Baited Shark Diving

 

Video by 5050Channel, 31. October 2011 :

Baited diving is becoming one of the most popular forms of diving in SA particularly in the Aliwal Shoal area on South Coast. It involves attracting sharks to a dive group by chumming the water from the dive boat above the group or lowering a punctured tin with bloody tuna bits inside the dive group. It’s big business. Local divers pay about R200 to dive Aliwal but foreigners are paying up to R1200 to go on a baited dive in the same area. Divers opposed to baited dives say the baiting causes the sharks to act aggressively and unpredictably, and puts other dive groups in the area at risk. The operators who are doing baited dives vigorously refute this saying that their dives are conducted responsibly and that they do not put the divers at risk in any way. However, a recent underwater shark attack on the KZN coast on an American diver in a baited dive group, has called this practice into question and re-ignited the debate in terms of underwater safety and shark behaviour.