A passion and long experience
Cristina feeds the sharks to familiarize the divers. She wants people to see sharks from a different perspective and understand that their behavior is not what they hear too often in the news. People are often afraid of the sharks around them.
On a daily basis, she speaks to convince divers and non-divers to give them a chance and to look at them beyond "simple jaws". For non divers, she uses photos, videos, multimedia presentations and narrates her personal experience.
The “shark diving” was born 18 years ago in the UNEXSO diving center where she has worked for 17 years in the Bahamas.
Security procedures and framework
There are detailed written procedures that each team member must adhere to and that they have personally followed.
They include explanations of sharks and their relationship to food. There are rules for how to handle the bait container, the bait, and movement on the bottom when it comes to divers, sharks, and diving.
There are also even stricter measures on how to deal with sharks and how to avoid dangerous and sensationalist behavior. The safety of divers is a priority. Each member of the team has to complete a long period of working time in the dive center as a safety diver on shark dives before undergoing training to become a shark feeder.
Each member is personally trained from the information meeting to the completion of the dive. Thanks to this training method, “shark diving” takes place in good conditions. Respect for sharks is highlighted during the briefing and adopted as a behavior during the dive.
A great positive tool for protection
After years of sightings and traveling to see and work with other types of sharks, tigers, lemons, blue, mako, great white shark, Cristina believes that a well-managed “shark dive” is. a formidable positive tool for the protection of sharks.
Anyone faced with this type of experience, directly or indirectly, can change their opinion about these animals and can be educated on responsible choices to follow to avoid creating damage to sharks and their environment.
The latter are endowed with a set of senses which allow them to perceive divers in the water, to recognize them. to know if there is food or not and to behave accordingly. The locals have switched from shark fishing to shark watching activities, furthermore to ensure the possibility of their survival.
Cristina believes that respect and understanding are the key to the success of all this activity and our interaction with animals in this world. Shark feeders should not play circus stuntmen.
They are not to take bites, hit them with their fists, hit them, kick them in any form. Such an encounter and experience, along with an in-depth briefing, allows participants to appreciate sharks and come to the surface with a new vision.
His understanding comes from 16 years of daily diving with sharks, with or without food. It is the detailed observation of their presence, their behavior, their attitude with regard to the underwater, surface, weather and fishing vessel factors.
This knowledge, she communicates it from person to person, every day and they do the same around them as true ambassadors.
Tonic immobility experience by Cristina Zenato
The highlight of “shark diving” has become over the years not only seeing sharks, but also witnessing what is called “tonic stillness” of sharks (see Cristina's demonstration in the film).
Caribbean sharks are animals that Cristina is used to working with. Shy by nature, they become less so in the presence of food and this allows them to get closer to a diver. They are able to recognize that other divers have no food and keep a safe distance.
As Cristina approaches as a “shark-feedeuse”, they also show another type of behavior: they approach and rest their muzzle on her stomach. From there, she walks over to their heads and starts stroking them on the top and bottom of the muzzle.
The shark stops swimming completely and slowly lands on the sandy bottom. She then waits for the shark to relax completely.
There are signs she uses to make sure the shark is stabilized in a state of tonic stillness. Then, she lifts the animal, to bring it slowly towards a small group of divers.
It remains in front of the shark, to allow them to pet, gently, on the side, on the gills, down to the tail of the shark.
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