Surfers bite back in great shark wars

 

Indian Ocean islanders pioneer ways to protect themselves after string of fatal shark attacks. Photo / Getty Images

Talon Bishop was unaware of the danger. The 22-year-old Briton, born in northern France, had moved to Reunion only a few months earlier. On Valentine's Day this year, she decided to go for a swim with her boyfriend. She was killed in waist-high water, seized by a shark.
"Who could believe that such a thing could happen in 1.5 metres of water?" said Miss Bishop's London-born mother, urging the authorities to act. "We have to take steps to protect our people and our tourists," she said. "Sometimes we have to protect them from themselves."
While the world has been gripped by the discovery on Reunion of wreckage from MH370, the island itself is in the grip of what it terms "la crise requin" - the shark crisis.

The island is the most dangerous place in the world for shark attacks, and the situation has pitted surfers against the government, beach-goers against conservationists, and tourist officials against scientists, as the debate on what to do grows stormier.
The French territory in the Indian Ocean has had 20 attacks and seven deaths since 2011, when "la crise" began. In the past five years, 13 per cent of all the world's fatal shark attacks have taken place around this tiny, 40-mile island.
The prefet banned all open-water swimming and surfing in 2013. Yet the passionate ocean-goers continued.
In April, Elio Canestri a highly promising 13-year-old surfer, became the latest victim. He was killed on the beach where Mathieu Schiller, a 32-year-old instructor and French champion, died in Sept 2011.
It was not always this way. Attacks happened before 2011, but they were infrequent and not usually fatal - and the island had a thriving surfing community.
In 2005, surfing's world tour came to Reunion, bringing greats such as Kelly Slater and Mick Fanning. About 1,000 regular surfers enjoyed the 16ft-high swells. At the time, 25 surf schools operated on the island.
Now, all but two have shut. Ludovic Villedieu, one of the last coaches still in business, can no longer offer surfing lessons: instead, he gives paddle board and kayak lessons in a lagoon protected by a coral reef. The other school has done the same.
"Only a crazy person would go into those waves now," he said.
The sharks off the island are mainly bull sharks, described by the Shark Foundation as probably the most dangerous species in tropical waters. Living close to the shore and scavenging on the seabed, they are the only shark that penetrates far into fresh water rivers. Tiger sharks are also common.
"It's not like they are sardines - there aren't hundreds of thousands of them," said David Guyomard, a manager for the island's fisheries committee. "But it is fair to say that we have a problem."
No?one knows for certain why the sharks have arrived in such numbers, and so quickly. Some say it began with the creation of a marine reef in 2007.
Others blame a 1999 ban on shark meat being sold for human and animal consumption, after a potentially dangerous bacterial infection. An increase in urbanisation has sent more sewage into the sea. Reef sharks - which killed the bull sharks' pups - were overfished. Some blame climate change.
Last year, surfers made sure that some of their own were elected to the council in a prime surfing area. Patrick Flores, French national surf coach and father of Jeremy Flores - ranked 12th in the world - is deputy mayor.
Thierry Martineau, a keen surfer until 2011, is in charge of sport. "We are taking it in hand," said Mr Martineau. "We are going to restore Reunion to her previous splendour."
In October, the council will install a 700-yard net along the popular Boucan Canot beach, and a 600-yard-long version at Roches Noirs; swimmers and surfers will be welcome. Eight people are training to become "vigis" - underwater lookouts, who will patrol the shark nets with harpoon guns.
Mr Guyomard's team have created a system of "smart drum lines", which send real-time information back to the land and allow scientists to fish for bull sharks. One day, he said, real-time tracking may be possible: alerts could be given when sharks approach beaches used by humans.
"We are pioneers in this - we're the only ones in the world with these layers of protection," said Mr Martineau.
Geremy Cliff, a world-renowned shark researcher from the KwaZulu- Natal Sharks Board, agreed that the approach was innovative, but called for fishing of shark meat to be restarted, despite opposition from conservationists.
"The government seems genuinely sympathetic, but you can't just sit back and say 'don't go in the water'. It's gone too far on Reunion." Valentin Fleury, 19, admits that he is still frightened of going in the sea.
"We know they're there," he said, looking out at the pounding waves. "But if I just sit at home I go crazy. It does mean my parents spend their time sitting by the radio, waiting for news. It's Russian roulette."