SHARK NETS the real killers of the sea? Back in the late 1950s, South Africa’s popular east coast was rocked to the core when no fewer than five people were bitten by sharks in a matter of days. Mass panic ensued and holidaymakers fled, leaving resort towns deserted and financially ruined. In response to the public outcry, shark nets were installed along much of the KwaZulu- Natal coastline, where many remain to this day. Shark bite figures plummeted and everyone was happy… except, of course, for the sharks and the multitude of other animals that are killed every year. Photojournalist and marine biologist Thomas P. Peschak investigated the true cost of lethal bather-protection methods and asks, ‘Are shark nets really still necessary?’ TEXT & PHOTOGRAPHS THOMAS P. PESCHAK/SAVE OUR SEAS FOUNDATION WWW.AFRICAGEOGRAPHIC.COM 39 40 AFRICA GEOGRAPHIC • MAY 2009 THIS SPREAD Populations of great ham- merhead sharks are declining worldwide and South Africa is no exception. Shark nets have been recording fewer catches of the species, which suggests a reduc- tion in their numbers. PREVIOUS SPREAD Unlike many ocean-users, surfers are generally well educated about sharks and the minimal risks they pose. In this photograph, shark-diving expert Mark Addison of BlueWilderness tests the reaction of a blacktip to a surfboard. PAGE 38 Despite enjoying protected status in South Africa since 1991, great white sharks continue to be caught legally in the shark nets under an exemption. WWW.AFRICAGEOGRAPHIC.COM 43 was also bitten by a shark while stand- ing on a shallow sandbank, and suc- THEY [THE SHARK NETS] ACT AS cumbed to his injuries. Three days later, Vernon Berry was killed by a shark in waist-deep water off Margate. GILL NETS, DESIGNED TO CATCH, Just before New Year, 14-year-old Julia Painting was repeatedly bitten. She sur- suffocate and kill as many sharks vived, but lost an arm in the incident. A few days later, Deryck Prinsloo suf- as possible fered a shark bite at Scottburgh and subsequently died. Mass panic ensued and soon many South Coast resorts stood empty. With the summer season ruined, hoteliers desperately needed a shark-free Easter season. Unfortunately, their prayers went unanswered. On 3 April 1958, Nicholas Francois Badenhorst was snorkelling at Port Edward when he was bitten by a shark. Two days later, a shark killed 28-year- old Fay Bester, a mother of four, in Richards Bay • January 1958. The popular knee-deep water at Uvongo. Hysteria South African holiday resort again spread through the resorts, turn- N of Margate wakes to the rum- ing them into ghost towns. In the bling sound of explosions. months that followed, many businesses U Those residents agile enough descended into financial ruin and to scramble onto balconies and roof- bankruptcy. • DURBAN 6 tops are greeted by the sight of the six- In the wake of what is today referred • Amanzimtoti metre-high steely grey bow of SAS to as ‘Black December’, the hard-hit • Scottburgh Vrystaat slicing through a glassy sum- South Coast tourism association •Park Rynie mer sea. Captain Terry-Lloyd steers the demanded that the shark threat be dealt • Hibberdene frigate to run parallel to the shore and with immediately. Aside from the at 09h24 orders the release of depth depth-charge approach, many coastal • Uvongo charges. Fifteen-metre cascades of sea- municipalities responded by taking • Margate water erupt into the air and the shock inspiration from a precedent set off • Port Edward waves of the underwater explosions are Durban’s beaches seven years earlier HIBISCUS COAST felt many kilometres away. and installed shark nets at many of the Half an hour and 48 one-hundred- affected beaches. Multiple 200-metre- INDIAN pound depth charges later, thousands long nets were set parallel to the coast OCEAN of fish, their swim bladders ripped in 10 to 14 metres of water, approxi- apart by the blast, flounder on the sur- mately 400 metres from the shore. face. A gunnery squad armed with Many people falsely believed that the ABOVE Fifty years ago, the only good high-powered rifles takes up position nets were a protective barrier that pre- shark was a dead one. Times may have on the bow and fires on any fish larger vented sharks from reaching swimming changed, but sharks continue to instil than a metre that is still alive. By now, beaches. In fact, they act as gill nets, fear in many people. almost all of Margate’s year-round resi- designed to catch, suffocate and kill as dents are watching the spectacle, while many sharks as possible, the rationale OPPOSITE Marine protected areas, like holidaymakers pack furiously to join being that reducing the number of Aliwal Shoal off South Africa’s east thousands of others fleeing inland in sharks in the sea will also reduce the coast, afford some shark species respite bumper-to-bumper traffic. likelihood of them coming into contact from commercial and recreational fish- In a few short weeks between the dusk with bathers and other ocean users. ing activities. Despite Aliwal Shoal’s of 1957 and dawn of 1958, the Indian Almost immediately after they were status, though, shark nets are situated Ocean off the KwaZulu-Natal coast installed, the nets began to trap large within its boundaries. south of Durban was transformed from numbers of sharks, prompting many a summer playground for beach-ball- other KwaZulu-Natal coastal towns to toting and sand-castle-building tourists deploy them as well. Between 1960 and into a sea of fear and death. Just before 1970, the total length of shark nets 17h00 on 18 December 1957, 16-year- increased from two to 31 kilometres at old amateur lifesaver Robert Wherley 39 locations. By 1989, nets were in place was bodysurfing off Karridene when a at 64 beaches between Port Edward and shark bit one of his legs. Two days later, Richards Bay, spanning some 45 kilo- at Uvongo, 15-year-old Allan Green metres. They have been so efficient 44 AFRICA GEOGRAPHIC • MAY 2009 at killing large numbers of sharks that, extent, those of sharks not considered apart from three non-fatal incidents, dangerous to people. CAUGHT! there have been no shark bites at beach- The period between 1999 and 2004 The figures below show shark net catches of es with shark nets since then. saw the reduction of the length of each nine of the most commonly caught species net installation by 30 per cent. In addi- from 1978 to 2008. Depending on the spe- lmost 50 years to the day after tion (owing to socio-economic reasons), cies, between one and 65 per cent of the the first shark bite that herald- some nets were removed completely animals were released alive. A ed Black December, I am driv- and, by December 2003, the total length ing down the same coastal road that of nets was 28 kilometres, nearly 40 per Great white shark Carcharodon carcharias became clogged with the cars of pan- cent down on the 1989 high. The NSB 1 063 icked holidaymakers all those years also began to remove the nets ahead of ago. I have come to the South Coast the sardine run in June and July every on a photojournalistic quest to invest- year, which resulted in major catch igate the environmental cost of almost reductions of the dolphins and sharks Tiger shark Galeocerdo cuvier four decades of shark nets, and to that follow the shoals. 1 528 determine whether they still have a role to play in a modern, conservation- n 2007, the NSB began substituting conscious society. drumlines for some of its nets on Data from the Natal Sharks Board Ithe Hibiscus Coast (Port Edward to Zambezi shark Carcharhinus leucas (NSB), the organisation tasked with Hibberdene), with the long-term view 1 249 managing and servicing the nets, show of possibly replacing all the nets along that between 1978 and 2008 approx- the KwaZulu-Natal coast. Drumlines are imately 33 684 large sharks were caught, similar to longlines and are equipped of which 12.5 per cent were released with baited hooks to catch sharks. They Whale shark Rhincodon typus alive. In addition to catching what the are far more selective than nets, redu- 26 NSB terms ‘dangerous’ species, such as cing the bycatch of marine mammals great white, tiger and Zambezi sharks, and sea turtles to almost zero. The num- the nets also killed thousands of black- bers of ‘dangerous’ sharks caught by tips, ragged-tooths and other species drumlines are similar to those snared by Ragged-tooth shark Carcharias taurus that have never bitten people or only nets, but the effect on other shark spe- 5 441 been implicated in very minor injuries. cies is dramatically different. Drumline Despite their name, shark nets don’t mortalities of blacktip, spinner and only catch sharks; in fact, these gill ragged-tooth sharks are lower, whereas nets are second only to dynamite as those of small dusky sharks are much Blacktip shark Carcharhinus limbatus the most unselective fishing method higher. The trend in dusky sharks is 3 088 known. They ensnare and drown a worrying as the species’ late age of wide range of animals, from medium- maturity (20-plus years) and low repro- sized game fish to 15-metre-long ductive rate render it vulnerable to even humpback whales. Since 2004, the nets limited fishing impacts. On the other Scalloped, smooth and great hammerhead catch on average 237 rays, 58 turtles, hand, the lower catches of blacktips and sharks Sphyrna lewini, S. zygaena and 53 dolphins and five whales every year.