The Diver and Friend of Sharks
Gharonk\'s activities do sound horrific to most people: hanging out with sharks. However, the Gharonk figure is far from frightening.
Darmawan Ahmad Mukharror
His name is Darmawan Ahmad Mukharror. However, he is more familiarly known as Gharonk. His nickname sounds horrible because the word gharonk or garong in Javanese means “robber”. Gharonk\'s activities do sound horrific to most people: hanging out with sharks. However, the Gharonk figure is far from frightening.
In the world of diving, Garonk’s name has often been mentioned often over the past two years because of his approach to taking care of sharks and going on shark excursions.
Darmawan, who is an oil and gas mining engineer, graduated from the Bandung Institute of Technology and has a professional license to support his activities. He is the only Indonesian with a PADI AWARE Shark Conservation Diver Instructor certificate, making him a shark conservation specialist.
In Lombok, there is another person with this license, but he is an Australian citizen. Gharonk obtained his license in 2014.
He became interested in becoming a "dry land" instructor because he wanted to know totally about sharks. In addition, his wife, his first student as a dive instructor, suggested that he focus on sharks. Another thing that motivates him is that he wants to impart knowledge about sharks and change the common perception that they are frightening beasts of the sea.
Films such as Jaws make your hair stand on end, with scenes showing the giant white shark attacking a ship and killing its passengers. Gharonk does not deny that sharks are wild animals and predators of ecosystems and oceans. "However, why do people focus on the horrors?" Gharonk said recently.
The image of sharks as frightening animals, according to Gharonk, provides justification for shark finning. This sadistic and unsustainable practice drastically reduces the populations of various shark species in the world, including in Indonesia. In fact, sharks play a role as guardians of the ecosystem\'s sustainability.
Sharks only eat weak and sick fish. Without the presence of sharks, certain fish populations will soar, causing an unbalance in the food chain. As a result, this could damage the health of coral reef ecosystems.
Darmawan Ahmad Mukharror
Shark documentation
Explanations about the important role that sharks play in ecosystems should be supported by research-based knowledge so that the shark can shake off its bad image. To carry out research on sharks, researchers will inevitably have to dive and interact with sharks in their own habitat.
Gharonk felt sad when reading books on shark behavior. Apparently shark researchers in Indonesian waters are generally foreigners. Shark research carried out by Indonesians was mostly based on surveys and studying dead sharks at the market.
Not surprisingly, shark research by Indonesians has focused on the physical biology of sharks and their diet. Shark behavior has not been touched on by Indonesian researchers. Therefore, after working in the field of mining safety in Africa in 2013, Gharonk opened diving services in Morotai, North Maluku and Derawan in Berau, East Kalimantan.
Gharonk started offering tourist services not just to make money, but also to contribute to science.
While diving, he documents the sharks’ feeding activity in detail. He has made hundreds of videotapes, from which people can learn all about shark behavior.
Gharonk took a marine scientist to help him research other things such as coral, mantas and mobula. Currently, the research is conducted in Morotai because the number of people interested in studying sharks is limited. However, Gharonk also plans to conduct similar ecosystem research in Derawan.
In Morotai, his tourist company took along seven students of Diponegoro University (Undip) in Semarang and Padjadjaran University (Unpad) in Bandung, who chose shark behavior as the topic of their thesis. "Students who are interested in studying sharks for their thesis can submit a proposal to us. We then select from among the proposals", he said.
Students who pass the selection receive living expenses and free diving during the research. It is an offer that students should be fighting over. "However, currently only Undip and Unpad students are interested", he said.
Gharonk idolizes the figure Jeremiah Sullivan, a "sharkman" and the first person from the United States to dive with sharks. In addition, a number of famous researcher "sharkmen", such as Colin Simpfendorfer, Neill Hammerschlag, and Leonard Compagno, also contributed a lot of knowledge.
"They really have a strong interest and have studied sharks for decades", he said. In addition, they also never judge people’s position on the practice of feeding and interacting with sharks when diving with them.
Those who oppose the feeding practice feel it will change the behavior of sharks, while those in favor of the practice say it does not affect the behavior of sharks. What is the Gharonk’s position? He said he continued to use feeding as a means of "calling" sharks. "However, if there was technology or another effective way of calling sharks, I would use it", he said.
In an attempt to mitigate the negative impact, he uses selective feeding. This limits the feeding to sharks that come in groups. It also limits the amount of food for each shark. Gharonk and his friends can distinguish individual sharks.
They will not feed sharks that have been fed. While diving with sharks, he has never experienced anything traumatic despite meeting aggressive sharks. He once met a tiger shark around Maetara Island (located between Ternate and Tidore, North Maluku) and a bullshark around Loloda, North Halmahera, North Maluku. The most sharks ever encountered at one diving point is 24.
In Morotai, he met between seven and eight sharks in one dive. In the early days of opening tourist services there he would see gray sharks with a white tip as well as those with a black tip. However, now there are only sharks with a black tip.
Gharonk hopes that his enthusiasm for sharks can spread across Indonesia. According to him, Indonesia has a huge potential for shark tourism because it is home to many different species of shark.
