Few creatures provoke more fear than sharks, yet they are in far more danger from us than we are from them, writes Alex Duval Smith from South Africa.
Mike Rutzen offers his hands as evidence that he knows what he is talking about. They have the texture of chopping boards: 34scars inflicted by the "sushi knife" teeth of great white sharks, including a twice-severed index finger on his left hand.
"We should not be worrying about sharks killing bathers but about humans killing great whites," says the former fisherman, who runs a cage-diving company at the southern tip of South Africa.
"They are apex predators that are crucial to our biodiversity, yet humans continue, primitively, to hunt them for their fins and their $US50,000 ($55,600) jaws."
But you can't ask Lloyd Skinner his opinion. On January 12, the 37-year-old tourist swam out from busy Fish Hoek beach, near Cape Town. Wearing goggles and swimmers, the Zimbabwean was in about two metres of water when a great white charged him.
The attack, which lasted three minutes, was watched by hundreds of holidaymakers, including bodyboarders only metres away. The 4.6-metre shark reportedly returned five or six times to eat its prey. All that remained were Skinner's towel, thongs and the box for his goggles, left with his shirt on the beach.
His death – the second in this spot in six years – reignited the debate about whether shark tourism, particularly cage diving from boats, is encouraging great whites to regard humans as a food source. The cage-dive operators, deny this vehemently.
"Our coastline is unique in the world because we have fish for the sharks to feed on," Rutzen said. "Until 1994, apartheid closed our coastal waters and slowed seaside development, so this became a haven for sea life. My business gives the great whites a value alive, whereas previously their only value was their fins and jaws."
Rutzen's Shark Diving Unlimited has been going for 16 years – one of eight cage-diving companies in Gansbaai, a tiny port three hours east of Cape Town.
About 32,000 people cage dive with great whites every year at Gansbaai and nearby Mossel Bay – a pursuit worth an estimated 48million rand ($7million).
Rutzen insists the animals find humans bony to eat. "They prefer fish and seal blubber. Humans are the slowest form of available protein. Given what an easy catch we are, they would eat us in large numbers if they were interested."
Estimates of the great white population left in the world vary from 2600 to just 800. Rutzen puts the figure at 1000 and claims it is falling unchecked as humans deplete the oceans.
The baiting, used to attract the sharks to the cage dive boats, has been said to habituate the great whites to humans. Rutzen denies this and is supported by most scientists, including Leonard Compagno, a Californian marine biologist who advised Steven Spielberg on Jaws. He says: "Fishermen have been baiting sharks for generations and sharks regularly break open trawler nets. I don't see that chumming for cage-diving is a particular culprit. There are far more serious concerns, such as man depleting the fish stocks that sharks feed on and marine pollution.
"When we made that film, we did not realise how gentle great whites are. Now we know that you can hand-feed them."
Since 1991, after a campaign led by Compagno, great whites have been listed as endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
"They are unpredictable," Compagno says. "But so are humans, who can turn round and punch you. What is worse, being bitten by a cobra, hit by a car or eaten by shark? The shark is just messier."
In our collective imagination, sharks remain dragons of the deep.
The fact that they are older than the dinosaurs only makes them scarier and people think it is shocking that you can still be eaten alive in a city.
But if you ask Rutzen and Compagno, it is the great whites who have much more to fear.
My critique-
In my opinion. shark should be protected in order to conserve and preserve the balance of the ecosystem. We, human being as the inhabitants of the earth should carry out our duty to protect them, not to disrupt and exploit them for our own benefits. Leave them to live in their nature. Eat less shark fins...And tourism in this sector should be constantly reviewed to ensure the safety of human and also the biodiversity.
ya I agree..they should be protected
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