A rather large Great White Shark, measuring 4,3 metres in length, was caught 400 metres behind the breakers of Fish Hoek beach yesterday. Local fishermen from Kalk Bay accidentally caught the large female in fishing nets they had set late on Saturday night.

The fishermen had set their nets to catch whelk, which is a kind of sea snail that is more commonly known as Alikreukel.

The Alikreukel are enticed into nets using a mixture of chummed up sardines, pilchards, snoek heads, and generally whatever the fishermen can get their hands on.

The Fishermen from the “Boy Johan” vessel are one of the few fishermen to have permits to catch whelk in the area, and couldn’t understand why their net was so heavy when they tried to pull it up onto the vessel yesterday morning.

Shortly after hauling it close to the surface, they made the discovery of the Great White wrapped up in their net, but the animal was reportedly dead already.

From there, the fishermen were going to tow the carcass back to Kalk Bay Harbour, but a local shark cage diving operator from the area got wind of their discovery and went out to get the shark so it could be towed back to Simons Town.

The carcass was towed to the Simon’s Town naval base by a department of environmental affairs ship.

Marine and Coastal Management then took possession of the animal so that they could conduct further research and dissections.

Shark specialists and authorities have recently claimed they have seen an increase in shark activity in the area since Marine and Coastal Management issued the new whelk permits.

The latest incident will surely add fuel to the fire for the trial installation of a 355-metre long shark (and other species) exclusion net local government authorities have proposed along a corner of Fish Hoek beach.

We should also probably expect the debate about the effects of chumming to open up again too.

[Source: ZigZag]