Swimming with sharks is a travel bucket list item of those who are daring and like to take risks. One five-year-old girl can already check it off her list.
A Ridgefield, Connecticut family is facing a bit of heat after a video of a 5-year-old girl swimming with sharks went viral. The parents of little Anaia Barnes allowed thei daughter to swim with the deadly beasts while on vacation in the Bahamas.
The video shows Anaia, her mother Elana, her father, David, and an instructor snorkeling in waters full of nurse, lemon and Caribbean reef sharks. The event was part of a trip with Power Boat Adventures off of Nassau, Bahamas, a company that has been running swim with sharks programs for 20 years.
Her parents posted the video on YouTube to share with friends and family, but it made waves throughout the internet and started a debate between people who are shocked that the parents would put their daughter in potential danger. The nearly 10-mintue video shows the sharks being fed beforehand, followed by 5-year-old Anaia being led by an instructor through the shark infested shallow waters.
When questioned about why they let their little girl swim with sharks, Elana and David Barnes told Good Morning America, "Life is too short to be boring." They did not see any danger in the issue. "At no point did I feel like this is dangerous, like going on a rollercoaster, I'm probably not going to fall off, but it's still scary," said Anaia's mother, Elana Barnes.
News 8 spoke with experts at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, Connecticut, who said they wouldn't even let their children swim with sharks. John Lenzyckyi, a shark expert of 24 years said "Would I intentionally do that? I honestly don't know, I'd probably be a little bit more cautious myself." He also explained that last year, there were around 100 unprovoked shark attacks and 90 percent of them happened in shallow water. He was concerned about the animals relating people to food since humans feed them.
"I wouldn't want to be that person standing in the lagoon at 11 o'clock in the morning and that particular person called in sick that day," he said.
Lenzycki also gave some input about the types on sharks that little Anaia was splashing around with. He said nurse sharks are a calm species, but lemon and reef sharks are higher on the predatory scale.
Ericka Souter, editor of CafeMom.com, told expressed her concern over the issue while on Good Morning America.
"When you are an adult, you are allowed to be as reckless as you want to be," Souter said. "But as parents, it is our job to protect our kids from reckless and dangerous behavior."
In a later statement, Elana Barnes told News 8 "We always take safety very seriously in our family. Anaia knows not to get near a bike without a helmet, she was rear-facing in her car seat until age 3. At a very early age she knew not to approach a dog without asking it's owner. We teach her to respect all the creatures we share this planet with. Not all sharks are created equally, they vary as much as canines do. If someone is concerned about this, they can do the same research we did before booking this trip. I also would like to point out that at no time was Anaia more than five feet away from us, or closer than 20 feet from the sharks."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
