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GANSBAAI (SOUTH AFRICA)- Research Conducted by Marine Dynamics a Shark Cage Diving Operator in Gansbaai South Africa.

Research Conducted by Marine Dynamics a Shark Cage Diving Operator in Gansbaai South Africa

Divers enjoy live sharks better than a bowl of shark fin soup. Photo courtesy of University of British Columbia.

VANCOUVER (CANADA)- We all knew it of course, but scientists now have put down economical proof. Sharks are worth a lot more in the ocean than in a bowl of soup.

That’s the conclusion of a research conducted by a team of the University of British Columbia. A new study, published today in Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation, shows that shark ecotourism currently generates more than US$314 million annually worldwide and is expected to more than double to US$780 million in the next 20 years.

Shark Tourism
“The emerging shark tourism industry attracts nearly 600,000 shark watchers annually, directly supporting 10,000 jobs,” says Andres Cisneros-Montemayor, a PhD candidate with UBC’s Fisheries Economics Research Unit and lead author of the study. “It is abundantly clear that leaving sharks in the ocean is worth much more than putting them on the menu.”

38 million sharks killed
In comparison, the landed value of global shark fisheries is currently US$630 million and has been in decline for the past decade. An estimated 38 million sharks were killed in 2009 to feed the global fin trade alone.

Protection
“Sharks are slow to mature and produce few offspring,” says Rashid Sumaila, senior author and director of UBC’s Fisheries Centre. “The protection of live sharks, especially through dedicated protected areas, can benefit a much wider economic spectrum while helping the species recover.”

Ecotourism
The research team from UBC, the University of Hawaii and Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur in Mexico examined shark fisheries and shark ecotourism data from 70 sites in 45 countries.

Almost $124 million in tourism dollars were generated annually in the Caribbean from shark tourism, supporting more than 5,000 jobs. In Australia and New Zealand, 29,000 shark watchers help generate almost $40 million in tourism expenditure a year.

See the growth of worldwide shark tourism on the map below. Click on it for a full image:

Growth of shark ecotourism. Photo © University of British Columbia.

 

CAPE TOWN (SOUTH AFRICA)- A newlywed couple, cage diving off the coast of South Africa got the scare of a lifetime when a great white shark ignored the bait and went straight for the cage.

With its head the shark entered the cage, threshing about. The couple got a with quite the scare.

A tourist who watched filmed the incident and put on YouTube. It went viral with over a million views.

A Gansbaai company has reduced the size of its shark cage viewing gap by 10 percent after the incident. great white managed to ram its head into a safety cage holding a group of tourists.

See the video at ABC News:

GANSBAAI (SOUTH AFRICA)- Where commercial shark dive operators and official conservation organisations cooperate, sharks are rescued. As in the case of a   a juvenile female Great White Shark in the South African waters of Gansbaai, entangled in fishing line.

The line had become wrapped around the shark’s head and through its gills, and another half a metre, with hooks and bait attached to it, was trailing behind it. She  was spotted by shark cage diving operators who told the Dyer Island Conservation Trust, which runs conservation and research programmes in the region.The shark would have faced certain death if the line remained in place,

Great White Sharks are a protected species in South Africa, but are illegally targeted by shore-based fishermen. Each year, about 30 of the species die in the shark nets off the KwaZulu-Natal coast.

CANCUN (MEXICO)- Divers have rescued a 10 meter long pregnant whale shark which was caught in thick rope about 30 meters below the surface off the coast of Mexico.

The pregnant whale shark had got wrapped in a thick rope which had to be cut off by the divers who were accompanying tourists when they spotted the distressed creature. It took two trips, to 30m below the surface, to check the condition of the 10m-long shark and then to remove the rope.

A large, deep scar could be seen on the whale shark’s back once the rope was removed, leading the divers to believe that the animal had been trapped for some time.

Read more and see the video at BBC News.

CANCUN (MEXICO)- Swimming with whale sharks has become so popular worldwide that scientists, environmentalists and even ecotourism operators are calling for new limits on human contact.

The world’s biggest fish is a solitary creature but occasionally gathers in large groups, or aggregations, to feast on everything from plankton to fish eggs. As the aggregation sites have become known, tourists have flocked to them, with tour operators from Mexico to the Maldives selling opportunities to swim “with the world’s biggest shark.”

Consequences
People are willing to pay money for this kind of eco-tourism, and now you see these unintended consequences. Like the Philippines, where some boat captains have begun hand-feeding the big sharks to keep them nearby for paying tourists.

That has horrified scientists, who fear it will interrupt the sharks’ migratory behavior. Some have signed a petition demanding the practice be banned, and Philippines fisheries officials recently began looking into the hand-feeding.

Corralling
Or Kenya, where some tour operators have proposed corralling the big sharks in fenced-off lagoons and hauling in paying tourists to swim with the trapped fish. Or Mexico, where off the coast of heavily touristed coast of Yucatan whale sharks gather in one of the world largest aggregations . Millions of vacationers from Cancún one of the Caribbean’s top tourist sites. are within a 45-minute boat ride of the area of open ocean where, from May through September, the big sharks congregate by the hundreds near Isla Mujeres.

This gathering spot, or “afuera,” was little known until three years ago, when scientists and some tour operators discovered the site. Newspaper articles, television reports and YouTube videos broadcast the news. Tourists began arriving by the tens of thousands and a new eco-tourism industry was born.

Read more at source The Washington Post

EAGLEHAWK NECK (TASMANIA)- Shark cage diving may be the next big tourist attraction of Tasmania. Local business men are forming plans. ‘Our waters are a natural haven for ocean predators including mako sharks and white pointers. There’s always a lots of shark sightings down here.

Plans are under way for the extreme adventure business at Eaglehawk Neck on the Tasman Peninsula. Dodges Ferry car detailer Scott Howlett and Blackmans Bay ecologist Dave Young formed the plan after going shark cage diving in South Australia, where businesses charge almost $500 a head for the experience.

Natural haven for sharks
They told the Sunday Tasmanian the high concentration of tuna and seals in waters surrounding Tasman Peninsula meant it was a natural haven for ocean predators including mako sharks and white pointers. Both entrepreneurs assure that shark cage diving is “100 per cent safe”.

Young  told the newspaper already seeing several sharks in state waters while testing a cage the pair built. They claim they have permission to burley, or “chum”, the waters to attract sharks, as long as they don’t use any “land mammal products” in the mix.

Opposition
Abalone divers in the area of Eaglehawk Neck say shark cage diving in the area is a “terrible” idea. ‘The last thing we want is for sharks to get used to a boat coming over, stopping and throwing out food’, said one of the divers. Also other businessmen are less positive about the idea of shark cage diving. Local dive operators say it could have a negative impact on their business and the reputation of the area as a “world class dive spot”.

FOVEAUX STRAIT (NEW ZEALAND)- Dive operators in New Zealand say the Government has done nothing to keep people safe from cowboy shark tourism companies operating in the Foveaux Strait, despite repeated requests to take action.

Southern Aqua Adventures owner Mike Haines said on TVNZ that Maritime New Zealand was supposed to have got the operators together this year to form a code of practice for the shark-cage dive industry, but nothing had been done.

The shark-dive season begins next month and runs until June.

Cage-diving operators who work off the south coast are worried the unregulated industry could lead to cowboy operators coming to the Foveaux area and putting peoples’ lives in danger because they do not know what they are doing.

Haines had obtained the Australian code of practice, but that was as far as he could go by himself, he said. “It is beyond my control, I can’t do anything.”

Shark Dive New Zealand owner Peter Scott said he had also been trying to work with government departments, such as the Conservation Department, Department of Labour and Maritime NZ, for the past three years to get some form of regulations in place, but with no success.

Read more at TVNZ