13.7 Billion Years: South Africa's Shark Tale

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

South Africa's Shark Tale

Sharks have been swimming the seas unchallenged for 420 million years. But on a long stretch of South African coast, they have finally met their match -- tourists

It is the home of the Zulu Nation. It borders three countries -- Mozambique, Swaziland, and Lesotho -- and has a long shoreline along the Indian Ocean. It is KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa's "garden province."

KwaZulu-Natal is also known for having healthy shark populations, but that could be changing, as "untold numbers of harmless sharks, turtles, dolphins and rays meet an untimely and senseless death each year by entanglement in the approximately 28 kilometres of 'shark' nets that are installed just off the beaches," according a recent Wildlife Extra report.

These nets are part of a "bather protection" program, a destructive practice in which sharks get entangled in nets, struggle and the usually die of suffocation.

In the last three decades, according to Wildlife Extra, these nets have killed 33,000 sharks. In the same time period, several other species not intended to be ensnared have also been killed, including 2,000 turtles, 8,000 rays and 2,000 dolphins.

Legally, sharks in South Africa are a protected species. Indeed, the nation became the first in the world to offer sharks complete protection, in 1991. However, programs meant to keep tourists safe run by the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board are exempt from this important conservation measure.

Though the nets are meant to protect tourists, the negative press generated by this practice is not helping the region's tourism industry. Certainly, live sharks are worth a lot more than dead ones. In Gansbaai, a fishing village on the Western Cape, cage diving within the area's dense population of Great White Sharks is the main tourist attraction. South Africa generates $1.6 million in eco-tourism.

South Africa has been a pioneer in shark conservation -- they have banned the killing of sharks within 320km of their coastline. And while it is necessary to protect tourists, shark attacks are rare.

We don't own the oceans -- and we certainly didn't get there first. It's called "shark territory" for a reason.

There will always be danger when humans enter the sea. So as conservationists and politicians debate this ongoing issue, it is worth recalling an old Zulu proverb: "Follow the customs or flee the country."

GET INVOLVED

Sign a Shark Angels Alliance petition urging the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board to work on a plan to abolish the nets and work on a zero-kill plan
Sign the Shark Trust petition supporting an EU Plan of Action for the protection of sharks