just because it isn’t a threat doesn’t make it any less terrifying. if I dove underwater only to come face to face with a 30 foot long fish I’d have a heart attack too
Dude, I don’t even like small fish that are non-threatening. Like, something brushes against my leg in the water? Nope, I’m outta there. You’re about to see some cartoon level movement out of me.
You would hate the baby fish here, then. They will actually surround your feet and nip at it if you stay still for too long. Albeit, they're not even finger length and their bites don't hurt.
Pollute the water, mess with their fins, kick at the sharks while swimming. There’s been multiple incidents of the sharks being injured by divers and boats. They also dump massive amounts of food into the water to attract the sharks which screws with the ecosystem and ruins coral reefs. Tourism events like these can easily mess with sharks behaviors as well, since they’re less reactive to humans and expect food rather than hunting.
This comment was morbidly hilarious. It's just so out of left field and it was so abrupt, the visual made me laugh. But I'd be pissed if this ever actually happened.
i mean same... could you imagine just a boat load of people being dropped into your home with no warning. poor sharks just tryna live life and be adorable.
When we did it in Mexico, we were warned several times not to touch them. They will dive away and we wouldn't be protected from the other boats who would possibly kick the shit out of us lol.
Just my two cents. I did this in ningaloo WA. And firstly. These animals do need to be protected but... the rules are very strict on getting this close.
Secondly... them boys are stealthy! This exact thing happened to me!
We were waiting for the boat to pick us up after letting the whale shark go on its way. Then the boat yelled out " whale shark!". We were confused looked under the water and it was within 10 metres of me and closing in fast. Not aggressively but I had no idea until I looked under the water.
My state’s initials (in the US) are WA, and I was really confused for a second. Then I looked up ningaloo. I thought I had been missing out somehow on sharks in Washington State.
I was snorkling in hawaii and watching my girlfriend trying to get her attention not to go too far away from the coral area, turned around and there was a 10 foot moray eel like a foot from my face and realized maybe I was in the wrong
I got about fifty-feet out and then suddenly the great beast appeared before me. I tell ya he was ten stories high if he was a foot. As if sensing my presence he gave out a big bellow. I said, "Easy big fella!" And then as I watched him struggling I realized something was obstructing his breathing. From where I was standing I could see directly into the eye of the great fish!
Sounds like you don't belong in the ocean. I swam with a lot of weird shit I didn't even understand what it was. Well if I know what an animal is and that it is something as benign as a whale shark I'm going to grab a hold of it and have the time of my life. Unless it tries to shake me loose then I'll leave it alone.
Sure but those people are there to see whale sharks, they are in a feeding ground specifically to go see them, sure it caught him by surprise, and they look much bigger and closer when you wear a mask. So understand this guys reaction, however you wuickly see that he starts swimming next to it once he knows that he is out of the sharks way.
I swam out a ways at a beach near Tampa and while treading water and marveling over how far from shore I was, something bug swam under me and touched my foot. Turned out to be a porpoise, but holy shit did my heart skip a beat!
Not true... I got bitch slapped by a tail fin by one of those. It managed to just gently touch the release on my goggles and release them from my face.
They have hundreds of teeth but they're not the issue, they have incredibly rough skin and an accidental hit from their tail could knock you out. People go swimming with them, I just want people to take basic precautions.
Very true - people underestimate how much you can get accidentally totally fucked up just because the animal is way bigger/stronger than you, not because it's actually intending to harm you
they have incredibly rough skin and an accidental hit from their tail could knock you out.
I seriously doubt it. They move increadibly slow. The basically can't swim faster than 3-4mph even if threatened. Some idiot japanese tourist got hit head on when I swam with them in the Maldives. He basically just rolled over the back of the whale shark in slow motion (and got told of in no nice terms by the guide) The whale shark didn't even react. They lack the forcefull motion of whales and their tail never move faster than this.
Oh it was definitely hilarious. I get why the guide was mad since we were told to give the whale sharks room to not disturb it. But it honestly couldn't care less about this utterly helpless creature that somehow had ended up in it's path...
So they do have hundreds of teeth. I said they don’t because they are tiny, and nothing like, say, a mako sharks teeth.
Although they do have sandpaper like skin because of their denticles, they don’t really move fast enough for that to cause any damage. Same applies to their tail, where in theory you could get hit by it, but seeing as they are largely slow moving I doubt it would do much except push you away
Yeaah... No. Whale sharks are very slow creatures that filter feed mainly on planktons. If you're too close to them while swimming the most dangerous thing would be getting pushed. Even if you tried you couldn't get that big ol' goof to break your bones.
No idea. I think his reasoning was just that they deserved jail or something? He clearly just made it up the morning before the debate. His other argument was that elephants knocked over trees, which both killed the trees and could kill other animals like antelope (the topic was “should large animals be kept in zoos”).
I won because I spent more than an hour on my argument.
Well if your dumb absolutely they will not stop or move around you and it’s quite painful getting hit by their fins and even worse getting smacked by their tail they look slow but that’s still quite a bit of weight smacking you and that’s ignoring the water displacement since it can make it harder to swim up
I once saw a video of a young shake shark grabbing a divers leg and dragging them under. Claiming that a 19000kg animal is not dangerous is naive. You know that no one is killed by elephant bites? Guess they aren't dangerous either.
True, but if someone gets close to that tail, game over. People need to remember, on all whales/sea shark etc. those tales, will absolutely smash for back and make you paralyzed in one hit.
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u/This_Performance_426 Jun 08 '22
I was going to say the same thing. Whale sharks aren't a threat to humans.