“Walk down that ladder, nice and slow...”
A swim ladder leads divers into an underwater cage. There is enough space for up to four people. Cage divers breathe air from the surface through long tubes.
“Put that in your mouth. Put your face in the water. Take a couple of breaths...”
The water in the tank is warm. Sharks swim slowly by, some as close as two arm lengths away. Before diving, Heidi Wilken told Tom Banse to keep his arms inside the enclosure. “No petting the sharks,” she says.
Then a guide opens the underwater cage doors, wide open. A sand tiger shark with large teeth swims by, looking closely at the group of humans. The biggest shark in the tank is a two and one half meter-long, 200-kilogram lemon shark. This animal makes repeated passes. Less frightening sharks swim nearby.
“...You can see, our sand tiger shark is coming very slowly towards us...”
Aquarium visitors can watch all of this through underwater observation windows. The dive ends after about 20 minutes.
John Houck is deputy director of the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. He hopes shark dives create publicity and eventually turn a profit for the aquarium. But he also says a main goal for doing this is to create a better understanding of the environment and the overharvesting of sharks.
“Many people think that sharks are threatening, obviously. But we believe that it is the sharks who are threatened by us and our practices of harvesting in the oceans.”
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25