Happy Thanksgiving...Or "Whale Shark Day" India

While the rest of America scarfed down an estimated 200 million turkeys yesterday a small but growing festival in India "Whale Shark Day" gathered crowds again for the 4th year in a row.As part of an ongoing effort to protect Whale Sharks in India and build on shark tourism...

Florida's Shark Killers Cry-"Regulations!"

Suffering from one of it's worst budget shortfalls in years, Florida has come up with a novel way to recoup falling tax revenues from crumbling home sales. "State regulators offered a voice of support this week to West Florida's boutique shark (fishing) industry, which has...

Great White Shark Bahamas? Oh Yeah!

At the start of this week we got a strange email from the Bahamas-a Great White had washed ashore off Grand Bahama. "Several of Unexso staff including Christina & Veronica heard about it and went out and shot the pictures below. They heard the shark was chasing bait...

Oh Shark Week-What Happened to You?

Sigh. It's come down to this. We all knew it would eventually, and here we are. Last nights Shark Week show was...scratch that, could have been...scratch that. We don't even know where to start with last nights show "How Not to Become Shark Bait". Overall some great...

Sushi for Great Whites

Isla Guadalupe as you know, is simply "infested" with great white sharks. This is the last place on the planet you want to be taking a morning swim. Which makes fishing for Yellowfin tuna here nearly impossible. What you are looking at is an 80lb tuna caught a few seasons...

Shark Vocations?

"I am a professional shark diver". This sentence sends chills down my spine every time I hear it. Our industry is increasingly becoming divided into two groups along these lines. Two camps who alternately see shark diving as a sustainable business model, and those who...

Shark Diving and Feeding Raises Concerns, for Sharks and Divers

As Mexico's government presses for new regulations governing shark diving activities at Isla Guadalupe under a cloud of allegations, operators worldwide need to pay attention. The anti shark diving lobby (for the right and the wrong reasons) is alive and well and what goes...

Shark Diving-Tourism Analysis

We have come a looong way with sharks. Just 60 years ago these animals were considered the "bane of man" to be exterminated at every opportunity. With the advent of commercial shark diving brought about by the adventures of those few plucky early pioneers like Rodney Fox...

Ensenada Fish Market, Mexico Y.O.Y

We have been keeping track of the Ensenada Fish Market for the past three years. The issue here is the sale of white shark pups as "swordfish". We have been documenting each and every trip we take down to this market with images of the animals we find on site. Typically...

Lowly Leopards in La Jolla-Chris Bahnsen

Chris Bahnsen, shark writer and adventure seeker extraordinaire, has just completed another article about shark diving for the L.A Times. His subject this time-the lowly Leopard Shark-a shark species in our opinion that gets virtually no play in California, even though...

Shark Eco-Tourism a Careful Balance

The following article and image was posted in 2006. Realizing that changes within the shark diving industry start with the operators-sometimes you make decisions based on what is good for the resource first and your clients second. We're happy to say divers who have booked...

Sharks and Tourism-"Monetizing" is not a "dirty word"

I was in the middle of a conversation with a well know shark biologist the other day when he said, "Yeah but you guys are just commercializing sharks". By "you guys" he meant an entire worldwide shark diving industry. I had to agree we are...but so are "they" and by...

Shark Tourism-Rock and a Hard Place

Some horrific news today from South Africa as owner operators of several well known dive shops were confronted with the sight of tons of dead sharks this week. South Africa's shark tourism is on the front lines in the ongoing issue of sustainable shark tourism vs shark...