Sharks: A Guide to Interaction

Sharks: A Guide to Interaction by Steven Surina et Greg Lecoeur

Summary:

Since their appearance on Earth almost 450 million years ago, sharks have been a masterpiece of adaptation to their habitat. After five major crises that wiped out almost all traces of life on the planet, they have been able to adapt to new changes and acclimate to their new habitats. What about their adaptation to the brand new situation that was their recent encounter with man, a terrestrial animal? Like all predators at the top of their food chain, sharks rely primarily on instinct. Has their fabulous ability to adapt constantly allowed them, despite the rarity of their encounters with humans, to call upon their primary instinct? Or to learn and adopt new behaviors, even new ways of communicating? Current studies, which are astounding, seem to indicate that sharks have a form of personality. While we would expect generalized behavioral similarities, some individuals of the same species, placed in the same situation, adopt totally different behaviors! Already, empirical observations show differences during an interaction between the same shark and the same diver. These multifactorial encounters demonstrate the basis of this constant adaptation to the new unknown that is man! What is the basis of this adaptation? How can a diver optimize his chances of interaction with a shark, while preserving his own safety? How can he understand, initiate, defuse and repeat the same underwater scenario? This book is the key that will allow the diver to study, by penetrating a tiny part of the admirable life of sharks, their body language and their intentions according to new natural factors. This study immerses us in the use of their senses, the truth about their instinct, the different environments in which they live their daily lives, their evolutionary zones, their behavior, their approach patterns, their different types of body language, the impact of man underwater, the principles of interaction. It ends with a description of the interactions with 31 species of sharks observed daily by man, in different regions of the world.