Smoke, Mirrors and Sharp Teeth

While the WSL secretly celebrates the most watched surfing heat in history and with the media frenzy (if you’ll excuse the use of the word) surrounding Mick Fanning’s harrowing experience at J-Bay slowly falling from the top of your Instagram and Facebook news feeds, I felt that as any aspiring/wannabe surf commentator, I might throw my 2 South African cents into the furor and address a few issues pertaining to the dreaded encounters with ‘men in grey suits.’

Our coastline is situated between two oceans, The Indian: fed by the warm Mozambique current flowing south, and the icy cold Atlantic fed by the Benguela moving north from the Antarctic.

The Western Cape was initially named ‘The Cape of Good Hope’ by the Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Diaz who first circumnavigated it in 1488. It soon gained another name: ‘Cabo das Tormentas’: The Cape of Storms.

As one rounds the southern tip of South Africa known as Cape Agulhas and moves further up the east coast, the waters become warmer and the climate turns distinctly subtropical.

One thing however remains constant: Waves.

South Africa has 2798 km of coastline. I’d say that a fair estimate would be that approximately 90 percent of that is surfable. Unfortunately the whole of South Africa, and not just Jeffries Bay is in fact fairly ‘sharky’ for lack of a better word. Tiger Sharks and Bull Sharks (Known locally as Zambezi Sharks for their ability to swim hundreds of kilometres up the Zambezi river estuary, surviving prolonged periods in fresh water. A specimen has even been spotted 4000 kilometres up the Amazon river.) frequent the warm waters up the east coast. Down south, the seal colony off Cape Town is now famous for its breaching Great Whites. Lots and lots of Great Whites. Perhaps if Diaz had known what was swimming below his creaky galleon he would have in fact called it ‘Cabo de Grandes Tubaroes Brancos’. These days thanks to shows like Discovery Channel’s Shark Men and Shark Week our sky bound Great Whites are quite infamous. A little on those shows a bit later.

Of course when we humans have to share a space with large predators like Great Whites, Bulls and Tigers blood is invariably spilled, sometimes it’s the humans, but more often than not, it’s the sharks that come off second best.

Although not caught on film in such a dramatic fashion, there were in fact two attacks along that particular stretch of coastline adjacent to Jbay in the 3 weeks prior to the incident during the final. Two surfers, one at Plettenberg bay and one at Buffels Bay were attacked by suspected Great Whites within a day of each other. The latter would lose his leg.

There are numerous proposed, mostly untested and unsubstantiated theories regarding shark behaviour and their feeding/hunting habits. Just looking at the numbers we can ascertain a few truths behind the pseudo science and media-fuelled hysteria:

Shark attacks are more likely to occur at midday through to early evening. This may simply be due to the time that people are more likely to be in the water.)

...and certain times of the year, again possibly due to more people in the water over the December holidays.

You’re more at risk of being attacked by certain species than others, although in most cases the species is not positively identified.

That you more at risk of being attacked pursuing certain activities than others. Bathers seem to have it worst.

And by enlarge, contrary to populist belief: most attacks are not fatal, that’s not to say they aren’t catastrophic though.

Some of this is useful; some of it is common sense, I’ll concede that. Furthermore: It goes without saying that surfing in certain countries and specific spots can affect your chances. Specifically from a South African context:

2nd beach in Port St Johns has the dubious title of being (unofficially at least) the most dangerous beach in the word with regards to shark activity. Seeing 8 fatalities in 5 just years. Bull Sharks are largely responsible, which are rumoured to be attracted by the scent of a whale carcass that was foolishly buried on the beach a decade or so ago. It’s not the first time that idiotic behaviour on our part has potentially fuelled the ‘shark problem’.

The stretch of beach that runs from Scarborough to Houtbay in Cape Town averages approximately 4 attacks a year. The area is a known hunting ground and transit point for Great Whites, but also has incredible waves. Amazingly In 1976 there were 10 attacks along this stretch of coastline.

Another strange spate of attacks occurred further up the east coast, where I hail from. During the Black December of 1957-1958 there were 5 fatal attacks on bathers along Durban’s inner city beaches. This period, and the resulting panic, was rumoured to be a source of inspiration for Spielberg’s Jaws, however Bull Sharks and not a lone Great White were the suspected culprits.

Despite these alarming tales, the entire continent of Africa ranks 3srd in the word after Australia and the continental United States for confirmed, unprovoked attacks. As a country, South Africa barely makes the list averaging 3-4 a year since the 1950’s.

The tiny island of Reunion’s entire surf tourism has been virtually wiped out by a spate of attacks. Bizarrely, a ban on surfing was recently instituted by the authorities as well as a controversial shark cull in which 45 Tiger and 45 Bull Sharks were killed. Australia followed suit in February this year with the culling of large shark species this year after a run of serious attacks in Western Australia.

Whether Culling of sharks is justified or even effective or not is not something I will delve into here, there simply isn’t any data to substantiate anything, but when viewed over a long enough time frame, shark encounters and unprovoked attacks are indeed on the increase. The reasons for this increase still largely escapes us as the number of variables is too vast for us to decipher, and give us a specific marker or markers. Whether it’s due to lack of food, rising water temperature or simply a greater number of people in the water, marine biologists, shark experts and even economists are largely at odds. There is however a growing consensus amongst laymen and our so-called ‘experts’ that human contact with sharks has the potential to alter feeding habits and ‘behavioural associations’.

Sharks are in fact highly developed and very ‘clever’ if you will. Apex predators have to develop cognitive abilities in order to formulate effective hunting strategies in order to hunt equally clever and agile prey to survive. Seals begin behaving in a certain way so they do not end up as lunch. The hungry Great White begins developing a counter strategy in order to outwit the seal. It’s a sort of strategic arms race. Great Whites in particular have been shown to hunt in particular ways in particular conditions against certain prey. They show adaptability. Clever fish.

With this in mind; Surely burying a whale carcass on the beach at Port St John’s or building industrial slaughter houses near surfing beaches in Recife in Brazil and Reunion, or dumping tons of chum and blood into the sea off Cape Town in order to attract sharks to film or take photographs of them for Shark Week might be a bad idea? Surely the rules of not feeding wild animals, so stringently enforced in our National Parks should apply to the ocean too?

In 2012 a bright young guy I used to surf with named Gustav was killed by a Great White at a popular surf spot known as Caves in Cape Town. The day prior to his death, Discovery Chanel obtained a permit to drop 2 tons of blood into False Bay in order to lure sharks to their boat to film them for their new show Shark Men. They went along with it despite numerous protests, but ultimately abandoned filming after Gustav’s death.

Still, there is a significant disparity between ‘real’ and ‘perceived’ risks when it comes to the risks associated with being attacked by a shark thanks largely to emotion created by the media. Sadly, I feel that the attention created by the incident this weekend has done little to improve the situation. In fact, by fuelling our fascination, perhaps obsession with these largely misunderstood creatures, it may have made things worse.