Are Wild Coast sharks biting to the kwaito beat?
Blaring music from taxis may be behind attacks at Port St Johns
COULD sharks be attracted by kwaito and house music thumping from taxis?
As bizarre as this might sound, it is among the theories being probed as researchers and residents of Port St Johns, on the Eastern Cape’s Wild Coast, scramble to answer the mystery of why the tourist town’s popular Second Beach has become a hot spot for shark attacks.
On Saturday last week, a 72year-old Austrian tourist became the ninth victim in the past six years when he was attacked while swimming in waist-deep water.
Eight of the nine attacks have been fatal, way above the international average of one in 13.
Port St Johns mayor Dan Mangqo took the unprecedented step of closing the beach to swimmers this week.
“At the moment, it probably is the most dangerous beach in the world,” said Jeremy Cliff, a re- searcher at the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board, which has been investigating the attacks since 2011.
“It is a mystery. So often with shark attacks you can’t really explain what happened.”
One of the theories is that loud, bass-driven music is attracting sharks closer to shore. The picturesque bay is regularly packed with beachgoers from the nearby towns of Mthatha, Lusikisiki and Flagstaff.
Parking bays overlook both main swimming areas, and it is common for music to play from taxis and the adjacent nightclub.
“We did look into this. But if it was a significant factor, you would expect attacks more often because taxis are there not just on the days of the attack,” said Cliff.
He has previously said that fish, including sharks, are attracted to low-frequency sounds.
John Costello, who has owned property in Port St Johns since 1967 and is the National Sea Res- cue Institute station commander, thinks it is a possibility. “Sea conditions haven’t really changed since the attacks started happening, so we have to consider what has changed on land,” he said.
In the past six years, floodlights have been installed and it has become common for taxis to “play music at thunderous volumes”.
“I’m not saying this is the single cause, but it is something we have to consider,” he said.
The slaughter of animals on the beach as part of traditional rituals has also been considered. But it has been ruled out because it does not happen frequently and not enough blood is produced.
Another theory is that sewage from the town as well as villages along the Umzimvubu River has added more nutrients to the water. This has created abundant plant life, which leads to bigger populations of feeder fish that are eaten by sharks. Zambezi sharks breed in the river. But sharks board studies have not found significant increases in individual fish or population sizes.
Cliff also suggested the degradation of Zambezi shark breeding grounds on the South Coast as a factor, but population sampling has not revealed anything hugely significant regarding breeding or population sizes.
“We have looked at many things and nothing stands out. It has to be a combination of factors,” he said.
But Rob Nettleton and Debbie Smith, who own a diving company in the area, think the attacks can be prevented.
Nettleton said Second Beach was flat for many metres out into the waves and then had a sudden steep drop where the water got deeper. It is there where fish tend to feed. Swimmers go deeper into the water and towards this “shelf”, effectively putting them in the sharks’ hunting territory.
“This is where lifeguards come in,” said Nettleton.
“If you had lifeguards with proper equipment, like paddleboards and jet-skis, you could have them out at the back line preventing swimmers from going into those dangerous areas.”
No lifeguards were on duty at the time of Saturday’s attack.
Shark nets have also been ruled out because they are expensive to maintain and the strong currents and waves would cause too much damage to them.
“Maybe we need to prevent people going into the water when the conditions are potentially dangerous, because we don’t know why this is happening,” said Cliff.