From Angry Surfers Say Cage-Diving Changes Great White’s Way:
This shark-diving industry, established in the late 1990s, has become big business on the Cape coast. Drawing in some 35,000 mostly American and European adrenaline junkies a year, shark divers pay some $6.3 million in fees to 12 licensed operators, or as much as $200 a dive, and more for hotel, food and airfare.But there isn’t just fish blood in the water. As the cage-diving industry flourishes, Cape Town beaches — a Mecca for surfers — have been hit by a spate of gruesome shark attacks on people. Critics blame the deaths on shark-diving practices such as baiting and chumming, or the throwing of ground fish into the ocean. Cage-dive operators, these critics say, may have taught sharks to associate humans with food, turning the ocean’s apex predators into man-eaters.