Our
View: South African shark concerns all
hype
Everything
we ever wanted to know about sharks was
more than adequately explained in “Jaws.” We
learned that sometimes “you’re
gonna need a bigger boat.”
But we did not need to see the film to know sharks are mean. Sharks are the
brutal hunters of the sea. When in their watery turf, all of our technological
prowess and supposedly supreme intelligence sinks if they decide to investigate
how our flesh tastes.
This fact seems obvious. Sharks are going to be aggressive no matter what.
However, some disagree and blame a supposed shark hostility increase on their
fellow man.
According to a Wall Street Journal feature this week, some critics in Cape
Town, South Africa think the shark tourism industry is making the underwater
locals antagonistic. They think the sharks have become more prone to attacking
humans because of the trade’s practices.
But after considering that practice, such an assumption seems unlikely. Tourists
in South Africa can kick in some coins to swim with sharks. It’s extreme
SeaWorld taken to the hardcore level, behind metal cages, of course.
The boat captains attract the predators through a bait process called chumming.
They put bloody dead fish in the water and with their keen sense of smell,
sharks find and inspect quickly.
Critics say taunting the shark in this manner causes them to swim where the
people are — closer to the beaches where swimmers and surfers reside.
The constant reward gives them reason to do so.
The problem is this assumption does not measure up to fact. It is an outcry
made from an understandable case of shark hysteria.
The WSJ article cites evidence from Gregg Oelofse, a Cape Town government official
in charge of environmental policy. He said there is no link between the chumming
practices and shark attacks.
This is true. There would not be reason for the sharks to attack humans just
because they get to see them often behind metal bars which, frankly, do not
taste good.
Critics of this tourist trap fail to realize the sharks will associate
humans as the forbidden fruit
behind the cage that impedes their bite.
Because the sharks can not eat the
humans they see regularly, it gives them no incentive to attack more aggressively
along the shore, as critics are suggesting.
To find the real meat of this matter, one merely has to look at who the critics
are. No, it is not People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals on yet another trample-the-man-and-his-progress-for-the-caribou-escapade.
They are local surfers, fisherman, ecologists and sailors. Essentially, they
are competitors for unlimited access to the ocean. They are pissed-off competitors
to the shark cage-diving enterprise.
One group of those critics, the surfers, is notoriously territorial often to
the point of obsession. The WSJ article reported that a shark-diving boat was
burned last year. It would not be a stretch to assume some over-zealous surfers
were responsible for such a destruction of property.
Understandably, surfers, and everyone else, deserve to feel safe in the water,
but if safety was their No. 1 concern, South African waters were a poor choice.
Sure, the waves are great but if you are going swim where the sharks swarm,
expect to get bitten. And do not blame the shark-divers for shark motives while
secretly envying their success (they make millions).
Fortunately, Southearn California does not have a major shark problem like
South Africa. We generally worry about few things in the water.
Great whites,
jellyfish or other dangerous creatures of the sea bother people in other places
like Florida and Australia. Granted, their waters are warmer but it is easy
to assume most would rather battle colder water than shark bites and jellyfish
stings. |
