BAHAMAS (30 May 2008) — Captain Jonathan Rose of the Gulfstream Eagle liveaboard dive boat said he was "shaken" after witnessing tiger sharks eating a human at a Bahamas shark baiting site. "It was a pretty horrible sight," Rose said. "It's just not something you can get out of your brain." Authorities said they do not yet know how a power boat capsized near Memory Rock, an area that recently attracted international attention after a shark attacked and killed a tourist scuba diver during a Bahamas shark baiting dive promoted and sold by Florida-based Jim Abernethy Scuba Adventures. Captain Rose and his crew recovered the bodies of two men and one woman from the capsized boat but a fourth body was devoured by sharks that were circling the stricken vessel. Witnesses said one of the dive boat crew jumped into the water with a speargun to ward off the sharks as Rose recovered bodies from the boat. "They started yelling at me to get out of the water," Rose said. Authorities said they were not certain how many people died in the accident because sharks may have eaten more than one human. Shark baiting in the Bahamas Last February, a European attorney on holiday in the Bahamas died after he was attacked by a shark that was manipulated with fish bait to perform for thrill-seeking scuba diving tourists. Markus Groh, 49, of Vienna, Austria, was diving off the 70-ft M/V Shear Water dive boat when a shark suddenly attacked him. The Shear Water dive boat is owned and operated by notorious shark feeder Jim Abernethy of "Jim Abernethy Scuba Adventures", a Florida-based company that moved its shark feeding dives offshore after Florida banned so-called "interactive" diving in January, 2002. Encouraged to ignore the shark feeding ban by underwater photographers who profit from the manipulation and harassment of sharks and other apex predators, Jim Abernethy sold shark feeding and shark baiting trips to Memory Rock and other sites in the Bahamas. Bad for sharks, bad for people Dr. Denise Herzing used to start her days researching marine wildlife with a dive near Memory Rock but the renowned marine mammalogist was forced out of the water by aggressive sharks that had been conditioned in the Bahamas to associate humans with food. ''Feeding the sharks changes their behavior,'' Herzing said. "It's just like feeding bears at Yellowstone. It makes them associate humans with food. It makes them more aggressive. It endangers people.'' | 
