Is the culprit man or beast?
SINCE 1996, CHRIS FALLOWS HAS taken thousands of tourists and dozens of film crews on his boat into Cape Town’s False Bay to see sharks. Winter is his peak season, when great white sharks congregate around the bay’s Seal Island to feed on newly weaned Cape fur seals. Sharks here perform many breach kills, when they fly into the air, making for the spectacular images in the Air Jaws series – largely hosted by Fallows – that has had billions of views on the Discovery Channel.
“The flying sharks of False Bay are now the most famous sharks in the world,” he says.
It’s become increasingly rare to witness breach kills, particularly in the last two years. For more than two decades, Fallows has been keeping records of kills and attempted kills by sharks from his boat in False Bay. These have dropped from a peak average of more than 11 events per trip in 2004 to about 0.3 events per trip in 2017 and 2018. Others have noted a similar decline. What’s happened to the sharks?
Fallows and others in the marine ecotourism business think that the culprit is a long-line fishery that has been targeting smaller species of sharks, including soupfin and smoothhound sharks, which are favoured prey of great whites. Since 2013, about three to six demersal longliners – fishing boats that set lines with up to 2,000 baited hooks on or near the sea floor – have been working the whole southern coast. Fallows says demersal longliners have collapsed stocks of smaller shark species, which may have led great whites to starve or go elsewhere. The fishery may also be directly killing young great whites and protected hammerhead sharks, he believes.
Some scientists say they’ve still not figured out why great whites have declined in False Bay. Other possibilities are that killer whales or changing ocean conditions are driving them out.
Denne historien er fra February 2019-utgaven av Noseweek.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra February 2019-utgaven av Noseweek.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Lennie The Liquidator Faces R500,000 Defamation Suit
After losing his cool when his fees were questioned
Panel Beater De Luxe
Danmar Autobody and its erstwhile directors get a serious panel beating in court papers. Corruption and theft are said to have destroyed the firm chaired by Nelson Mandela’s eldest daughter, leaving 200 workers destitute and threatening to kill.
Meet Covid Diarist Ronald Wohlman
Ronald Wohlman – EX SOUTH African copywriter, author, and actor – never dreamt that his lockdown diaries, written on Facebook and followed by people all over the world – would become his “life’s work”.
A Picture Of Peace?
Beware: Appearances can be deceptive
Flogging A (Battery-Driven) Dead Horse
Why plug-in vehicles are not all they’re cracked up to be– and, likely, never will be
Everybody Drinks Corona
I am hesitant to go Into the pub today. Not because it’s illegal, but there is a crème colored 1985 Mercedes 300D parked behind the pine tree. This means the devil is inside; that’s what we call Dr. De Villiers. You don’t know whether you will encounter the good doctor with the charming bedside manner or the violent, bipolar bully. The problem is, most of the time, you can never be sure which it is, so it’s best to always keep a social distance.
Never Take A Hypochondriac To A Pandemic
From Ronald Wohlman’s New York Corona Diary
The money train
Transnet in court battle with liquidators of Gupta-linked audit firm over R57m in ‘corrupt’ payments and invoices
‘He's no pharmaceutical genius, he's a vulture'
Pharma con seeks prison release to ‘help find Covid cure’
Bush school – A memoir
OUR SCHOOL WAS IN THE MIDDLE of the bush, ten miles from the nearest town in the harsh beauty of the Zimbabwean highveld. It started life in World War II as No 26 EFTS Guinea Fowl, a Royal Air Force elementary flying training school and I arrived there in 1954, just seven years after it became an all-white co-ed state boarding school.