Important follow-up on my last blog re: Tiger Shark baiting in South Africa

This is what I said in my previous post:

"Congratulations to you, Allen, and all those who have been actively involved in creating the new baiting tools!"

"A big compliment also to Walter Bernardis of African Watersports who took a keen interest in the matter, and drummed up the other shark operators to discuss ways to replace the hitherto used baiting tools, i.e. steel cables, old washing machine drums, edgy nuts and bolts."

And here is a very important comment made by Debbie Smith, President of ASCBOA (Aliwal Shoal charter boat owners association).

Hi Wolfgang:

This is indeed great news from your angle and your long standing issues with Blue Wilderness.

However, there are unmentioned facts here too, that people need to be aware of, one of which is that Walter Bernadis (African Watersports) and Rob Nettleton (Offshore Africa dive charters) collaborated on all of the initial aspects of this system with the polycop piping and Offshore Africa in purchasing, designing and modifying of mooring buoys into a workable product, which has no purchase points and all of the products used being of great long term benefit from a wear and tear aspect and shark friendly aspect.

It is highly important, from a S.A. point of view, that the above operators are highly commended on their pioneering input into this and their subsequent dialogue with Allen, who assists Blue Wilderness in many aspects and in a nutshell, for this overall product now being in place.

All the above operators have financed these modifications personally and there are other operators, within the Aliwal Shoal dive association, that are undergoing their own modifications where required, based on discussions at our monthly meetings.

It is fair to include all these operators in the changes to tiger shark baiting methods in S.A. and without "all" of them, the modifications would not have happened in the first place. It would be unfair to single out a single operator as each operator mentioned above has brought something unique to the system, thus formulating the final product that now exists here.

Debbie Smith
Chair person
ASCBOA (Aliwal Shoal charter boat owners association)

Debbie - Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.

While I knew about Walter Bernardi's and Rob Nettleton's early involvement in the initial stage of the discussions by bringing in some very valuable and highly commendable in-put, I was not aware that there was a subsequent dialogue with Allen who is not a shark dive operator.

Quite obviously, and very tellingly, the Addisons never felt the need to personally participate in these group discussions....

Anyway: Allen just sent me a note to say that Walter and Rob were indeed highly influential in bringing about change, designing the new equipment - they deserve due credit, as Allen put it, "....for being instrumental in trying to get the changes done (....). I just made something that will work, and the dive operators are the ones that will have to implement it if the feel they need to (....). Both Rob and Walter effected change and deserve a lot of credit, I think they maybe made me more adamant to find a damn good solution."

Fair enough, Allen.

This is what caused me a sleepless night (literally!!) when I first experienced it:

Photo by Wolfgang Leander (Aliwal Shoal 2010)
Click to enlarge

After all the "rabble-rousing" I was accused of by a certain individual, we can now be confident that these incidents won't happen again - thanks to Allen, Walter, Rob, Debbie, and all those other folks who also took an interest in this matter, and contributed in one way or another to the happy end that will ultimately benefit the South African shark diving industry as a whole.