Gill Nets Help Protect Tourists : S. African Beach Patrol Keeps Sharks Fenced Out

Two yellow boats, each carrying a skipper and a four-man crew, roared through the surf and slammed to a halt on the sandy beach here about dawn the other day. A few tourists, sleepy-eyed and barefoot, tentatively strolled over to have a look.

One of the boat’s crew, a Zulu seaman in an orange slicker, obligingly lifted the head of the morning’s catch--a five-foot-long, ragged-tooth shark--and smiled for a tourist’s video camera.

Not so long ago, the sea’s top predator sent the tourists in these parts fleeing. But the resort industry thrives along these shark-infested waters today, and the agency that for nearly 25 years has been netting sharks, analyzing them and advertising the gruesome details of their attacks finds an eager, growing audience.

“People here used to be so panic-stricken by the word shark, one town mayor refused to allow us to bring sharks to shore,” Beulah Davis, a zoologist and director of the Natal Shark Board, said recently. “But I believe if people see the shark has been captured, they’ll be less afraid.”

It is a strategy that has worked.

Such fascination with sharks draws about 3,000 people every month to the headquarters of the Shark Board in this coastal town. Newspaper clippings from South Africa’s most terrifying shark attacks get prominent display in the lobby, and a film reminds visitors of the shark’s remarkable prowess. The board’s insignia, a head-on drawing of a swimming shark, decorates the entire fleet of yellow Land Rovers and boats.

More often than not, the board’s visitors head right back into the water--after checking to see that the Shark Board has approved the beach for swimming.

The board, known officially as the Natal Anti-Shark Measures Board, monitors 380 gill nets in front of 45 beaches along the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa’s eastern province.

That effort, one of the most extensive in the world, captures about 1,250 sharks a year, including 50 great whites, and board scientists study each one in a continuing attempt to predict where and when the deadly fish are most likely to strike humans.

Up and down 250 miles of this coastline, 27 shark control officers and their crews head out to sea each morning before dawn to check on the nets that help protect Natal’s $250-million-a-year tourist industry. In its history, the board has recorded only two shark attacks within areas protected by its nets.

The nets, each of which is about 24 feet deep and 300 yards long, are arranged in a baffle formation about 500 yards from shore. During the morning inspection, the nets are carefully pulled, hand over hand, in a search for snags, dead sharks or any sea life more than three feet long that is likely to get caught.

Creatures Cut Loose

All creatures found alive in the net, including sharks, are cut loose and allowed to swim back to sea. But, because of the way they breathe, sharks must keep moving to survive, and so they are rarely found alive in the nets.

“Our goal is to get out here and do our work before those bathers wake up,” Jeff McKay, the chief shark control officer, said one recent morning as he guided his 19-foot boat toward the bobbing yellow and red buoys that mark the nets.

If the nets are tangled by stormy weather or a strong surf and cannot be quickly repaired, the Shark Board orders the beach in front of them closed.

The ragged-tooth shark that drew fascinated tourists here the other day was hauled back to the Shark Board’s sprawling complex on a hill overlooking Umhlanga Rocks and the ocean. It was dissected, and 70 pieces of information about the shark were logged into a computer along with details such as the water temperature and water visibility.

Tourist Trade Suffered

South Africa’s first reported shark attack occurred in 1842, and since the turn of the century, sharks have killed about 50 people. No one knows for sure why sharks come so close to shore here, but some scientists speculate that the proximity of the continental shelf with its deep waters may be one reason.

“It’s a wonder there was a tourist industry to start with here,” says Marie Levine, a Shark Board officer.

In fact, the tourist trade in the beach communities along this coast almost collapsed in three short months, from December, 1957, to February, 1958, the height of the holiday season, when sharks killed five swimmers and maimed two others.

Authorities erected fences in the sea, but those were washed away by the energetic surf. They tried dropping depth charges--but not one dead shark floated to the surface.

‘Absolute Hell’

Then they hired fishermen to set up a network of gill nets, of the kind then being used to protect beaches from sharks in Australia, and the Natal Shark Board was created in 1964 to oversee the operation.

Davis became the director and promptly stunned the men who hired her by requesting a life jacket and four-wheel drive vehicle to personally monitor the netting operation.

Those were difficult years, however, as she tried to regain the confidence of the swimmers and also keep the hoteliers happy.

“It was absolute hell,” remembers Davis, a dark-haired 57-year-old who stands 5 feet tall and is said to run the board with a firm hand. “My phone and my ears were red hot. I had hotels, town councils, everybody yelling at me for closing the beaches.

“Now they realize we close the beaches for good reasons--not because we want to be a spoilsport,” she added.

Not Completely Effective

Over the years, the Shark Board has grown into a powerful force in this province. Today it has an annual budget of $2.25 million and a uniformed staff of about 250. The number of nets it oversees has quadrupled, and the number of beaches it protects has tripled since its inception.

Board scientists say that while the nets reduce the probability of a confrontation between shark and man, they cannot be considered 100% effective. They only cover about 10% of Natal’s coastline, for example, and nearly half the sharks caught in the nets were on the coastal side of the mesh, heading out to sea. Closing beaches after heavy rains, when the debris from rivers pours into the ocean and lures some species of sharks, also helps prevent attacks.

Whatever the reason, the system works. Only two shark attacks have occurred in areas where the nets were in working order, and the numbers of swimmers over the years has increased sharply.

Earlier this year, a man was bitten on the heel by a small shark in waters protected by the nets. In 1980, a 24-year-old man who was body surfing in a netted area at Ballito was attacked by a 9-foot-long, 600-pound great white shark. He survived but lost his foot.

Expanded Investigations

Far from scaring people, the presence of Shark Board boats has become a soothing sight. Talking about the dangers of sharks pays other dividends as well: The board finds that it hears less grumbling when it decides to close beaches.

“We’ve changed the attitude of the average holiday-maker toward the shark threat,” Davis said. “When there’s an attack and we do an investigation, we report it precisely as it happened. It gets people to say, ‘Silly boy. He shouldn’t have been surfing in an area without any nets.’ ”

In recent years, the Natal Shark Board has begun investigating shark attacks elsewhere along South Africa’s 2,700 miles of coast. About five attacks occur each year, most involving surfers or spear-fishermen in the colder waters off Cape province or in unprotected areas of Natal.

Shark Board employees interview survivors, study injuries and even X-ray chewed-up surfboards to try to identify the attacker.

Humans ‘Not Their Staple Diet’

“One of the things that has come out clearly is that many of these are cases of a frightened reaction by the shark or a case of mistaken identity,” Davis said. “It (the shark) bumps into somebody, takes a nip and goes away. Human beings are not their staple diet.”

The last fatal shark attack in South Africa occurred a year ago off Cape province. But such deaths are rare, partly because lifeguards use a special first aid kit designed to stabilize a victim and reduce the chances that he will die of shock.

Some scientists criticize the nets for upsetting the ocean’s ecosystem by killing sharks and such sea creatures as dolphins, about 50 of which die every year in the nets.

Harry Richards, a University of Natal zoologist studying the dolphin population, says the catch rate of bottlenose dolphins--about 25 a year--is “significant and unacceptably high.” Only about 600 bottlenose dolphins live along this coast, according to Richards.

“The whole environmental impact of the nets has been swept under the carpet for the last 20 years by the Shark Board’s public relations efforts,” he said. “While shark nets have been portrayed as protecting people from sharks and protecting the tourist industry, there is this hidden cost that hasn’t been assessed.”

Davis, of the Shark Board, said, however, that “we’re not even making a dent in the ecosystem at all. Our fishing is not intensive, and we’re always looking for indications that a population in the sea might be under stress.”

“I don’t like catching sharks,” she added. “I wish to goodness we could find some way else to keep people and sharks apart.”