Parents Let 5 Year Old Swim With Sharks

[Kelly]

Two parents have been branded irresponsible after letting their five-year-old daughter swim with sharks.David and Elana Barnes, from Connecticut, allowed daughter Anaia to with reef, lemon and nurse sharks during a holiday in the Bahamas.A video of the ‘adventure’ sparked outrage after it was uploaded to video sharing website YouTube where it has been viewed nearly 200,000 times.The couple say they were fully aware of the risks and were satisfied that Anaia was safe during the activity.“At no point did I feel like this was dangerous,” Mrs Barnes said during an appearing on Good Morning America.Mr Barnes added: “There’s just always risk assessments in life every day. I’m more concerned that they don’t put seatbelts in school buses.”Nurse sharks and lemon sharks are not considered to be aggressive toward humans, but reef sharks are more of a threat.Writing in the video’s description, Mrs Barnes enthused that swimming with the beasts was worth putting “on your bucket list”.

Parents comment on the youtube video (which now has over 500,000 views):

UPDATE: I have disabled commenting on this video. If you were greatly concerned about our daughter's well-being, I appreciate it. If you thought it was amazing, thanks! Either way, you can feel free to send me a message. The media has naturally spun this out of control. We are DONE with the publicity, we don't want fame or money, and never meant for this to "go viral". She was safe the whole time, experts agree. We would never toss her in with great whites, tiger or bull sharks. Also, we were both WITH Anaia the whole time, and by the time we were in the water, the shark's behavior was completely different than the beginning of the video. (you will notice if you look carefully) Plus, they don't feed the sharks when people are swimming, so the sharks don't have an association with swimmers and food. This was with a tour of about 40 people, including one other child. (NOT the first kids to do this, by any means.) They've done it 20 years with NO incidents. These sharks are not known to attack, and if you think all sharks are equal, please look at the difference between a Doberman and a Pomeranian....get it? :)
And apparently you can swim with these guys at some disney thing now. Dangerous, eh?

Many of you thought the video was a great experience, and understood the low risk. But the comments got too off topic and I didn't feel like keeping up with them. My now unfortunate trade mark "Life is too short to be boring" was probably the very last thing I said to the reporter after over 30 minutes of interviewing. I think I was done talking by then, and they decided that would be the best way to portray me...thanks a lot! We have been criticized to be overly cautious parents, believe it or not. I kept her rear-facing in her car-seat until she was three, she is not allowed to approach a dog she doesn't know, I never let her run ahead of me in the parking lot, she will be driven to school...etc.

This was a trip with Power Boat Adventures off of Nassau Bahamas. It was awesome! The lunch they fed us was the best, plus they had an open bar! (One always likes to drink before swimming with sharks, no?) There has been no attacks, and they have been doing it for 20 years. We swam with Reef, Lemon, and Nurse sharks, all very low on the aggression index, yet still very thrilling! Put it on your bucket list!

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[diamondsmiles]

No sure I can watch it! At least, not now.

[kellyhound]

guess they knew what they were doing.

[k_dub]

I want to pet the sharkys

[petedeamon]

I wonder what kind of meat they rubbed on her before the plunge,,,Great parents,,,yesindeed

[Feirefiz]

At least these parents didn't take their child to a midnight-premiere of the new Batman!

[Sharon.]

Wow, I'd love to swim with sharks.

[bdjackass318]

i like to eat sharks they are very tasty

[Stevee]

If I wouldn't swim with them I sure as hell wouldn't let my kid do it, I saw a stingray too and we know what happened to Steve Irwin.

[Lieberfrau]

While I agree the risk was low and fear of sharks has been largely exaggerated by bullshit movies such as Jaws, it is known that sharks like bite-sized prey and avoid adult humans because they are not. A 5-year-old however, is. The mother's statement sounds reasonable and I don't think they're the worst parents out there, but I still don't like what they did. 20 years of experience don't mean much when dealing with wild animals that have very vague body language.