Spear fisherman kills tiger shark

[ce4jesus 1]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03122009/news/...ooth_159201.htm

 

I'm always a little suspicious when I know something is being filmed because it has a staged feel but he does say the right things.

[shawnh 0]

Yup he "had" to kill it. I don't know how many folks who have been circled for days on end by tigers in the Bahamas have a different perspective on what "had to" means. But, who knows for certain.

[stewsmith 14]

it seems very strange to me that in the video clips shown there are no real signs of the tiger shark acting in an aggressive manner.

 

http://news.aol.com/article/shark-video-tr...backlash/381492

 

Stew

Edited March 14, 2009 by stewsmith

[scubaseven 1]

If the shark was attacking why did it not injure someone?

The shark was shot several times but did not get one bite in?

Come on.

A sharks attacks a group of divers, none are injured, pictures/video are taken, and the shark is shot 4-5 times with a spear gun?!

Where was this done, Roswell?

[stewsmith 14]

i am no forensic scientist but looking at the angle of entry of the 3 spears on the top of the tiger, it appears that the shark was swimming away from the free diver. the spear that has hit the sharks gills was also shot from behind, looking at the angle of the spear. it doesnt look very convincing to me. i would have thought that the shark would have had a spear in its face had it been intent on doing the free diver any harm. and why did it take 2 hours. if you watch the video interview, the guy sat in the middle looks a little uncomfortable when certain questions are asked.

 

my opinion ( which counts for nowt ) is that this was a tiger shark happily cruising its territory and these guys thought they would see if the could kill it. it was swimming below them and they swam above it and fired spears into it as it was swimming away from them.

 

i have not been lucky enough to have dived with tigers yet, but if tigers give the same aggressive mode signs ( arched back, pectoral fins pointing down ) as all the species of shark i have dived with, then these guys never captured any of this.

 

stew

Edited March 14, 2009 by stewsmith

[The Octopus 0]

The last photo tells it all, spearfisherman very pround of his "trophy".

Agree with angles of spears, shot from above and behind.

Unprovoked kill by the spearfisherman looking for his trophy!

[TheRealDrew 0]

Clasen took no pleasure in his victory last June. "This was one of the most remorseful moments I have ever had in all of my years in hunting and fishing," he said.

 

Really makes you wonder what was done that tops this one...he looks full of remorse in the shot with the jaws and tail.

 

The killing was "absolutely not" for show, Clasen said. "It was so remorseful for us. It was a quiet boat ride home."

 

Seems like the boat was right there. Don't know about you but if I thought a Tiger Shark was acting a bit aggressive I would probably get onto the boat.

[stewsmith 14]

Seems like the boat was right there. Don't know about you but if I thought a Tiger Shark was acting a bit aggressive I would probably get onto the boat.

 

i think that would be my option also, the guys a jerk. looking for his 5 minutes of fame. what i cant understand is why he had to spear it so many times and why it took 2 hours to do. surely if he had speared it once, then surfaced, he would have got straight on the boat and not got back in.

 

stew

[TheRealDrew 0]

i think that would be my option also, the guys a jerk. looking for his 5 minutes of fame. what i cant understand is why he had to spear it so many times and why it took 2 hours to do. surely if he had speared it once, then surfaced, he would have got straight on the boat and not got back in.

 

stew

 

We all know how fast a shark moves when it wants to. 2 Hours while freediving and the shark (a) does not head out after the first shot and/or (b) did not injure any of them during two hours when it had been shot and they are freediving and have to surface? Really does not add up....

[MIKE POWELL 1]

Too bad the shark lost and the big bad spear "dwad" won! I would like to see some footage of Jim Abernethy's interaction with the Tiger Sharks on CNN!

[Drew 0]

Actually the most important thing is experience with sharks. A spear gun, uncocked, is more than enough to fend off a tiger shark or great white, especially when they are investigating blood smells. So when these guys say they dive with sharks all the time, which may be true, they dive with a view of the shark as a threat to their catch and their own fear. Let's be fair to say that anyone having a 12 ft anything with teeth headed for you will have some anxiety.

Unfortunately, many spearos won't hesitate to shoot a shark that passes their comfort zone. Happens everywhere.

Seeing how this all happened in June and the article that featured them was the real start of the whole thing:

http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/20...oil-rigs-1.html

Seems they were making a catalog for a promotion of some sort of spearo company. So all this free publicity doesn't hurt either. By the way, this sort of thing happens more often than you think. More often, the spearos keep the kill quiet.

With all the screaming etc, the boat was nearby so they could've aborted. Posing with the shark, swimming with it while it was still alive to bring it up to the surface. Their words do not reflect their actions.

[TheRealDrew 0]

Seems they were making a catalog for a promotion of some sort of spearo company. So all this free publicity doesn't hurt either. By the way, this sort of thing happens more often than you think. More often, the spearos keep the kill quiet.

 

Someone else had mentioned the catalog and it does seem they were playing the publicity....

 

Did not see the article before, thanks for the link, some more interesting quotes in there.

[ce4jesus 1]

There's a shot of the guys holding the mouth open on shore where you see 5 spears through the head. The gill shot, if that's it in the photo clearly missed the gills. Something that really doesn't add up after watching the interview on the link is the lack of footage. He claims he got them out of the area. The cameraman claims to have switched the camera on immediately...which appears to be true because you go right from the squid to the shark. But what you don't see the initial shot which would have had to have occurred while this "aggressive" shark were circling the pair. If there's a piece of footage that would exonerate him it would be that. That along with the angle of the supposed gill shot lead you to believe the shark was circling but likely just to investigate the pair and that the spearfisherman actually instigated the event.

[Drew 0]

CSI WP. LOL shall we bring out the laser pointers and dummy shark? SGSR?

It's funny how the negative reaction puts them on TV but yet no real journalist grilled them. Hey how come you didn't abort one by one with you protecting their back? Hey with your 60+ years experience, you didn't think to use the speargun to push off the shark and swim away back to the boat and call it a day? Hey are the shots of the killing of the shark in your catalog and video? Of course, if I had to shoot a catalog for a spearo firm, I'd put that ahead of the safety of my divers. It's a sign of weakness to run home. I am a real man! YEAH!

[stewsmith 14]

There's a shot of the guys holding the mouth open on shore where you see 5 spears through the head.

 

where abouts is this shot ? i could not find it. strange how there would be 5 shots through the head as in the video there are only 2 to the top of the head and one by the gills.

 

stew

[Steve Williams 0]

What a load of crap, It's too bad guts and brains so rarely come in the same package.

 

Steve

[wagsy 0]

All I can say are three words...WHAT A DICKHEAD......

[NCmermaid 0]

All I can say are three words...WHAT A DICKHEAD......

 

I concur!!!!! These guys are seriously compensating for something!

[deepsea 0]

Is the article in Outside magazine out yet or is it still coming? Would like to write a letter to them and just want to know when the article is out.

 

Thanks

 

Karen

[Mike L 0]

The article is in the current issue of Outside on sale now. Its a very sad event. I know several spearfishermen and they are all pretty scared of sharks and in reality just do not seem to understand them the way we all do, since they do not interact with them in the water, sans bloody fish. Its only obvious if you have bloody fish attached to your body, sharks are going to come in close to inspect. I guess the ole saying is true...IF YOU CANT HANDLE THE HEAT STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN, so if you cant handle sharks around you, don't spearfish in the ocean!

[kornse 0]

Being a spearfisher myself, I think its sad that a tiger was killed most likely wrongly, but it also worries me what the public will think of spearfishers. I have never dived with sharks and I dont know how react facing one. But I do know that killing one would be a last resort, for me that is.

 

That being said I do know thrill of shooting a big fish and a big shark must be the ultimate prize plus it would look good as a front cover....

 

I just hope that all of this will give spearfishers an even worse rep...

 

Mads

[danielandrewclem 3]

I'm confused. Which shark is this? In one of the other links, there's another image that shows the guy holding the jaws and tail of the shark that's getting all the attention. Your photo shows guys with a shark that's been brought ashore. These must be two different sharks.

 

In any event, the fact that they killed the shark and brought it on board to hack off "trophies" certainly reveals that the "remorse" line was total bullshit. If you have to repel an animal to protect yourself, you do that and then you get the hell out of there. You don't spend hours shooting it again and again. Even if self defense was the initial impetus for shooting the shark, once these divers were safe and the shark was no longer a threat to anybody, the motive switched to the usual trophy-hunter stuff. One doesn't take a trophy unless one is proud of what they've done.

 

-Dan

 

http://www.merlospearguns.com/fish%20photos/tiger1.JPG

 

 

I count 5 spear holes in the roof of the mouth. BTW, they look really a bit chuffed for guys that were "broken up and somber" on the boat ride home.

[TheRealDrew 0]

Being a spearfisher myself, I think its sad that a tiger was killed most likely wrongly, but it also worries me what the public will think of spearfishers.

 

Thanks for adding a perspective from a spearfisher's side, meaning that it looks off to you also.

 

I have never been a fan of hunting, spearfishing etc, And if someone who does pursue it, like you do, is willing to jump into a thread like this (when it is pretty obvious how many are viewing it) is something I consider positive.

 

Now give up spearfishing and take photos

[Shaff 0]

These guys seems to be very proud of what they have done unlike what the report says they were somber and sad about what they did! They must have planned to kill that shark. The shark doesn't show any aggressive signs towards them!

 

Good thing that spear fishing is illegal in the Maldives!!!!

[Drew 0]

Where Ce4jesus found that pic (please note NOT to embed pics you do not have permission for) seems to be another shark shot by someone else (like I said, it happens all too often).

Besides the "ethical fishing' aspect of spear fishing (which is highly contested by former spearos like Ron Taylor). It seems Ryan McInnis was shooting for his Podcast about freediving and spearfishing. DJ Strutz was the uw still photog. With my limited experience with tiger sharks, they would back off if something would fight back. They were chumming for tuna so the sharks would obviously come to check it out. In fact they had a silky photographed by Strutz being teased by the spearos.

http://outside.away.com/travel_photo_galle...?thisSpeed=9000

From that picture, it seems Kirkconnell (the other spearo) has at least fed sharks before. Without judging their choice of 'sport' or whether they actually desired to land a big shark, I will repeat that a speargun is more than enough to push a curious or even aggressive tiger shark back. They have no wish to be injured while hunting. I've seen this in great whites and other sharks. The only time it may not apply is in ambush predation, which this was obviously not. They could've aborted the dives but obviously they wanted to continue to chum and shoot, exacerbating the encounter towards its unfortunate ending.

 

Here is the CNN clip on youtube:

And here is the interviews on CNN:

Again Clasen seems to feel justified in his actions. Obviously he is VERY experienced but only in terms of swimming with sharks with chum in the water and not interaction. If this is the first time he's seen a big shark swim up to check out a person with chum in the water, then he hasn't seen too many sharks as I've had 2-4m sharks swim very close to me in blue water dives on quite a few occasions, often very frisky and aggressive as they were feeding. I've fended them off with the camera and fins but always got out of the water asap.

Still I do think they are taking advantage of the media frenzy and probably didn't expect such backlash for their hobby. I guess they don't think chumming the water for tuna would attract sharks (especially after 60+ collective years of experience).