AfricanDiver.com

George - Photographs of a huge Great White Shark being dissected at the Point in Mossel Bay caused a stir around the country this week, with people sending the pictures around by e-mail.

“The shark of about 4.3m, which was dissected on Friday in Mossel Bay, landed in nets of the Natal Sharks Board at the Zinkwasi beach in KwaZulu-Natal,” said Dawie Zwiegelaar of the National Sea Rescue Institute’s Mossel Bay office on Wednesday.

According to Geremy Cliff, head of the Natal Sharks Board, the female shark was weak but alive, when it was found. It was also marked.

“Staff from the Sharks Board tried in vain to free her, but she was clearly confused and was found dead in the nets early the next morning.”

Cliff said the shark was dragged to the beach and taken to their head office in Umhlanga to be cut open as part of their research into feeding and reproduction.

Filmed

At the request of British documentary film production company Windfall Films, it was decided to keep the shark until the film crew could film the dissection in Mossel Bay.

According to Dr Ryan Johnson, head of Ocean Research in Mossel Bay, Windfall Films wanted to film in the area due to the natural beauty. Windfall Films was busy with the second series in their popular programme Inside Nature’s Giants.

The shark was dissected on Friday at the Point by staff from the Sharks Board.

The photographs that created such a buzz were taken at the time.

“It isn’t one of our sharks, we don’t have such small sharks,” joked Zwiegelaar on Wednesday.

Source: - Die Burger

Thomas P. Peschak who is an award winning photojournalist and marine biologist based in Cape Town, has a 15-page article in Africa Geographic. The article covers the history and impact of shark nets along the KwaZulu Natal coastline. Thomas is also the chief photographer for Save Our Seas Foundation. Click here to download the PDF article, it is well worth the read. There is also a video about the shark nets on the Save Our Seas Foundations website.

by Bryan Hart

I always look at the prop wash in order to get an indication on what the water is doing when launching from Durban. On Saterday it looked like we had plotted a course into the Umgeni River mouth…. However - just as we were about to cancel the whole show, a decision was made to go have a look see……

I have to admit, I didn’t expect much, and was already groaning at the prospect of having to put my wetsuit in soap afterwards to get all the mud stains out of it! As we descended down the shot line, the viz was none existent - until 5m, the water opened up into 10m of viz. The water temp dropped to 18 degree’s though but still I could tell we were going to get in a long awaited dive!
We dropped the shot line on Nevs Ledge - there have not been too many dives on this reef as of yet so the area on top and further down the ledge are still unfamiliar to the group making each dive interesting.
Nevs Ledge that at its highest point, drops off approximately 6m onto the sand. There is an old danforth anchor and a rudder on the sand. This reef is best dived on Nitrox with a nice 30 percent mix giving you a good 30min on the bottom. Scattered around this area are pieces of pipe / metal - one can only speculate how something like a rudder and all this metal could could come to rest here.
There was a slight South to North current that was running, and the horizontal viz was an acceptable 10m.

As we hit the bottom, we were engulfed by approximately 200 plus spotted grunters. They were swimming in rapid bursts and I really expected to see the GW again!! The Grunter were all very large at around 60cm - As far as Iam aware there is no Grunter run that would explain why we saw this large shoal of grunter. The fish also appeared to be “slapping” one another on the sand - very interesting. There were also a few rays scattered around as well as a very large ship that came over us during the dive - nothing out of the ordinary really for NO.1!!!
.

February is traditionally a non event in terms of diving off Durban as this coincides with the rainy season. However Iam sure all that dived on Saterday with us will take it and back me up in saying….

you only know if you go….

Bryan Hart’s posting about Dull days in Durban contained an item about a great white that had drowned after being caught in a fish attracting device (“FAD”). The Natal Sharks Board’s Geremy Cliff gave us some additional information about the incident:

“We received a call from NSRI late Sunday morning with the news that a large white shark had entangled itself in a FAD off Umdloti. Yesterday (Monday) morning we went out to investigate. The GPS co-ords indicated that it was about 4 nm offshore. We couldn’t find anything at the spot but did find another 2 FADs closer inshore. Apparently there are at least 3 FADs in the area; presumably deployed by local skiboaters to improve catches, esp. Dorado. The positions of each one are well known to the local anglers. One of the anglers who saw the shark estimated that it was about 4.5 m long, but I don’t think it was anywhere near that, probably about 3.5 m.

I jumped in on both FADs, but only saw small triggerfish and tiny kingfish. The one has tassels of strapping case bands as an attractant, the other horizontal strips of material.

I suspect that the weight of the dead white shark, which appeared to be very fresh on Sunday morning, must have pulled the FAD down below the surface. It is difficult to work out exactly how a white shark would have entangled itself, unless it already had a trace in its mouth, which then snagged the FAD.”

Geremy added “we did hear that an angler had removed the head, presumably to take out the jaws, which is illegal in that white sharks are fully protected species. EKZN want to remove these FADs, which like all others are illegal”

Tunas and other pelagic species are often attracted to floating objects such as coconuts, logs, seaweed, and plastic bottles. These are often found at current boundaries and up-wellings, which are areas of the ocean that are usually very productive and therefore good places for tuna to search for food. Local fishers generally know about such areas, but current boundaries, and the fish that feed around them, are never stationary. Fishers may have to search a large area to locate them, in order to take advantage of the good fishing. FADs are floating objects that are specifically designed and located to attract tunas and pelagics, and therefore allow fishers to find them more easily. No one understands exactly why tunas are attracted to FADs, but the ropes, floats and the other materials used presumably mimic the build-up of driftwood and seaweed found naturally in the sea. A FAD comprises a large anchor (up to 1mt), a heavy-duty mooring chain (usually about 30m in length) and mooring rope, with about 50 purse-seine floats strung at the surface. The ropes and chain are joined using various shackles, rope connectors, splices and thimbles. A flag-pole is attached to facilitate finding the FAD. FADs may be placed in shallow (50-100m) or deep (500- 1,500m) waters. Deep-water FADs attract or aggregate Skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis), Yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), and Bigeye tunas (T. obesus) and also sharks, Dolphin-fish, Rainbow-runner and other smaller fish. FADs anchored a few kilometers off the coast, and in depths of over 500m are generally more successful in attracting schools of tunas than shallow-water FADs. FADs aggregate the smaller tunas (Skipjack and immature Yellowfin, for example) at the surface and larger tunas (such as mature Yellowfin and Bigeye) at depths of 300-400m. A key point to recognize is that FADs do not increase the biomass of fish (i.e. they do not increase size of a fish population). All they do is aggregate them in one place, making them easier to catch. Schools of tuna never actually ‘live’ under FAD’s, but they associate with it for a few days or weeks, often ranging some kilometers away searching for good, before moving on. Fishing captains have reported finding individual schools of tuna that exceeded, 500 mt in total weight and may hold more than a million individual fish.

You either love sharks or hate them but you cannot deny their purpose and their beauty. They are fascinating creatures yet stir up so much controversy. The Natal Sharks Board is one of the world’s leading shark institutions and one of the most controversial.

Click here to read more about my visit to the Sharks Board