Shark diving tourism can provide conservation benefits through economic valuation of living sharks, but diver interactions and feeding practices raise welfare concerns for the animals that sustain the industry.
Shark dive tourism sits in a complex welfare space. The conservation value of demonstrating living shark economic worth has been genuinely significant — contributing to shark sanctuary legislation and finning bans. But the welfare costs of modified behavior from feeding encounters, stress from close diver contact, and in some operations, direct handling harm, are real. Welfare-conscious shark tourism means non-contact encounters, no artificial feeding, and diver education that treats sharks as wild animals rather than performance subjects. The conservation argument for shark tourism is strongest when the welfare costs of tourism itself are minimized.