secretariat based on the technical opinion of the INP.

In regards to the steps to its publication, once approved at the Third Meeting of the Consultative Committee for Standardization of Responsible Fisheries, on August 23, 2007, a document entitled "Response to the comments and changes made to the Draft Norma Oficial Mexicana PROY-NOM-064-CFSP-2006, about systems, methods and techniques prohibited for fishing in waters under federal jurisdiction of the United Mexican States, published on May 8, 2007, "as well as the corresponding regulation, were forwarded to the Coordinación General Jurídica de la SAGARPA (legal) for their opinion, under the procedure established by the same Coordination together with the Oficialía Mayor de la SAGARPA. Once they have issued their opinion, both documents will be sent the Comisión Federal de Mejora Regulatoria (COFEMER) for the purpose of obtaining an opinion referred to in section 69-L of the Federal Act on Administrative Procedure, and then be able to publish them in the Diario Oficial de la Federación.

Atte. Lic. Belinda Cedillo Tirado
Director of Legislative
General Directorate of Fisheries and Aquaculture Management
CONAPESCA-SAGARPA

Looking for a fantastic San Diego dive web site?

Look no further...you only need to go to www.divebums.com for all of the local San Diego dive information that you will need. Plus a whole bunch more.

Great photographs of our local San Diego dive sites, Sea of Cortez life and a killer gray whale photograph on the home page. I am very jealous!

Spring is here, get in the ocean!

The weather is loosening it's grip so it's time to dust off that dive and snorkel equipment. If you're looking to get away from all the crap that inundates us on a daily basis and want to get away, fly through a bitchin kelp forest and come face to face with a sea lion...jump aboard!

As spring approaches the crew of Horizon Charters Dive & Eco Adventures froth at the mouth excited about the Channel Island and Baja season to come. Winter in southern California and Baja is pretty mellow in comparison to the rest of the nation but nonetheless we are stoked when the weather starts to warm.

The warmth topside and the incredibly nutrient rich cool Pacific waters sucks in an incredible amount of life. Pelagics that move south in winter flood back into SoCal's islands. Don't miss the show!