Graeme Charter: Conservationist who changed image of sharks
1949-2013
GRAEME Charter, who has died at the age of 63, was a former CEO of the Natal Sharks Board, who played a key role in changing it into a pro-conservation organisation.
When he joined it as a field officer after school in 1968, his family of conservationists were disconcerted because of its conservation-unfriendly image. It was known at the time as the Natal Anti-Sharks Measures Board.
But after extensive scientific research and studying the results of net reductions in Australia, Charter persuaded the board to begin removing its shark nets along the coast and making more use of drum lines — floating fishing lines with large baited hooks — to catch large sharks.
The board was applauded by both professional environmentalists and, surprisingly, the public.
Charter was a pioneer of exclusion netting of the kind recently used in Fish Hoek. In 1996 he won a contract to design and install exclusion nets in Hong Kong.
He began research into an electromagnetic pulse for shark repulsion in 1974. It led to the launch of a protective device for recreational divers that won an international top 100 inventions award. The Hong Kong police force and armies around the world use it, but the recreational market has declined because divers would rather watch sharks up close than chase them away.
He did not make any money from it because it was patented by his employer, the sharks board.
He was a leading researcher of ragged-tooth sharks and was involved in an extraordinary project with Australian scientists to conserve their diminishing numbers by breeding them in artificial plastic wombs.
He was a keen diver and, in his earlier days, a member of the police reserve diving unit, performing many body recoveries in KwaZulu-Natal rivers. He organised the rescue of flood victims in Mozambique in 2000 and 2007.
He retired from the sharks board in 2008.
Charter was born on September 6 1949 in Durban. He is survived by his wife, Shan, and two children. — Chris Barron