[imagesource: Ewald Stander]

In the past three months, both Kimon “Kiki” Bisogno and Bruce Wolov have died from shark bites in Plettenberg Bay.

With the summer months rapidly approaching, would-be Plett travellers may be worried about enjoying a dip during their visits to the area.

The Bitou Municipality has since laid out a comprehensive three-part plan, titled the Plett Shark Action Plan, with the aim of making the area safer and educating and informing visitors.

The plan includes ‘Shark Smart’ signage, shark deterrent measures, and the potential of employing Shark Spotters at the Lookout Beach and Robberg Beach areas.

Experts who spoke with The Daily Maverick say that while two fatalities within a year are very unusual, it should be looked at within a greater context:

“When these things happen, people try to find a specific reason to point fingers at,” said Dr Enrico Gennari, marine ecologist specialising in white sharks, from the Oceans Research Institute in Mossel Bay.

“I think there is less chance of getting bitten by a white shark now than 10 years ago,” he said, explaining that white sharks numbers in SA are likely to be declining.

There’s never a shortage of media coverage after an attack, especially when somebody like Bisogno was so active and loved in her local community.

As a result, says Sarah Waries, the CEO of Shark Spotters, the fact that attacks are so rare is often forgotten:

“And while they are very rare, they are incredibly high-impact events.

“So there’s always this massive uproar and very emotional, traumatic response — which is completely understandable — but at the end of the day, they do happen very rarely. And we do need to find ways in which we can coexist with sharks.”

Shark nets are one popular method often used.

In Fish Hoek, a shark exclusion net is used which is less impactful on the ocean ecosystem.

Further up the coast, such as KwaZulu-Natal, shark nets and drumlines are used which can lead to shark deaths:

Sharks get entangled in the large mesh, and the KZN Sharks Board tries to release them, but if they don’t get there quickly enough they die of exhaustion or drown.

[Dr Matt Dicken, KZN Sharks Board acting head of research] said “the KZNSB has looked at all alternatives to nets and drums and nothing is suitable for our coastline”. The board is “developing a non-lethal solution called the shark repellent cable which could be tested at Plett”.

Over the past 40 years, an average of 30 great whites are killed each year by the KZN Sharks Board programme, says Dr Enrico Gennari, a marine ecologist specialising in great whites.

Dicken argues those numbers are inflated but a research paper he was involved in stated an average of 28 white sharks were killed per year.

The presence of great white sharks in an ecosystem is integral to maintaining a functional balance.

In areas where Port and Starboard, the notorious orca double act, are known to predate the sharks, the ecosystem has been disturbed.

Gennari points out how infrequent biting incidents are:

“These animals do not search for people. Because otherwise, for example, in Mossel Bay, where I work, we would have a bite almost every single month,” said Dr Gennari, explaining that in Mossel Bay — which has a relatively high concentration of white sharks (in two hours you can count up to 30 sharks) — white sharks move away from Seal Island, which is 800m from the popular Diaz Beach where many people swim in summer.

“So if they were really interested in us, they would stay around Diaz Beach, because there are a lot of people in the water,” said Gennari. “But they don’t care.”

Since South Africa started keeping detailed records in 1905, there have been 248 unprovoked bites.

Unprovoked bites are incidents in which a bite on a live human occurs in the shark’s natural habitat with no human provocation of the shark.

In 2021, according to Statista, there were 73 unprovoked shark attacks on humans worldwide, of which nine were fatal:

Provoked bites are when a human initiates interaction with a shark in some way. This could include divers who were bitten after trying to touch sharks, bites on spearfishers, bites on people attempting to feed sharks, and so on. Last year, there were 39 recorded provoked bites worldwide.

The USA recorded 47 unprovoked bites in 2021, with Australia in second with 12 and Brazil in third with three.

South Africa recorded three, of which one was fatal.

[sources:dailymav&statista]