shark diving – Syndication Server

Dentally challenged great white shark greets divers

Great white sharks often shed teeth while attacking prey or biting other objects, but replacement teeth quickly fill voids.

Great white sharks often shed teeth while attacking prey or biting other objects, but replacement teeth quickly fill voids. The apex predators, in fact, might grow as many as 20,000 teeth in a lifetime.

So after a cage-diving company photographed a white shark missing many of its front teeth during an expedition to Mexico’s Guadalupe Island earlier this week, owner Martin Graf featured the image on Instagram, writing:

“Anyone know a good dentist? It’s a good thing that white sharks can replace their teeth.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Shark Diver (@shark_diver_llc)

Graf, who runs the San Diego-based Shark Diver ecotour company, told FTW Outdoors that the juvenile white shark was going after a hang bait placed behind the boat on Sunday.

Hang baits attract sharks so divers in cages can observe and photograph the predators at close proximity.

ALSO ON FTW OUTDOORS: Watch as Yellowstone wolf bites grizzly bear on the butt

“It’s pretty unusual for a shark to have that many missing teeth,” Graf acknowledged, adding that he did not know at what point or how this shark lost so many of its teeth.

Graf added: “Sometimes they lose their teeth when they bite into a big prey, especially if they hit a bone in their prey animal.”

Guadalupe Island, 165 miles west of the Baja California port of Ensenada, is one of the world’s premier destinations for cage diving with great white sharks.

The season typically runs from late July into early November. Many sharks possess unique markings and are documented in a photo-ID catalog.

Graf, however, said there was too much activity to single out this shark for a possible identification. “We don’t know from this picture what shark it was” he said. “We saw 30 different sharks on this trip and they were all super active.”

–Image courtesy of Shark Diver

Florida divers encounter colossal, ‘abnormally round’ bull shark

A Florida freediving guide has captured images showing a bull shark so massive and “abnormally round” that it dwarfed other sharks and divers brave enough to swim in its company.

Capt. John Moore, whose close encounter occurred earlier this spring off Jupiter, Fla., told For The Win Outdoors that the shark featured in many of the accompanying images was likely pregnant and perhaps close to giving birth.

“With sharks you can never really be sure, but it certainly seems that way,” he said. “This is the correct timing for pregnant females to be having their pups.”

Moore, 55, also a photographer and conservationist, has posted several of his images on Instagram.

ALSO ON FTW OUTDOORS: Orca leaps 15 feet during dramatic dolphin hunt

In an interview he acknowledged what some have claimed after seeing media reports: The shark in the image atop this post looks bigger than its actual size because of the angle at which it was photographed.

But Moore assured that it was still enormous.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CO8KUWBhnna/

“The shark is big, but perspective shots make it look bigger,” he said. “But most of our bulls are about 250 pounds and she was closer to 600 pounds.”

For the sake of comparison, the rod-and-reel world record catch – a record established in 2001 – stands at just under 700 pounds. Bull sharks can grow much larger, but those specimens are becoming scarce because of overfishing.

Freediving with bull sharks (no scuba gear), to some, might be considered foolish.

The apex predators, which occur in tropical and subtropical waters, have been implicated in at least 100 attacks on humans, according to the International Shark Attack File. More than two dozen attacks resulted in fatalities.

They’re considered by many to be the most dangerous sharks in the world.

This is partly because bull sharks are so widespread and typically found close to the coast – even in freshwater. Bull sharks (and attacks) have been documented in murky rivers hundreds of miles from saltwater.

Moore, however, said that in clear water bull sharks are often hesitant, in most cases, to approach divers.

“Bull sharks get a bad rap and they are, in my opinion, one of the easiest sharks to freedive with here in Florida,” Moore said. “They are big, but very cautious and much less trusting than most of our sharks. It’s safe to say that they are one of the most misunderstood sharks.”

The freediver continued: “The majority of stories you hear about are mistakes made by the shark in poor visibility where they mistake a flash of skin for a fish. In clear water they are honestly very gentle and respectful.”

The pregnant shark, however, was not shy in the presence of Moore and his companion.

“This big female rolled up with the confidence and swagger of a true apex predator,” Moore recalled. “There’s normally an adjustment period where they size up how much of a threat they think you are. There were no such formalities with her.

“She felt comfortable around us very quickly and boldly paraded around me and my dive partner Logan. It’s a big accomplishment to grow to maturity for a shark these days and seeing one this large gives me hope.”

–Images courtesy of John Moore

Is Deep Blue the largest great white shark? ‘Not so fast’

A great white shark nicknamed Deep Blue is considered by many to be the largest of its species ever recorded. But a prominent researcher has cast doubt on that notion.

Michael Domeier, in a Tuesday Instagram post, featured a beautiful image of Deep Blue, captured by Kimberly Jeffries last January in Hawaiian waters off Oahu, along with two decades-old photographs showing equally massive white shark carcasses on beaches in Cuba and Taiwan. (See embedded post.)

The old photos were samples of other “ginormous” white sharks known to have existed. But Domeier, president and executive director of the Marine Conservation Science Institute, also used reason to support his “not so fast” assessment.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJXM7ythZ3R/

“First, Deep Blue has never been scientifically measured or weighed,” Domeier wrote. “That would require being physically laid out next to a tape measure or photographed while being painted with a precisely calibrated paired laser system. That’s never happened.”

ALSO ON FTW OUTDOORS: Yellowstone bison can’t fly, despite what it seems

The scientist, who has studied great white sharks extensively at Mexico’s Guadalupe Island and off California, added: “I have personally seen two massive sharks that could definitely exceed Deep Blue in size, one at the Farallones [west of San Francisco] and one near Pt. Conception, [Ca.].”

Domeier’s team first documented Deep Blue in 1999 “and she was already big back then,” he continued. “So she’s an old, beautiful shark, but no one can unequivocally claim she is biggest Great White in the sea.”

Deep Blue, estimated to measure about 21 feet, became famous after being featured by Discovery in 2014 (with footage captured in 2013). The photo atop this post is a screen shot from footage captured at Guadalupe Island, shared to Facebook by Mexican researcher Mauricio Hoyos Padilla in 2015.

Domeier on Wednesday told For The Win Outdoors: “As a mature female, Deep Blue likely returns to Guadalupe Island every two years during the mating season, but she is rarely sighted.”

The massive shark generated headlines in January 2019 when she was spotted off Oahu, feeding on a sperm whale carcass.

Great white shark gets stuck in divers’ cage

Disturbing video has surfaced showing a great white shark trying to squeeze into a cage with divers inside at Mexico’s Guadalupe Island.

Disturbing video has surfaced showing a great white shark trying to squeeze into a cage with divers inside at Mexico’s Guadalupe Island. (Warning: The video contains graphic footage.)

[protected-iframe id=”6ec98dcdf8389c8712a71302e6ce2991-58289342-114731612″ info=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Farturoislasallende%2Fvideos%2F972926469745170%2F&show_text=0&width=267″ width=”267″ height=”476″ frameborder=”0″ style=”border: none; overflow: hidden;” scrolling=”no”]

Mexican activist Arturo Islas Allende shared the video to his social media platforms under a title that translates to “Negligence kills white shark.” He implicated a Nautilus Dive Adventures vessel and complained that cage openings were not adjusted in a manner to keep sharks and divers safe.

The divers, who were clearly frightened as the massive predator writhed after getting its head stuck in a cage opening, were not injured. It remains unclear whether the shark, in fact, perished after its ordeal.

Nautilus Liveaboards had not responded to inquiries about the incident, which occurred in October, at the time of this post.

Guadalupe Island is seasonal home to dozens of adult great white sharks and regarded as one of the world’s premier shark-diving destinations. In typical situations, crews on the vessels will pull baits toward cages so divers in cages can photograph the apex predators in close quarters.

Crews are not allowed to feed sharks, and cages must meet specifications set by the Mexican government.

Michael Domeier, president and executive director of the Marine Conservation Science Institute, has conducted extensive shark research at Guadalupe Island. Many sharks are identifiable based on distinctive markings and are part of an expansive database.

Domeier told For The Win Outdoors that the shark in the video is named Stouffer.

Domeier declined to guess why the shark tried to get inside the cage, but added: “It doesn’t look to me like the bait was too close. For some reason that shark wanted what was in the cage. It hit the cage, backed up, then charged again. It could have turned and swam away.”

–Images and video are courtesy of Arturo Islas Allende

Can you spot the hidden object in this shark photo?

William Buchheit captured an extraordinary great white shark image recently at Mexico’s Guadalupe Island.

William Buchheit captured an extraordinary great white shark image recently at Mexico’s Guadalupe Island. But he did not know how extraordinary until he got home and took a closer look.

“Thank God I didn’t delete it, for it wasn’t until a full week later when I opened the image on my computer that I discovered the magical moment I’d captured,” Buchheit, 43, told For The Win Outdoors.

The image, captured from aboard the San Diego-based Islander, shows a white shark breaching near the island. But the small object within the image makes it more unusual, and provides a fun test for those with a keen eye for detail.

Viewers should be able to spot the object without too much trouble, especially if they chose first to look at the larger image posted below.

(NOTE: The object is revealed and explained below.)

Buchheit, an avid shark diver from Spartanburg, S.C., was part of a cage-diving expedition at Guadalupe, a seasonal home to dozens of great white sharks.

The crew had been attracting sharks near divers in submerged cages with tuna as “hang baits” tied to the ends of ropes.

Buchheit, who was kneeling at the vessel’s stern, had been hoping merely to capture a shot of a shark’s dorsal fin in the morning light.

“Even though the sunlight was gorgeous, I didn’t consider this particular shot anything special when I first saw it, for I failed to see the tooth on the LCD screen,” he said.

After returning home, Buchheit spotted an airborne tooth near the shark’s head. The shark must have lost the tooth when it chomped on the tuna. (White sharks routinely lose teeth during attacks on prey. They have several rows, however, and lost teeth are quickly replaced.)

“To my knowledge there have only been two photos that ever captured a great white’s tooth in the air,” Buchheit said. “They were both shot from a much greater distance in South Africa.”

Feeding sharks is illegal at Guadalupe. Hang baits are used merely to keep sharks near cages, and bait handlers can usually pull them away from approaching sharks.

“This shark, however, was clever and developed an approach in which she launched toward the tuna like a missile from below,” Buchheit said. “The bait handlers couldn’t see her coming and she was successful in stealing the bait.”

Buchheit, who was on his third voyage to Guadalupe, said he was positioned 40-50 feet from where the shark surfaced. He was shooting with a Canon 1DX at 70 millimeters, in a manual setting at 1-1,200 of a second, F 6.3 and ISO 250.

–Images are courtesy of William Buchheit

[opinary poll=”did-you-spot-the-hidden-object_forthewin” customer=”forthewin”]