Can You Swim With Sharks Without a Cage?
Swimming with sharks is an exciting prospect, yet the phrase is also synonymous with the idea of sinking down into the depths inside a cold metal cage.
For some, the idea of caging diving with sharks isn’t very appealing. Perhaps it's the idea of being trapped, or you have concerns about the ethics of shark cage diving. Whatever it is, you’re here because you want to know one thing.
Can you swim with sharks without a cage?
The answer is both yes and no. Let’s start with the no.
Can You Swim With Great White Sharks Without a Cage?
No, you can’t.
Swimming with great whites is inherently dangerous. These are large and powerful predators who have eaten people in the past. While they are not as dangerous as films and popular-culture might have you believe, they are also not safe animals to be around without adequate protection. Some divers can swim with great white sharks without a cage, but their protection comes from knowledge of great white behaviours and body language. They can keep themselves safe by knowing when to leave the water.
Great white sharks were demonised and villainized in the 20th century, with the film Jaws playing a major role in this characterisation. You may be aware that this characterisation has been falsely imprinted on the animal, and that they’re not the monsters portrayed in movies. However, just because they aren’t the terrors of the ocean we once thought, that does not mean they’re safe to be in the water with either.
Great whites are known man-eaters and to swim with one without a cage is very dangerous. With multiple fatalities recorded from great whites every year, even if they are mostly a case of mistaken identity, this is just not always the case.
Of all the sharks, the great white is one of the only animals so powerful, aggressive and unpredictable enough that encountering them without a cage puts you at high chances of fatal injury. That is why nobody will offer you commercial free-diving with great white sharks outside of a cage, and any operator claiming to do so is likely operating outside the boundaries of the law as well as a cage.
Great whites should be considered like tigers. They should be respected, admired and they should not be feared or recriminated. But at the same time, it should be understood that they are capable of tearing you limb-from-limb as both a food source and through sheer force of will. If you don’t know how to behave around them, you shouldn’t get close to them.
While there are plenty of videos online showing people swimming with great whites without a cage, these are usually experienced biologists and divers, and it’s dangerous to think that you could do the same. These animals can easily lash out without provocation, and the results can be fatal. Going back to our example, tigers are not known to hunt humans, but they will kill them from time to time. Great whites are much the same. It might be to a lesser extent than tigers, but the recorded history of shark attacks teaches us that great whites do have the propensity for high-levels of aggression towards people and that your safety in the water with them is safe from guaranteed.
Can You Swim With Sharks (That Aren’t Great Whites) Without a Cage?
Great whites are one of the only species of shark you cannot swim with through commercial tour operators without a cage. There are a few other exceptions, but these are down to accessibility -- a great example is the Greenland shark, that swims in the frozen depths beneath ice flows, making locating the animal, let alone diving with it, incredibly difficult.
As for swimming with other sharks without a cage, there are dive and snorkel schools around the world that will allow you to encounter pretty much every type of shark imaginable. From iconic hammerhead sharks to immensely powerful bull sharks, name any species of shark besides a great white and you’ll be able to swim with them outside of a cage.
Is it Safe to Swim with Sharks Without a Cage?
Sharks have different rates of fatalities. The Florida Museum lists all recorded unprovoked fatalities by shark from 1580 to the present day - a total of 160 deaths (less than 3 per year).
The great white, unsurprisingly, stands ahead of the pack, followed by the usual shark suspects. The data is as follows:
Great white sharks - 52 fatalities on record
Tiger shark - 34 fatalities of record
Bull shark - 25 fatalities on record
Blue shark - 4 fatalities on record
Oceanic Whitetip - 3 fatalities on record
What follows is a list of 6 further sharks with 1 recorded fatality each. A single kill in 440 years. The rest of the 19 species on the list have no fatalities recorded (only injuries), this includes all common reef sharks, sand tiger sharks and hammerhead sharks.
So is it safe to swim with sharks without a cage?
It all depends on the species that you encounter while in the water. Generally speaking, great whites are unsafe to swim with. Some would disagree, but the attack rates are certainly the highest. Tiger sharks and bull sharks also have higher fatality rates than most but less so than the great white. Tiger and bull shark attacks also almost exclusively occur in shallow water with poor visibility, where the electrical signals that people give off can be indistinguishable from a fish floundering fish.
That is not to say that either of these predators would not attack in open water, but it’s a much rarer encounter. A few years ago, a spearfishermen was reported to have come face-to-face with a tiger shark after getting into difficulties off the coast of Australia. He had to swim 5 miles back to shore. The shark stayed with him the entire time, but did not attack, only watched. This is in stark contrast to reports of great white encounters in the open ocean, including an unprovoked attack in Australia in early 2020, where a diver was killed.
Here are some important facts to know about swimming with sharks and safety of encounters:
There are over 400 species of shark in the ocean.
Only 33 have ever recorded to have attacked anyone
Only five species of shark have killed more than a single person in nearly half a millennium
In Australia, sharks are considered as dangerous as bees, having killed 16 people between 2000 and 2010. Kangaroos are considered more dangerous, having killed 18.
Every wild encounter has risks but swimming with sharks without a cage is considered incredibly safe providing you avoid encounters with great white sharks - as well as bull and tiger sharks to a certain extent. Bull and tiger sharks encounters can often be safe if conducted in the right setting under the guidance of an experienced shark diver.
You do not need a cage to dive with the vast majority of sharks, in fact, it is not recommended, as cage diving limits your mobility and ability to reach the best shark encounter hotspots. If you’d like to learn more about swimming with sharks without a cage, check out our swim with sharks guide:
