HAWAI'I KAI — Plans for a new "swim with the sharks" tour business in waters off Maunalua Bay have been canceled after angry East O'ahu residents planned to gather in opposition tomorrow night, state Rep. Gene Ward said yesterday.

The operator of the proposed venture, Iolani Lewis, planned to chum the ocean to attract sharks and put clients in shark-resistant cages to watch them eat, Ward said. But yesterday, Lewis and the owner of the boat, the Snoopy V, "called it off," Ward said after he spoke to both men.

Several people who work at Koko Marina Center said the Snoopy V had been outfitted with a shark cage and had been docked at the marina for weeks until it inexplicably left yesterday.

Ward would not identify the owner of the Snoopy V, but said he and Lewis decided "it's over with. With all of this community pressure, they decided it was better not to go forward."

Ward, R-17th (Kalama Valley, Queen's Gate, Hawai'i Kai), said his constituents are angry.

"They're upset and they're threatened," he said. "They've armed themselves with pitchforks and torches.

"This is the place where you have canoers training ... every day. Once you feed those sharks, they associate the sound of the boat's motor with food. Sharks aren't stupid. If you feed them they're going to keep coming around. How many of us have gone out in boats and jumped into the water to cool off? Sharks won't be able to distinguish the difference."

Ward and several other East O'ahu elected officials still plan to hold a community meeting tomorrow night in which Lewis will be the first speaker.

"We could at least let him explain to the people what he went through and what he's not going to do," Ward said.

Neither the owner of the Snoopy V nor Lewis responded to messages from The Advertiser left at the Koko Marina Center business office, which leases a slip to the boat.

Unlike an unrelated shark-feeding operation out of Hale'iwa on O'ahu's North Shore, Maunalua Bay is popular year-round for paddlers, para-sailers, personal watercraft riders, boaters, scuba divers and others — many of whom say they hate the idea of attracting more sharks by artificially feeding them.

Dan Kuromoto, 48, of Hawai'i Kai, surfs at least three times a week at a spot called "Seconds" in Maunalua Bay and has seen his share of relatively friendly white tip and black tip reef sharks.

But he does not like the idea of humans disturbing Maunalua Bay's ecosystem by attracting their more aggressive, deep-water white tip and black tip cousins and other predators, such as tiger sharks.

"Everybody understands that it's their ocean and we just come and play in it," Kuromoto said. "But we don't want to see something happen because the balance has changed. At Yellowstone (National Park) they tell you not to feed wild bears because they associate food with humans. With sharks, why take a chance? Don't upset the balance."

Carol Wilcox, who is on the steering committee of Malama Maunalua, an organization dedicated to the restoration of Maunalua Bay, said the group believes that shark feeding is "an inappropriate activity anywhere in Hawai'i. It's bad conservation practice and a public safety issue. This whole thing about feeding fish in the wild is clearly bad practice. People start looking like food and sources of food."

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources would have no jurisdiction over the shark-feeding venture as proposed because it would have operated out of a private marina and fed sharks three miles from shore, outside state-controlled waters, said DLNR spokeswoman Deborah Ward.

"If they do operate by chumming or feeding sharks, it's illegal within state waters but outside of three miles it's not illegal under state law," she said.

If the shark-feeding plan had progressed, City Councilman Charles Djou said he and Ward were discussing the possibility of encouraging the Koko Marina business association to put its own restrictions on the Snoopy V's operations.

"As much as I am pro-business, if it's a business operation that jeopardizes public safety obviously that's not something I want to be supportive of," Djou said.