Julie Andersen

Julie Andersen, South Africa (2008)

Photo: Wolfgang Leander

Julie was a good friend of mine, and as friendships sometimes develop, especially between strong-minded individuals, our relationship went sour, unfortunately. I guess we both had valid reasons for splitting.

Whatever, this won't hinder me to recognize, and deeply appreciate, the exemplary work Julie is doing, and her dedication to put shark conservation above anything else in her life - except, perhaps, the love she feels for Paul Wildman, her fiance (maybe her husband by now? :-).

Here is a superb documentary about Julie and her work: The feature deserves to be distributed widely, and this blog is my humble contribution toward it.

Julie: Hat off, well done!

Tiger Shark Baiting in South Africa - Part IV

Sharks deserve to be treated gently.

Photo: Wolfgang Leander (2008)

Click to enlarge

Here is an open letter to all shark dive operators written by Cape Town resident Glenn Ashton. Glenn is a freelance writer, journalist, and researcher. He has much local expertise and has previously dealt with environmental management issues. Glenn is, thus, very well suited to express an expert opinion on the subject.

Open letter to the SA shark dive industry re: best practice.

Hi all,

As a journalist and observer to the debate about best practices concerning shark attraction methods and the shortcomings of some methods, it is clear that the issues that have been raised are extremely important to deal with in order to ensure that our South African shark diving industry has a reputation that we can indeed be proud of.

This cannot only come from a shark diving industry perspective but from a conservation perspective, a tourism perspective, a best practice perspective and most of all for promoting an open and transparent dialogue about the matter - shark diving, either in cages or without - for profit.

There is nothing wrong with generating profit from shark diving. The dive industry is a powerful tool to assist in protecting sharks, in getting the public to understand them and in taking their plight to a wider audience.

Public oversight has assisted in improving practices in all aspects of the shark dive industry and indeed in all related aspects of human/ shark interaction. This mirrors the experiences of other conservation practices in other nature conservation fields which have often learned and advanced themselves through outside pressure.

However it serves nobody when baseless allegations are thrown around, when issues become personalised for reasons that are completely unrelated to the issues at hand and when discussions that are aimed at improving industry practices are marginalised because of illogical and ill informed inputs.

It cannot be denied that public oversight and pressure to change from shark enthusiasts have improved the cage dive industry hugely. The cage dive industry would like to take most of the credit for themselves but that is just human nature.

The same goes for shark diving on the Aliwal shoals and other offshore shark diving spots. The methods used to attract sharks have been shown to be damaging to sharks and yet those who rely on these flawed methods have denied any cause for concern and have instead attempted to sidetrack and personalise the discussion and debate. Others have worked hard to clean up their acts and have listened to outside inputs.

Denial of any problems in how sharks are chummed and attracted obviously serves nobody except the denier and it does not move the debate forward. As a journalist and someone involved in covering environmental management in South Africa I am quite prepared to go out and expose any dangerous or damaging practices to the widest possible audience so that things do change, through either the force of public opinion or the force of law. Both are equally relevant in this case.

It would however be far more beneficial for all of the role players in this debate, especially the shark dive charterers who have been criticised for poor baiting practices, to play a far more mature and responsible role in this discussion. There clearly are operators who have tried different methods of baiting which appear to be non damaging to sharks - through encasing cables and chains in polypropylene pipe - which is rigid and extremely tough and non damaging to shark mouths, compared to exposed cables and chains. Why can this and other useful discoveries not be made best practice?

An industry standard should be agreed upon and any parties who continue to practice dangerous methods of attracting sharks, just as those who do not properly care for, or endanger their divers and customers, or who follow other dangerous practice, must be sanctioned and isolated, if shown to be intransigent in the face of changing toward best practice behaviour.

If we wish to have an industry that is good for tourism and for our image as a leading nature and eco-tourism destination then we must pursue best practice in all aspects of environmental tourism in South Africa. If we wish to be the world leaders in this field, that we claim to be, then we must behave like world leaders. Accordingly the industry must support a move toward transparency and best practice and engage with each other in a constructive way that promotes mutual interests

.

The alternative is to identify and deal with those who refuse to play the game according to mutually agreed rules and isolate them utterly. The choices are simple. So lets rather consider moving on toward finalising what is essentially a straightforward procedure.

A useful first step would be to invite all shark tourism operators to sit down around a table, at a shark tourism conference, of SA operators, and start to hack out the issues, formalise them and put these steps into practice. SA tourism and other regional tourism boards would be supportive - we all know that the industry brings in significant money. Any other relevant parties must also come aboard, including government (Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and Dept of Environment and Water, and possibly Tourism and also the Shark Board but there may be ambivalence about this).

It would just take a few champions of the cause, from within the industry, to drive this. They could reap huge benefits by being shown to lead the way toward the most progressive and ecologically sound practices, and could accordingly advertise along these lines.

This should ideally happen from within the industry - self regulation is always preferable to having regulations imposed on you. But if nothing happens then imposition of tighter regulations may just follow.

Over to you, the people who want to do the right thing, the people who make money out of sharks and those who want to conserve the resource for the benefit of all. Lets see the changes roll on!

All the best

Glenn Ashton

Freelance writer, researcher, author and editor.

Cape Town

South Africa

ekogaia@iafrica.com

My apologies to Bite-Back

What I wrote about Bite-Back in my last blog needs to be clarified. Graham Buckingham of Bite-Back wrote this mail to me - I wasn't aware that he also runs a one-man show.

Wolf:

As the campaign director of Bite-Back I would like to acknowledge your commentary about our ability to help support the Alibaba project. Maybe this will come as a surprise but … I am Bite-Back. All on my own.

Since I set up Bite-Back some seven years ago I have run the organisation (now a charity) single handedly alongside a full time career. Hopefully this article in the Daily Telegraph will help spell out what I do - http://bit.ly/uTMki

In the past it has saddened me that I couldn’t say ‘yes’ to every opportunity that has been presented – but if I felt I couldn’t commit to a project fully I would say so.

In fact, without sponsors, celebrity endorsement or a system for donations (yet), I have been running Bite-Back with passion and enthusiasm … and no financial support.

Such is my ambition to promote shark and marine conservation issues I quit my job at the end of January to take Bite-Back on full time and I remain unsalaried yet more determined than ever.

Now that I have more time, please do get in touch if you think we can work together. After all, without knowing it I could be one of ‘your kinda people’?

I hope so.

Best wishes,

Graham

Thank you for enlightening me.

YES, Graham, you most definitely belong to "my kinda people". Not only that: Your decision to devote yourself to the conservation of sharks and the ocean full time is admirable. You've certainly gottalotta guts!! Hats off!!

Do you want to watch a con movie?

The shark world has been pretty quiet this year and there seems to have been a shift in conversation, people accepting people for who they are and what they do, and somewhat of a harmony.  Chatter on Shark Week was minimal compared to last year - I have to confess that I still have not seen one episode, they are saved on the DVR...pretty sad, but that is what a few years of bad programming can do...

But now there seems to be something people are talking about - a movie called "The Shark Con - A new Controversial Film" - it actually came up towards the end of last year.  I do not know what to make of it from watching the trailers and it all strikes me as very one-sided without any credible voice from the scientific community on a subject that deserves that type of input.

Shark Diver recently posted a good read about it...

"As predicted it has aroused quite a L'orage du merde among members of the shark diving and shark conservation community.

If the litmus test for industry anger and backlash could be measured in email terabytes, then this "documentary" would win all manner of awards.

Having not seen the film but watched the evolution of it within the industry I am struck at how fast some of those involved with the film are running for the hills. Disavowing their on screen presence and soft pedaling their way out the back door..." - READ COMPLETE POST

Thomas Peschak continued

See Thomas Peschak's complete blog post on shark conservation as well as his beautiful images that tell a compelling story...


http://www.saveourseas.com/blogs/thomaspeschak/2646

South Florida Shark Conservation Party

If you love sharks and will be in South Florida on Jan. 10th, 2010 - mark your calendars.  Shark Savers, Oceanic Defense and Shark Safe Network are organizing a party / fund raiser.   All proceeds will go to the "Say no to shark fin soup" billboards in China organized by Wild Aid.

For more detail please go to http://floridashark.pingg.com/2010SharkParty - hope to see you all there!

"Shark Conservation - Make it Personal" (Richard Theiss)

Tiger Shark - Photo by Wolfgang Leander

Good post from Richard on shark conservation and bring it to a personal level so that people can make a connection - definitely worth a read:


"I have said in the past that shark conservation is a tough sell. Whether it's the public's general uneasiness with sharks thanks to years of over-sensationalized media or an ingrained cultural bias towards shark products (or seafood in general), gaining converts throughout the masses has been challenging. Part of that lies in the difficulty in making a personal connection, making an argument that resonates within the individual - "this will affect me." But sometimes it's the opposition that, unfortunately, is able to accomplish that to their advantage."


Read complete post here.

When Shark Conservation Goes Bad...

Was reviewing my various feeds and came across this post from Patric over at Shark Divers.  Interesting post on shark conservation and once again forces coming into play that make me ask myself over and over again - "Do people really care about sharks?..." (Of course a lot of them do) - but a lot do not and are looking for a buck, fame, ego massages, and the list goes on...case and point:


"Recently an apparent "Grand Shark Conservation Heist" happened within the shark community, and for the most part it went unnoticed and unchallenged.

It was a theft of intellectual property, the brazen day light robbery of ideas and a two year conservation plan that was not generated by, nor did belong to, those who subsumed it.

Intellectual property is as real as personal property. In the conservation world intellectual property is the currency of the entire movement. Conservation ideas that are unique, powerful, and visionary are what move others who lack long term vision, to conserve sharks..."

Read complete post here.