Cage Diving with Great White Sharks

So, after the ascent of table mountain and with only one day left in South Africa, we decided to do something educational... getting to know the local fauna in its habitat, more specifically: Great White Sharks.

Most people are terrified of them. These are one of the few apex-predators left on the planet. To make them more exciting, they could attack us in an environment where we are perhaps at our most vulnerable: humans can swim, but we are definitely a land animal. We do not see that well underwater and we are comparatively slow swimmers. In addition, white sharks have a few competitive advantages: monster teeth, can weigh more than 2 tonnes and measure more than 6m in length... You get the picture, if a shark wants to hurt a human in the sea, they have all the winning numbers.

There is a real risk that many of us have now got to the point of toying with the idea that exterminating all sharks would save us a few headaches. Here is where the human mind gets blinded by fear. Sharks, like all other predators, play a very important role in the environment. Sharks are there to control the populations of seals which if left uncontrolled, consume vast amounts of fish and can cause huge damages to the biodiversity of an ecosystem.

The problem is that in a capitalist system (as things are set up at the moment) preserving an ecosystem does not have any real value in itself unless it can bring money to a nation or corporation. For example:

• An area can be made into a national park if tourist can pay for this area to be preserved.
• A species can be preserved if its existence brings money to the country (believe it or not, more conservation in Africa gets paid for by hunters than by national parks... these hunters pay a lot of money for killing a number of the iconic animals that are being preserved)

Sad as it may sound, no hunting would mean a lot less biodiversity in Africa and many other places! And this in itself is a terrible situation because most people that are against hunting do not realise that, in practical terms, legal hunting in Africa brings more good than harm to ecosystems and biodiversity and getting the moral high ground about this while eating a steak or wearing leather boots is completely nonsensical from an objective point of view (we are talking reason, not feelings here).

In any case, so I was talking about sharks. South Africa is probably the best place on the world (or the worst) to encounter white sharks. We were keen on seeing these animals in their habitat. There are several ways to do this, but the closest and safest you will get is via cage diving. This involves being thrown in the sea inside a floating cage with a few sharks around.

We had a few ecological and ethical concerns about trying cage diving. Quick analysis of the situation:

Pros:

1. Money goes to local people that are trying to preserve sharks
2. The South African government sees sharks as a valuable commodity to make use of – they must be preserved because they bring tourists that bring money.
3. General public gets to experience the animal in the wild
4. General public gets educated – white sharks are not necessarily what was shown in JAWS so there are several misconceptions about how vicious and violent they are (i.e. they are a predator, but often not really that interested in humans as we are not their natural pray – they are into blubbery fat like seals, tuna and whales, not chewy muscles)

Cons:

1. The sharks need to be attracted – sharks eat tuna and seals, seals are not for sale, tuna is on the verge of extinction...
2. You get there in a monster boat burning monster amounts of petrol along the way (this could also be a pro really as it is only a 15min boat ride so in truth, you don’t get to see sharks at a closer distance from the coast in any other place in the world quite likely).
3. There are questions regarding the “getting sharks used to humans” and interfering with nature.

To me this last one is just plain bullshit. Zoos are interfering with nature, safaris, animal experiments, hunting, having pets, feeding your pet dead animals are also interfering with nature. As far as interfering with nature goes, this one is really quite harmless: no one gets hurt, sharks don’t get fed (other than some tiny tuna chunks floating around which are too small for them to eat so other fish eat) and no animal gets caged without their express consent (signature and payment included). You will also be interested to know that most people that run these companies are locals who often use beaches and surf in the area (so they have a vested interest not getting sharks "used to humans"). And more to the point, sharks belong in the sea and are one of the most ancient animals in the planet... humans are not. We need to realise that if we want biodiversity (and we NEED biodiversity) we need to make some space for it, we cannot occupy the earth like we are the only inhabitants. Some shark facts here.

We decided that on this occasion, and despite our ethical concerns about using tuna (or any other dead animal for that matter) to get the sharks interests, it was worth a try. I do not know if this is the right thing to do, or if it is a “vegan” thing to do. As with everything, there are several “greater good”/”utilitarianism” theories that can be used just about to justify anything, but this is not the intention of this blog, here we are just describing the experience.

So, we booked a tour and went in a boat with 8 other people to shark alley (the linked video is well worth a watch!). This is a little straight between two islands off Gansbaai.

There are seals everywhere (about 55 000 of them). They anchor the boat they mash 1 whole small tuna into a barrel. They add some water and make a sort of tuna mush and start pouring a little bit of this into the water.

The sharks smell it and come to investigate.

Initially we had a female (about 3m). Then a male (3m). After 30mins we also saw a big male (5m?). While this is happening, you and your wetsuit are invited to go into a cage which has some floats and is attached to the side of the boat. The top of the cage floats at about sea level and when you are told, you can hold your breath and have a look under the water while some sharks approach.

At times, they get so close that they touch the cage.

Overall it is quite thrilling (not as much as kayaking with whales though) and really interesting.

I left the boat feeling a lot less scared by sharks than at the beginning. Yes, they are enormous, very strong and powerful and have some incredible teeth. However, they had pretty much no interest in us whatsoever. They came for the mashed tuna, they had a look around, they checked us out and the cage but I did not feel that they were aggressive in any way, just curious. I guess, a hungry shark might be different!

Some photos below:

 The veg warriors.... checking out the sharks

 

The shark from above...

The shark from below

 

 The shark from the side...

 The shark checking out the tuna head...

 The jelly fish and the beautiful clear ocean

How close do they get to the cage? close. we had to move our fingers from the inner holds for this one...

A shark giving an "investigation bite" - things are hard when you have no hands...

A curious "smily" shark :o)