A U.S. couple who drew wide attention and criticism after allowing their five-year-old daughter to swim with sharks and sharing the video on You Tube, appeared on "Good Morning America" to defend their action.
The parents, Elana and David Barnes were slammed for bad parenting after they allowed their daughter Anaia to swim with sharks in the ocean during their vacation in the Bahamas, to bring adventurous spirit in their daughter. The video titled "Anaia swims with sharks" went viral on the net after it was posted on You Tube.
The video with the description -"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!" - has been viewed more than 29,000 times, with 196 likes and 96 dislikes, two weeks after it was posted to the You Tube.
Though Nurse sharks and Lemon sharks are harmless, Reef sharks can be harmful, according to a Daily Mail report.
The video provoked public outrage with some criticising the parents' decision. "She is lucky to be alive. Why, just last year I was swimming with those sharks in that very same location when one of them took a dislike to me and fired an arrow through my knee. Naturally I died," one of the 400 persons who posted comments on You Tube, wrote.
But the parents are standing in their decision saying it helped to bring adventurous spirit in their daughter. "Life is too short to be boring" Elana Barnes said on the TV programe.
"There's just always risk assessments in life every day," ABC News quoted father David Barnes. "I'm more concerned that they don't put seatbelts in school buses."
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