Video of cage-smashing shark sparks conservationist backlash fear

Shark enthusiasts are concerned about the impact of a viral video that showed a great white shark breaking into a cage occupied by a diver in Mexico.

The diver survived, but the harrowing video shed light on a decades-old tourism industry that allows people to be within an arm’s length of great white sharks , separated only by the sea and some metal bars.

"The truth, of course, was that the tourist got more than he bargained for, but on balance the shark came out the worse for wear," Samuel Gruber, a shark conservationist and founder of the Bimini SharkLab in the Bahamas, told the Guardian.

“Clearly it was bleeding from the gills and from an area near the dorsal fin,” Mr Gruber said. “It is also clear to me that the shark was attracted to the cage for purposes of exciting footage.”

But Mr Gruber said he did not oppose shark diving because he hoped it could “turn those who hate and revile these magnificent creatures into ambassadors”.

He also emphasized that this incident was unusual, just like shark attacks.

The diver, Chan Ming, was unharmed and said he was " reborn " after the incident in a Facebook post that followed his viral fame.

Mr Chan had arrived home to Shanghai by the time footage of the incident was released on Thursday, racking up more than 9.5m views on YouTube.

Mr Chan said on Facebook that he did not blame the accident on anybody and called the diving vessel’s team his “heroes”.

“No one need to take responsibility,” Chan said. “The boat teams are professional.”

Seconds after the shark entered the cage, the crew opened the cage’s top hatch, allowing the shark to push out of the water and dive back into the ocean.

Being trapped in a metal cage is a particularly difficult situation for sharks, since they cannot swim backwards. Also, when great white sharks attack prey, they briefly close their eyes , creating a moment of unpredictability – even for the animal.

Jorge Cervera Hauser, a managing partner of Mr Chan’s diving vessel, Solmar V, also said in a statement that the incident was “very rare and unusual”.

“The diver was completely unharmed after the incident, and the shark did not suffer any serious injuries,” said Hauser. “It is also important to note that shark breaches of this magnitude are a one in a million occurrence.”

Hauser said the vessel had been an injury-free operation since opening in 2004 and that the operation had also inspected and reinforced its cages.

When the incident occurred, the vessel was off Isla Guadalupe, Mexico, one of two hotspots for great white shark cage-diving in the world along with Gansbaai, South Africa

Depending on the location and length of time spent on the boat, trips can cost between $100 and several thousand dollars.

Mr Chan was not the first person to get closer than he planned on one of these extreme encounters. In November 2007, Patrick Walsh was on a tour in Isla Guadalupe when a shark wedged itself through the bars of the cage. Mr Walsh, like Mr Chan, used an escape hatch to exit the cage while waiting for the shark to get out.

“It just snapped this cage to pieces, it was like it was made out of balsa wood,” Walsh told Animal Planet.

Yet Mr Walsh said the incident would not deter him from his love for sharks. “I was back in the water 15 minutes after the accident,” he said.

Mr Chan had a similar reaction. When asked by the New York Times when he returned to the water, Mr Chan said: “The next day.”

Guardian