November Brings Largest Great White Sharks to Mexico -
Eighteen Foot Long Sharks Biggest Draw for Divers, According to Shark Diver
San Francisco, CA - September 1, 2006 - November usually brings to mind
Visions of Thanksgiving, voting ballots and recovering from Halloween candy.
However in the world of Great White sharks, November is their Spring Break. Isla
Guadalupe, 210 miles off the coast of Mexico, has become the worldwide
recognized dive destination for an unprecedented number of Great White
sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) and exceptional opportunities for divers
seeking encounters with these misunderstood denizens of the deep.
After four years of solid operations at the Isla Guadalupe dive site, the
Shark Diver team, lead by dedicated shark specialists in conjunction with
U.C Davis and CICIMAR's research teams, have noted several unique seasonal
shark patterns.
"Something exciting always happens in November," notes eco-adventurer and
Shark Diver CEO Patric Douglas. "For the past several years we see many
juvenile and mid-sized animals from September through late October. But
when the seasonal temperature shifts, the real giants appear!"
The giants in question are massive female Great White sharks that appear in
large numbers later in the shark season. In early November when water
temperatures dip several degrees lower, larger breeding-aged female Great
White sharks stalk the waters at Isla Guadalupe looking for something the
Shark Diver research team is trying to discover.
"We have data showing these sharks actively stalking the small Guadalupe
Fur Seals (pups and adults) early in the shark season," says Douglas. "By
November these pups are quite big and begin to play offshore, which is the
equivalent of ringing the dinner bell for females who need to consume mass
quantities of food to fuel up for the winter and for breeding season."
There are few places in the world that feature consistent sightings and
interactions with Great White sharks as Isla Guadalupe. Douglas speculates
that divers' best chance for seeing sharks as long as 18 feet (or more) is
in November. As he and his team have discovered with past Great White shark
diving off the coast of California in Ano Nuevo and off the Oregon
coastline, sharks of that size don't just wander around aimlessly - they
are destination animals, just like any migratory species.
To see Great White Sharks in action in November, call Shark Diver
at 888.405.3268 or visit sharkdiver.com to
book your trip today.
Since 2002, Shark Diver has introduced divers of all ages to the
extraordinary world of cage diving with Great White Sharks. In the last few
years, Shark Diver has expanded to offer cage diving trips with Tiger
Sharks in the Bahamas, Giant Squid encounters, Whales Sharks in Honduras, as well
as deep-dive submarine trips to see Giant Sharks in Roatan. CEO Patric
Douglas is a natural born eco-adventurer, who started his career in the
U.S. ###### Islands in hotel tourism, spent two years as a tour guide in
Vietman, Bali, Hong Kong, Australia/New Zealand and Latin America, served as an
outdoor reporter for CBS in San Francisco, and founded an outdoor adventure
club called "Absolute Adventures" which continues to thrive in San
Francisco today. For the past several years, Douglas has dedicated his life to
providing educational and interactive experiences for clients through shark
diving. In addition, Shark Diver is partially funding efforts to preserve
the habitat and safely study the Great White shark species at Isla
Guadalupe. For more information on Shark Diver and Patric Douglas, visit
sharkdiver.com.
Many of us are divers and have witnessed the large congregations of these amazing creatures from August to October in Palm Beach County, where they travel perhaps hundreds of miles to congregate in groups of 50 to 75 for breeding purposes. It is incredibly sad that a group of 50-75 individuals constitutes a large aggregation, but such is the state of our oceans today.
