February 2007 SHARK BYTES

Dear Shark Lovers,

I am really looking forward to sharing our experiences with you all this month as there have been a number of very exciting encounters.

We have continued to have very good pelagic trips and have been able to dive with a number of mako and blue sharks as well a lot of yellowfin tuna.

We have also had a number of very good cetacean encounters including a close sighting of a large bull sperm whale. We were able to observe him resting on the surface and had good views of him before he gave us a goodbye wave with his tail! We have been taking note of all our sperm whale encounters and are starting to notice that most of our sightings are in February and March each year and within a particular distance off Cape Point.

Chris was also very lucky to be in the water diving with a mako shark when a rather curious sun fish (mola mola) came up to the boat, although very briefly. On most occasions we have found them to be nervous when approached by boats and have never had the opportunity of seeing one under water, so this was a first for Chris.

One of the highlights of the month (and what will quite possibly be one of the highlights of 2007) took place on one of our pelagic trips. This was a visit from a large scalloped hammerhead shark. This female was about 2,8 meters (10 feet) and was the longest interaction we have had with a scalloped hammerhead on a pelagic trip. On the very rare occasions that we have seen hammerheads they have always been smooth hammerheads. They have also been notoriously shy.

The interaction that followed was an extremely good one. The shark stayed for about 45 minutes and the conditions were perfect, visibility being 20 meters and the water colour blue. The shark was not afraid of the divers and you will be able to tell from the photographs that Chris took that she was not afraid to make close passes.

The second highlight of the year came a few days later and in a most unexpected and astounding manner.

As you know the summer in South Africa is the low season for seeing great white sharks in Cape Town and Chris and I only ever run these trips when our guests are willing to take a chance.

We had a request for this and on arrival at Seal Island I must confess that I felt there was a good chance that we would not see a great white.

Happily I can admit that I was proved wrong and within an hour of waiting we had a good size 3,7 meter male visit the boat. He was also very obliging and stayed around the boat long enough for everyone to get a good view.

After that visit I thought that our sightings for the day were over but again I was proved wrong!

Not long after the first shark we had a second shark come to the boat and shortly after that a slightly smaller shark. As this small shark came in we judged it to be a little bigger than 2,5 metres (which is a small great white shark). It initially came towards the side of the boat where I was standing and I got my first proper glimpse of it.

There had been a plankton bloom in False Bay and as a result the water was brown and the visibility so poor that we could only see about 1,5 meters below the surface.

When I saw this shark my gut instinct told me that it looked like a mako shark but it is so highly unlikely to see a mako at Seal Island that I felt I could not voice my opinion because I must obviously be wrong. Well, after another pass I got a better look and sure enough is was a large female mako shark. It stayed around for a good ten minutes so we were left in no doubt that we made the correct identification.

I cannot describe how astounded Chris and I were. Being on the ocean all the time we make a lot of surprising observations but we would never have thought it would be possible to view a shortfin mako at Seal Island!

Makos have to our knowledge never been seen feeding on seals, Seal Island is only 5 kilometers from shore, deep into False Bay and the depth we were anchored in was 12 meters. This is definitely not where one would expect to see an open ocean shark.

More amazingly we were not even chumming, as we never do this for white sharks. So, the mako found us purely from the tuna bait that we had out.

It was also the second largest mako that we have ever seen, making it even more special because we just so rarely see these large animals. We even observed the mako with within about 8 meters of a white shark although once the white shark showed up around the boat we did not see the mako again.

I have often said in the past that we know so little about sharks and I feel that we should never be surprised by any different behaviour that is observed but I must confess that this last sighting was something I would never have believed would happen!

Summertime also means for Chris and I that we spend a lot of time down at our local beach working with local trek fishermen (beach seine netters) to release the large amount of by catch in their nets. This often consists of a variety of migratory shark species such as bronze whalers, ragged tooths, smooth hounds etc as well as a variety of rays and endangered fish species that are not allowed to be kept.

It is legal for the fishermen to keep the sharks and rays but they quite willingly release these animals because they realize the importance of maintaining the populations of the apex predator of the ocean.

Chris has been working with them since he was a teenager and it has been a very successful conservation project over the years although sadly we have in the last few years found a tremendous decrease in the number of sharks caught in the net, particularly in smooth hound sharks and bronze whaler sharks. This is a direct result of both species being heavily fished further up our coast and in False Bay.

Despite this we were very kindly given a private sponsorship that would allow us to give a financial numeration to the fishermen for a variety of species that are returned to the sea.

Throughout the summer we have been releasing a good number of white steenbras and leervis but had not seen any sharks up until recently.

In the last few days a number of bronze whaler sharks and a large number of rays such as Duckbills, Diamond and bull rays were released. It is towards the end of our summer now so we are not so sure if there will be any other sharks caught but we will be there to find out!

Some interesting info is that one of the large Duckbill rays that was in the net a few days ago had already been tagged by us 2 years ago and was re-caught this time round about 4 kilometers from where we had caught and tagged it the first time.

Re-captures are not very frequent so this was exciting for us.

On a sad note a close friend and colleague of ours, R. Aidan Martin, passed away suddenly this month. Aidan brought over many groups with ReefQuest to observe the white sharks at Seal Island and we have many wonderful and exciting shark memories shared with him. He did a tremendous amount of work teaching people about sharks and his passing is a great loss for shark conservation. We will miss Aidan and the groups that he brought out each year as this was certainly a highlight for us spending time with like-minded people. Our deepest condolences to his wife Anne and all his shark friends around the world.

On another sad note a massive cyclone, (Category 4, winds up to 155mph), Favio, has just ripped through neighboring Mozambique. Not only has this caused major loss of homes and life as well as massive flooding and destruction to lodges and infrastructure in the Bazaruto archaepeligo, it has also potentially taken away any form of protection that the sanctuary created by tourism offers for a very threatened population of Dugongs. We keep our fingers crossed that once rebuilt, tourists will return to the area and support the lodges that help keep conservation efforts going in these parts.

In March Chris and I are leading our much anticipated Sharks of Southern Africa expedition. When we did this trip two years ago we managed to see and dive with 10 different species of sharks and we are hoping to do the same, if not better, this time round.

Also if anyone wants to book a trip to Seal Island for the white sharks this year please think about getting in touch with us soon as prime time spots are already filling up fast.

This is a great opportunity to come out and really experience the sharks and to see for yourselves what you read about in Shark Bytes each month!

Until next month,

Best wishes
Monique Fallows

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