Durban 131011 Mike Adderson Reid, Brian, & Xolani of the Sharkesboard Pic Terry Haywood Durban 131011 Mike Adderson Reid, Brian, & Xolani of the Sharkesboard Pic Terry Haywood
During National Marine Week, the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board has been busy fielding calls from members of the public concerned about the whale that washed up at Umhlanga beach after being caught in its nets.
But this world authority on sharks prides itself on not harming other forms of marine life and is now looking at alternative, advanced ways of repelling sharks while not endangering other species.
Mike Anderson-Reade, the head of operations at the board, said that their team of researchers and scientists had recently received a multimillion-rand grant to develop a new electronic, shark-repellent device.
“This type of technology has not been successful in any other part of the world, but we will be working on this as a world first,” said Anderson-Reade.
The device will operate on the same principle as the “Shark POD (Protective Oceanic Device)” which uses electric fields to repel sharks.
An Australian company has since taken over the product and developed it commercially under the name Shark Shield.
“It’s all new research and we are looking at developing a device that emits a signal in an expanded version for a wider area to protect bathers,” said Anderson-Reade.
This past week, a calf humpback whale washed up at Umhlanga, bringing to the fore the issue of other marine life getting unnecessarily caught up in the nets.
Anderson-Reade said the board had had a 100 percent release rate of animals caught in the nets.
“The whale may have been caught in the nets late on Sunday evening and that’s why nobody saw it.
“It managed to break free but died,” he said, adding that they had seen damage to one of their nets along that part of the beach.
The whales pass the east coast from between the end of May to the middle of December. Anderson-Reade said they saw the greatest numbers of cetaceans close inshore from between mid-September and mid-November when the mothers with their calves passed by on their way to the Antarctic.
Any whale disentanglement initiatives have to be undertaken with the South African Whale Disentanglement Network.
“More money is also being put into whale alarms, called pingers, which emit a low frequency to alert the animals that something is different in the environment – the nets,” said Anderson-Reade.
The work of the board has also grown to educate and inform, especially children, about beach safety and marine life.
During the marine week celebrations the board will host dissections of sharks and awareness campaigns.
The board came into being after a series of shark attacks at Margate claimed the lives of five people between December 1957 and Easter 1958 – a period that has since been referred to as Black December.
The board is today recognised around the world for its work in helping to prevent shark attacks.
Earlier, in 1952, seven gill nets were laid along the Durban beachfront and in their first year they proved to be deadly efficient, trapping 552 sharks.
Today the board operates along the length of the province, from Richards Bay in the north to Port Edward in the south for a total of about 23km of protected coastline.
“Not all the beaches are protected and it becomes the bathers’ responsibility to ensure they swim at a protected beach,” said Harry Mbambo, the head of tourism, education and marketing.
While the board works enthusiastically on new technology, Anderson-Reade said it was aiming to expand the methods used to deter sharks from approaching areas where bathers were.
“We have used mixed gear – nets and drum lines – for the past few years and have been especially successfully down the South Coast,” said Anderson-Reade,
Drum lines are large, flat floating objects with a chain and baited hook that “fished for sharks”.
These have been effective, and the board was now expanding the use of the mixed gear along other parts of the coastline.
“The drum lines don’t catch the other animals like rays and this is why we are expanding this type of gear,” Anderson- Reade said, adding that this method had been used off the coast of Australia for the past 48 years.
Another type of shark deterrent is the use of solid barriers which are placed in the water.
Used in some parts of Australia and Hong Kong, such barriers were not a viable option on our coast owing to the prevailing strong surf conditions.
“These barriers are solid and stretch from the beach out to sea and back towards the beach, but they can only be used in calm waters,” said Anderson-Reade.
Such a barrier was used off Durban’s beaches in 1928 – but only for as long as it took for the rough seas to destroy it. - The Independent on Saturday