Terry Haywood
Sharks board staff inspect shark nets as part of efforts to keep Durban waters safe for bathers.
Tourism in KwaZulu-Natal is thriving at the expense of hundreds of sharks, dolphins and turtles that are killed by one of the province’s major beach pulling factors – shark nets.
About 600 sharks still die in nets every year, but tourism authorities say the absence of the safety nets would harm one of the province’s main livelihoods.
Durban tourism CEO Phillip Sithole said safety was a priority for tourists, “whether it is on the roads, walking on the beach, or swimming in the sea”, and that having nets at the city’s beaches to prevent sharks coming to the shore played a major role in creating that sense of safety.
“When you look at Cape Town, you are always hearing about shark attacks, but in Durban you hardly ever do… The nets make our work marketing Durban easier.”
KZN Sharks Board statistics revealed that 111 shark attacks, 20 fatal, occurred in Cape Town from 1990 to 2011. In Durban, 25 shark attacks resulted in two deaths during this period.
This is despite the shark nets along the coast being reduced by almost a third between 1994 and 2004. The most sharks ever killed in KZN’s shark nets was 2 200 in 1985.
“we are known as a safe beach destination. If we don’t have the nets it would make big news and have a huge negative impact. People would think twice before going into the water,” Sithole said.
Currently, KZN is one of only three places in the world where shark nets are used, the other two being in Australia and Hawaii.
South Coast Tourism CEO Michael Bertram agreed with Sithole, saying visitors felt safer at beaches with shark nets. He does not believe that drum lines, baited hooks hung from drums, are the answer.
“The shark nets that are deployed along the KwaZulu-Natal coastline are essentially fishing devices known as large meshed gill nets that unfortunately entangle and catch sharks,” he wrote in a recent tourism blog.
“Nets cover large geographic areas of the KZN coastline and are further out at sea than exclusion nets. These nets are not species selective and hence also result in a range of other marine species becoming entangled.”
Bertram said exclusion nets – designed to act as a barrier to sharks while preventing capture or entanglement of marine species – had been considered in the Western Cape since 2006, and were declined as an option for Fish Hoek earlier this year.
“Since 2004, Fish Hoek beach has had two fatal shark attacks as well as a third which resulted in severe injuries and the loss of a limb. As a result of the high presence of white sharks within the inshore area of this bay, recreational and social use of Fish Hoek Beach, as well as social perceptions… has been negatively affected.”
However, Bertram questioned whether it was not time for industry professionals to “get around a table” and find a 21st century solution to the protection of not only swimmers, “but all our marine resources”.
Cheryl Peters, spokesman for Enterprise Ilembe, the development agency for the Ilembe District Municipality, said tourists often asked which beaches were protected, as many of them had children who would be swimming in the sea.
“As we are primarily a beach destination and many people come here for the beaches, not having nets would definitely impact negatively on tourism.”
Cape Town Tourism spokesman Skye Grove said the absence of shark nets, however, did not affect tourism in Cape Town, as tourists visited the city for many reasons – including beach activities.
“Cape Town’s beaches do not have shark nets; instead, there is the shark spotters programme. Shark spotters are stationed at a number of lookout points along the False Bay coast. They liaise with lifeguards at beaches and use a flag and alarm system to warn beachgoers of a shark’s whereabouts,” Grove said.
Bianca Morgan, conservation manager for the Wildlife and Environment Society of SA, said the issue of shark nets was highly controversial, with environmental and ecological impacts.
Furthermore, because sharks were apex (top-level) predators, their deaths had knock-on effects throughout the food chain.
Morgan said shark nets were a “non-specific” way of keeping sharks away, often catching other creatures, which was concerning.
Sharks board spokesman Debbie Hargreaves said, however, that the number of shark deaths had dropped from 800 a year to 600, thanks the replacing of nets with drum lines.
A drum line consists of a drum, with two lines attached to it – one to an anchor and the other to a baited shark hook.
Morgan questioned, however, whether drum lines were “not just attracting sharks”.
She said although the Wildlife and Environment Society of SA did not have a position on the issue, it would be looking at it in the near future.
