SHARK DIVING: INTERACTION RULES

 Text & illustrations: Steven SURINA

AS A GROUP

By observing nature, you will quickly understand that evolving in a group is a protective tool for many species. The animals thus evolve in schools or alone, according to their interests. For the same reasons, marine animals will not perceive you the same way if you are alone or more than one.
- Staying in a compact group will be useful for observing shy species because you adopt a prey behavior.
â € "On the other hand, if you disperse, you will scare the animal because you become intrusive.
- On the other hand, for certain species of sharks, staying in a group will not develop any particular interest for you, just as the lion in the savannah only waits for an old gazelle, or even injured which moves away from the herd to attack it .
â € "The tiger shark, for example, will be of interest to you if you leave the group. But, if everyone does the same, you will run away from the shark because you are no longer a compact group and you have become intrusive.

Your opportunities for interaction will be based on your degree of intrusiveness. Each animal will be different, each situation will be different and therefore, each interaction will be different.

AS ISOLATED PLUNGER

Even though sea animals are very different, there are similarities in how each animal will interpret your position, posture, and more generally your body movements or stillness. It is obvious that you will appear more imposing in the eyes of the animal by standing upright. Although these are 2 completely different species, it is somewhat of a language that animals, including us, are genetically programmed to understand. Aggression is detected instinctively. The things we can play with are our height and posture. The size varies with the general position of the body while our posture will indicate our attitude, aggressive or friendly. There are neutral positions whereby the animal will be more inclined to ignore us. By standing straight, you do not look like a sea animal and therefore you are neutral. A neutral position will allow you to observe the animal in its natural environment, but will not arouse its curiosity in you.

A EVITER

Faced with an inquisitor-type shark, for example, if you turn your back on him and try to escape, he will do as you do. He will follow you because you react as one of his natural prey. It is programmed to act so innate. It will be exactly the same as in the savannah for a lion or an elephant.

VISUAL FIELD

If a shark comes towards you and you face it and stand still, it will turn and go due to its shyness. It will try to get back out of your field of vision. If you turn around, he'll leave again. This is classic behavior in sharks. Eye contact is very stressful for them, they will still spin if you look them in the eye. They will then try to get out of your field of vision before trying, or not, to come back closer. Sharks have both long and short range sense organs. The closer they get, the more they learn. Here's why some sharks will try to get close by staying out of your line of sight. It responds to their curiosity without generating stress. Nothing to do with a ruse to attack you by surprise.

DEPTH

There is one very important thing for sharks: your depth. As we have already seen, being close to the surface, in open water or on the bottom does not send the same message. It will be different each time. Some days being at the bottom will allow you to observe the fish because you are not intrusive and other times, it will not even arouse the curiosity of the shark, which will disappear. Conversely, being close to the surface will sometimes create the shark's interest in you because of your intrusiveness. Sharks are complex animals, even among the handful of potentially dangerous sharks they remain very different from each other. Some prefer to operate near the bottom, others in open water. Each situation will be different. One day, the exception which proves the rule will allow you to observe in open water an animal observed daily close to the bottom. He can be very curious, although he is usually shy.

Steven Surina

Steven Surina is a diving instructor in the Red Sea. In this capacity, for a decade, he has accompanied cruises along the Egyptian, Sudanese and Eritrean coasts. He worked in partnership with the Italian publishing house “Magenes Editoriale” on the project of a collection of dive sites all over the Egyptian Red Sea as an author and illustrator. He wrote a dissertation on the behavior of oceanic sharks in 2008 and had interactive booklets on shark protection and preservation distributed to Egyptian schools.

He participates with Dr. Erich Ritter in a series of seminars. At the end of these months of work and common experiences, he launches his own conferences in 2009. It's like that in 2010, it creates the French branch of the Shark School : Shark Education.

It also offers shark diving trips which aim to help you get to know and understand them better.

View the profile of Steven SURINA