Tourists Advised To Be Aware Of Sharks In This Popular Eco Hotspot Near Los Cabos

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Visitors come to Los Cabos in part for the beautiful natural scenery and the multitude of animals and sea creatures to see in their natural environment.

About two hours from Los Cabos is one of the most amazing locations to enjoy eco-tourism. Known as the “aquarium of the world”, it boasts one of the best places to take in the ocean environment anywhere in the entire region.

It also boasts a new more aggressive predator that tourists need to be aware of before visiting the area.

Cabo Pulmo National Park

Cabo Pulmo National Park is a tourism hotspot east of Los Cabos on the Sea of Cortez.

Cabo Pulmo is estimated to be about 20,000 years old and has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It also is a Mexican National Marine Park.

Each day, visitors from all around the world venture out to Cabo Pulmo to explore and enjoy a real-life aquarium. Filled with approximately 800 different types of ocean creatures, it’s the place tourists go to be one with the ocean.

It is here that tourists can connect with a wide variety of fascinating sea creatures. Everything from friendly white-tip reef sharks and sea turtles to the more exotic hammerhead sharks call this unique hard coral reef in the Gulf of California home.

It’s a popular destination with divers and snorkelers. However, they now need to be careful as a new type of sea predator is also calling the Cabo Pulmo area home.

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Beware of Predator Sharks

Cabo Pulmo is known for its large shark habitat enjoyed by underwater viewers. Traditionally, the sharks calling the reef area home have been the passive type that tend to ignore visiting divers and snorkelers. However, that has all recently changed.

Recently more aggressive and dangerous sharks have been sighted in the waters of Los Arbolitos beach at Cabo Pulmo, causing divers and snorkelers to exit the waters for their safety.

Unfortunately, the sighting of more aggressive sharks has ruined the planned outings of tourists, and several claim they should have been better advised and prepared for the possibility of dangerous predators in the water.

Shark Conservation Program

Because of the past history of hunting sharks, their numbers around Baja California Sur have dwindled to the point where tourism and wildlife officials from the area have put programs in place to not only protect their habitat, but also the animals themselves.

That’s why little can actually be done to relocate the animals to a different location away from tourists.

Sharks in their natural environment play an important role in ecosystems and the balance of reef communities.

While some of these animals are passive to human divers and snorkelers, some of the more important species for ecosystems in Cabo Pulmo are unfortunately a bit more aggressive.

How to Handle Sharks in Water

It’s difficult for most visitors to Cabo Pulmo to clearly distinguish between what types of sharks are passive and those that are a bit more dangerous.

The best action to take is to let the animals in the ocean and reef areas at Cabo Pulmo remain wild. Tourists should not disturb the natural activities of the animals.

The fact is most sharks will not proactively attack unless provoked. History shows that most of the attacks are because divers and snorkelers disturbed them or deliberately tried to provoke them.

If the sharks in the water appear to be exhibiting what appears to be aggressive behavior, divers and snorkelers should immediately exit the water and encourage others to follow. They should then notify local officials or security stationed at Cabo Pulmo for further action.

Divers and snorkelers at Cabo Pulmo also should leverage the buddy system for additional safety precautions while in the water.