Photo & Video: Free Diver Kills 12-Foot Tiger Shark In Gulf Of Mexico
Justin Cote
- March 13 2009
- 4,140 views
- 31 comments
When I first saw this article I was kinda bummed as I have deep respect for sharks and don’t believe in the needless killing of them. After reading it though, I understand what happened and why the free diver Craig Clasen felt like he had to shoot the thing. Anyway, I just rang up the guy who photographed it, DJ Struntz, and him and the rest of the crew are in New York City making the rounds on all the big TV shows, Today, Good Morning America, etc. Read the article and tell us this: What would you do?
Photo: DJ Struntz/Barcroft Media
As reported on www.dailymail.co.uk/news
Plunging a knife in again and again, diver Craig Clasen grapples with a 12ft tiger shark to protect a friend.
For two hours he wrestled with the giant, spearing it seven times, even drowning the beast before eventually finishing it off with a knife.
Mr Clasen was hunting yellow fin tuna with fellow fisherman Cameron Kirkconnell, photographer D.J Struntz and film maker Ryan McInnis in the Gulf of Mexico when the encounter took place.
Mr Clasen has been free diving and fishing since an early age. Hailing from Mississippi, he was brought up in a fishing family, and is an expert in all fishing disciplines. Despite his experience, Mr Clasen took no pleasure in disposing of the giant shark.
“This was one of the most remorseful moments I have ever had in all of my years in hunting, gathering and fishing,’ explains Mr Clasen. “I have so much respect for sharks in general. With the amount of time that we spend out there we are exposed to so many potential risks.”
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March 14th, 2009 at 7:14 am
So, tell me if im right. A tiger shark swims around and you shoot it because its getting to “curious”. Real heroes eh? It took that shark many years to grow that big and you shoot it without a second thought. Also, howd you call for help under water. Did your buddies “feel” your need for the wambulance. Im in a group of divers and scientists that moniter and help with the oceans wildlife. Ive been diving for 5 years in the presence of bull, grey tip, hammerhead, and the ever dangerous shark from hell who bothers minge man and his little buddies, the tiger. We create new reefs for you and your buddies to spear fish off of. These reefs atract fish that the tiger shark eats to grow to twelve feet long. This is their ocean, they get curious. Did the tiger bite you? Did it bump your camera? And the media just eats it up. I dig your respect though. Next time, be more cogniscent of nature.
March 14th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
We were commenting on our site as well as everyone else all over the internet after seeing it. First up, love your site.
This seems a bit staged since a shark that was even more than half dead could have over-powered the situation and swam away > or worse. His friend filmed the incident for 2 hours while the other man would be becoming quite exhausted if he was really struggling and unable to escape,,,the shark seemed pretty listless as superdiver held on letting the shark die a slow death.(or was the friend simply doing nothing but possibly hanging around to maybe film his friend in serious trouble’s ultimate demise? Now that would have got some good press, huh? - Oh, BTW -let’s face it, they enjoy the sport of hunting and spearing fish,,,in this day and age it is not out of neccessity to eat that they happen to step out shooting fish all day, looks like they can afford that nice expensive diving gear…oh, but to stay on track here…can someone reach the divers and bring them current, both tuna and sharks are endagered species, so they were out spearing both on that day. I think there is a technical term for this, oh yeah thats it… that’s a bunch of bull@%*#.
The Big Crab
Coral Reef Drive
Down Deep, USA
March 15th, 2009 at 11:26 am
I can’t say if these guys had to shoot the Tiger to survive, but this was a fair fight. These guys are breath hold divers, floating out in the open ocean with one shot of a spring loaded spear and only the air in their lungs from a single breath. They were at the disadvantage.
It is sad they shot the Tiger, especially since it was a juvenile. On the other hand Tiger sharks kill people each year. Generally someone in the water is defenseless against a Tiger Shark and had it been you or me we would have been shark food if the Shark decided to take a taste to see if we were edible.
The thing with sharks is that its a battle we really don’t want but it is inevitable when we share the ocean; generally speaking it is a battle we lose. This case excepted.
There are no fluffy cuddly creatures involved here, please!
March 15th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
it was a slit second decicion
i bet if all you “nature lovers” were in the open water and a 12 foot tiger shark came swiming toward you, you would shoot it too
its not like this is the first time a shark has been killed
March 15th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
pretty lucky they didn’t attract more sharks i would think… then we would have had ourselves a video
March 15th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
For those skeptics.
A tiger shark is not the kind of shark you swim with. If he was getting “too curious” then they were indeed in danger. There is no question. I have caught sharks (no tigers, but plenty of bulls and blacktips) out of the gulf, And I know that when a shark is “dead” he can still fight for several hours. What you are seeing in the video is a dead shark… dead with the potential to take a bite out of you. So taking 2 hours to film this video is not at all unreasonable.
It is unfortunate this shark had to die. But it is no doubt a case a self defense. You simply cannot play with tiger sharks, they will bite you just out of curiosity, if you run from them they will chase you down, and they will taste anything they come across. If one is sniffing around you, you are in danger for your life. period.
Almost all other shark species are not this way, they will only bite under mistaken identity circumstances or in defense of their young, or their territory. So swimming with them, and waiting out their curiosity is not usually a problem. But tiger sharks are totally different.
These guys did the right thing, and they were obviously not happy about it. They were lucky nobody got hurt. I would bet they will all start carrying a bigger sharper knife from now on too
March 15th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
There is this new fangled device called a “whistle” on modern snorkels built specifically to call for help under water. There is also the usual ways of waving hands or whatever, tapping on anything metal or even tapping on your mask glass to call for help. Not to mention they were freediving, so maybe he called for help from people on the boat while he was taking a breath? I don’t know exactly how he did it, but I do know there are plenty of ways to call for help under water, especially when diving with experienced folks. I would expect an experienced diver to know this…
Like I said in my previous response, diving with sharks is perfectly normal, and they get curious, its normal… these guys were experienced and have been diving with sharks all their lives. But a tiger shark is a different story. You can claim to have dove with tigers all you want, but I don’t believe it for a second. Even if its true, you are special, it is not normal. Tigers are the only shark aside from whites to be feared. And the fear is very well deserved.
I can also say that no matter what reefs you’ve built, tiger sharks are not at all common in the gulf of mexico. So to accuse spearfishers in the gulf of anything other than good sport is rediculous. There are thousands of man-built reefs in the gulf and diving on them and fishing on them is perfectly acceptable and normal. Nobody expects a tiger shark to be there. It does happen (obviously) but the usual response is to get the hell out ASAP, or worst case scenario, kill it.
I think these guys are just like every other spearfishers I’ve met, and are very conscious and respectful of nature and whatever habitat they are fishing in. Thats kind-of the whole point to spearfishing…
If you want to complain, go find those guys taking hundreds of sailfish out of the ocean each year for the sake of television!
March 18th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
I have to agree with David on all of this. I’m a free dive spearfisher in Hawaii, and come across sharks fairly regularly. Most of these are white tip or black tip, occasional Galapagos. I have not been scared by any of them, I actually feel very calm around them. I even had a large white tip chase me out of his cave and did not actually feel that he was going to attack me. A tiger shark, however, I do not think would be the same. I’m fortunate enough not to have come across one yet, but everyone I’ve talked to who has says the same thing… they’re curious and persistant. Not a good combo to go up against even if you’re armed with a spear gun. All you animal lovers and activists go ahead and cry your eyes out, but when it’s you, whether it’s a shark, a bear, a mountain lion, or a rattle snake, you’re going to fight back when you’re attacked. If you don’t, if you just give up and become part of the food chain, uh well, I guess that’s just one less idiot in the world to deal with.
March 24th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Ok,Tigers are definitely not my first choice for a dive buddy but that said most of the time trouble can be avoided without injury to either shark or diver. And for an opposing video view of tiger sharks with divers check out this link and click on the video:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1255575174
It’s a great look at a 14′tiger interacting with a group of divers.
All I can say is that I would have given anything to have been there.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
This is an outrage! I’ve been in the water with bleeding fish at 90 ft with curious bullsharks. I’ve witnessed 10 free divers swimming with 3 large tiger sharks, the largest being 14ft as they were feeding on a dead whale. Never have I seen an instance where there wasn’t sufficient time to get out of the water. Did these jerk-offs ever think about getting out of the water? What about the guy on the boat coming and picking them up? When you hear about someone being bitten they never saw it coming. There was plenty of time to get out of the water but they wanted their 15 minutes of fame at the expense of a 30 year old fish. If a shark wants to eat you wont see it coming. After you’ve seen him he’s already been circling you and has already decided not to eat you. These punks were remorsful b/c they knew that they could have avoided killing the shark but became remorsful only AFTER they realized the magnitude of killing something as beautiful and quite possibly older than them. This story reiks of BS.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:57 am
I live in south Louisiana and the utter disregard for nature’s creatures by the general population is appalling. As a lifelong diver and marine biologist, I can tell you very confidently that there was no excuse for this killing. The divers could have been picked up by the boat, exiting the water one at at time, simply by giving this animal a good poke to the snout with the tip of a spear. This works. I’ve been in the water with plenty of angry and agitated sharks and shooting one of them has never been considered an option. These jerks won this time, but as often as they’re in the water, I’m hoping an 18′ White Shark is the next animal that shows interest in them. Maybe then, they’ll have the sense to get in the boat and if not, they’ll deserve what they get. In the end, nature always wins.
June 20th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Well i can not believe that you would wish that on anybody. to wish that three people would die over something as trivial as this is horrible. you should feel bad, really thats ridicules. and i think these three have been diving long enough to know when they are going to be in danger so i kind of sort of trust their judgement on this matter why would you ever wish for somebody whose never wronged you to die?
July 17th, 2009 at 2:45 am
Someone should give this free-diving bastard a piece of their mind! What the hell is fish and game blind? This guy should be arrested! His storry is complete bullshit…This guy was doing this for fun and macho bravery, you can see it in the photos all over the web! This guy is some hot-shot free diver! Free divers killing innocent life in the sea should be shot in the meaty part of their legs with a spear gun!
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