The Pros And Cons Of Shark Baiting

When people think of sharks, many think of a vicious killing monster that needs to be avoided at all costs, and this creates an irrational fear that enters the minds of the general populace. In an attempt to educate the public about this growing threat to sharks, a threatened species, the practice of cage-diving has started to become more popular. The mentality that sharks are evil beings has been spread far and wide through many mediums such as way of mouth, movies, and viral pictures/videos, such as the viral photo of the Great White Shark that sparked a debate, as explained by National Geographic. This picture showed a great white shark, which appeared to be lunging at a shark cage, and this stirred up a debate about whether or not cage-diving …show more content…
However, this current negative view of sharks must change to show what sharks really are, an apex predator of marine life and not human life, and this re-education of the public is the goal of shark baiting/cage diving. People need to change their attitude towards sharks because they are a vital part of ocean ecosystems as a top predator, and just mindlessly killing them is not smart or moral. Carl Safina, an ocean expert and author of many books about the ocean, has written Song for the Blue Ocean, in which he advocates for a “sea ethic.” This sea ethic is an idea that humans must respect the ocean and its inhabitants in every respect, much as we respect land animals. What cage diving and shark baiting does to help promote the sea ethic is that it helps people get close to ferocious sharks and to learn how sharks act. Once the people have been educated about sharks and learn to respect them through the first hand experience that cage diving provides, people will start to shed their misconceptions and care more about what happens to …show more content…
This would cause the sharks to be “more aggressive or start to approach fishers, looking for a meal.” and that means that human aggression towards sharks would also increase. In other words, would baiting sharks, a threatened species, be ethically wrong in light of the sea ethic? However, according to Dr Michael Scholl, “a world-famous marine biologist and conservationist”, there are many reasons why shark baiting is not conditioning sharks to go after humans. Included in these reasons is that sharks do not see the humans in the cage as a single object. Rather, the sharks see everything before them as all lumped into one big object. Another reason is that the sharks never actually catch a direct scent from the humans because the very strong smell of the bait masks the humans, thereby making the scent of humans invisible to sharks. To oppose the sayings of Dr.Scholl has been “very little data to support [that cage-diving conditions sharks to go after humans]...so Skomal says that has left the