S.O.S. – Save Our Sharks

I have always had a deep love for the ocean, but there was a time when I was very afraid to go further than ankle depth into the sea whenever I was on a beach. My fear came from two things; the first was when I almost drowned while playing and swimming close to the shore. I was just a kid and hadn’t noticed that the current was taking me out further and further until I realised that I could no longer stand. I was very fortunate that a man swimming nearby had noticed what was happening, and he pulled me out before I disappeared altogether. The experience left me with a healthy respect for the sea, but it also made me very afraid of swimming in it.

The second thing that fed my fear was the movie, Jaws. I was a teenager when the movie came out and, to me, it was confirmation that the ocean was a very scary place indeed. I was quite content to remain ignorant about the sea and the creatures that lived in it, especially sharks. Fast forward to 20 years later – my husband decided it was time for me to confront my fears and signed us both up for a SCUBA diving course. It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done, I had to deal with my fears head on. I remember my first pool session clearly. There were ten of us in the group, mostly made up of friends, we had all just put on our gear when the instructor said that we would start by going down to the 3 metre level of the pool, and that he would be taking us down one by one. I was first. The thought of going underwater terrified me, and I think that if I had had any sort of a weapon, I would have used it to stop him from taking me down – and this was just in the pool. I had no idea how I was going to react in the open sea, I just knew it wasn’t going to be good.

Our instructor was incredibly patient and took his time with me so that by the time I ready for my first sea dive, I was confidant with my equipment and my ability in the water. However, the sea and a large diving pool are two totally different things, there are no sharks in a swimming pool. so that second fear kicked in as I rolled off the boat into the water on our first sea dive at Sodwana. Bobbing on the surface of the sea, I went into panic mode. The only thing I could think about was that there was 18 metres of water below me with who knows what lurking in the depths.I also recall the instructor shaking me to bring me to my senses. How he got me down to the seabed , I’ll never know, but once I had calmed down long enough to look at was around me, I was hooked.

The vibrant colours of the fish, the beauty of the sponges and corals, and the abundance of life underwater took my breath away, sharks were the last thing on my mind. Every time I dived one thing always stood out for me; the colours – no matter how hard we humans try, there is no way we can reproduce the vivid colours that nature paints our planet with. From the bright gold and purple of a delicate nudibranch to the stark contrasting colours of a Clown Triggerfish,the beauty of our natural world always leaves me awestruck. We did six dives that weekend and each one brought some new discovery for me. On the long drive home I made a decision not to remain blissfully ignorant anymore, I wanted to learn as much as I could about the new world I had discovered. Reading up on sharks taught me that they’re not the single minded man eaters like the one portrayed in Jaws; a misconception that Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, tried to correct because the movie was in part responsible for the inaccurate stereotypes about sharks and their behaviour. Benchley wrote a number of non fiction books dedicated to promoting marine environmentalism and shark conservation.

The reason I’m telling you about my SCUBA diving experience is to…

(a) encourage you to explore our planet more. If someone as ordinary and fearful as me can learn to SCUBA dive, anyone one can. And (b) to draw your attention to the state that our oceans are in. Over fishing, pollution and climate change is affecting the marine environment. Recent surveys show that the slaughter of sharks worldwide has reached unprecedented proportions with reports that some shark species have declined by as much as 97 to 99.5%. At the current rate of decline, estimates are that the most threatened species of shark will be extinct within 10 to 15 years.

One of the most pointless practises is shark finning. Sharks are caught, their fins are sliced off and the sharks are thrown back into the sea alive, to die a slow death on the seabed. Shark fin soup is a delicacy reserved for the wealthy, costing $100.00 and upwards for a bowl, it is served on special occasions and signifies wealth in Eastern societies. To be able to serve your guests shark fin soup is a way of saying “I’ve made it!” The shocking irony is that shark fin is completely tasteless, it adds nothing to the dish.

From the Sharklife article on shark finning……..

“When sharks attack humans, it inevitably makes news – it is a sexy story. What is rarely reported is that worldwide, sharks kill an average of 10 people every year. It’s usually when people venture into a shark’s habitat and not the other way around. By contrast, humans kill around 100 million sharks every year – a number that has ballooned in recent years because of the enormous demand for shark fins to make shark fin soup.”

Sadly, sharks are not the only marine creatures affected by over fishing, pollution and climate change. Whales, dolphins, turtles and most pelagic fish have populations that have been so badly depleted that many of them are on endangered species lists, and the only way to recover sustainable stocks is to make drastic changes in how we manage the marine environment. For some species, like the Yangtze River Dolphin, it is already too late.

There are some small things that  you, as an individual, can do to help conserve the marine environment.

1. Support restaurants and shops who support the South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative . SASSI has a hotline that you can sms to check if the fish you’re buying or eating is on their Red List. (Unfortunately, the fishsms is only available in South Africa.)

2. Join local or global organisations that support marine conservation. I support Greenpeace, Sharklife, and MarineBio, even if all you do is sign the petitions they send out to alert you to a crisis in the marine environment.

3. Most aquariums have one or two projects going on that involves giving a little of your time or a donation, help out where you can.

4. If you are lucky enough to live near the sea, you can help by keeping your beaches clean and clear of litter, it will go a long way in helping keep our oceans free of pollution.

There is still so much to learn about our oceans and the creatures that inhabit it, some yet to be discovered. It would be such a pity to lose them before we’ve even discovered them.

I’d like to end this post off with a quote from Peter Benchley about sharks…

“The shark in an updated Jaws could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim, for, world-wide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors.”