Shark Special - Making fishermen friends

By Doug Perrine

Shark Reef in Fiji has become the focus of an ambitious project to provide sharks with a commercial value - a value that doesn't result in the sharks being destroyed. Words and photographs by Doug Perrine

Photo: Doug Perrine

Photo: DP

Lying between Fiji's main island of Viti Levu and Beqa Lagoon to the south, Shark Reef is the site of a radical conservation project which might prove to be the template for saving shark populations worldwide. Essentially, the proposition is that rather than fishing the reefs and thereby destroying the fish population, locals can gain an income through visiting divers who come to Shark Reef specifically to see the large congregations of sharks and other fish at regular shark feeds.

Reefs in Fiji traditionally, and now by government decree, belong to villages which own and manage the reef resources. The decision on whether to spare the sharks or sell their fins to aggressive Asian buyers rests with the villages of Wainiyabia and Galoa - the owners of Shark Reef. In return for the exclusive right to utilise Shark Reef, Beqa Adventure Divers pays a fee of ten Fiji dollars to the two villages, collected from every diver who goes to Shark Reef. With the enthusiastic support of the owner villages, the Fiji Ministry of Fisheries has declared the reef a marine reserve, off limits to fishing or commercial exploitation other than scuba diving.

The only reason to dive Shark Reef is to experience Beqa Adventure Divers 'Big-Fish Encounter'. Four times a week, they feed a variety of fish, including eight species of sharks, fang-toothed Bohar snappers, schools of giant trevally, an enormous Napoleon wrasse named Hamilton, an even larger giant grouper and clouds of rainbow runners. At each feed, a large bin of fish parts from the local fish-packing house is recycled back to the ocean.

But isn't fish-feeding frowned upon, if not condemned, by most marine conservation organisations, and isn't it even illegal in some areas? 'People say this is a circus,' replies one of Beqa Adventure Divers owners, Mike Neumann, 'and they're right. It's a show - like a carnival ride, not an eco-dive. But it has a purpose. It is the only way we can pay for the conservation project. Without the shark dive there will be no sharks. You must give people an economic incentive to protect a resource.' The Shark Reef Marine Reserve project has persuaded the owner villages to stop fishing the reef, convinced the government to apply official protection, trained (with Fiji Fisheries) a dozen wardens to patrol the reserve, and purchased (with funds from the Shark Foundation in Switzerland) a patrol boat. In addition, with support from the Shark Foundation and PADI's Project Aware, Beqa Adventure Divers is now hosting cutting-edge scientific research aimed at delineating the migration routes, breeding areas, and home ranges of the bull sharks.

Bulls are one of seven species of sharks that make regular appearances at Shark Reef, where you can also expect to see silver-tip, grey reef, black-tip reef, white-tip reef, tawny nurse, and sicklefin lemon sharks. The hefty bulls are generally the stars of the show, unless there is an unexpected visit from an even larger cousin. When a 4m-plus tiger shark showed up on one of our dives, most of the divers crouched and huddled together. Rusi, one of the senior shark-feeders at Beqa Adventure Divers, got a big grin on his face and thrust a handful of bait towards the new arrival. 'That's the only time you will see Rusi smiling,' says Neumann, 'when a tiger shark comes in!' Both Rusi and Manasa, another shark feeder, hail from the island of Beqa (pronounced Bangga). Beqa Islanders, says Manasa, are protected by an ancient pact that their ancestors made with the sharks. 'We don't harm sharks, and they don't harm us.' Both Rusi and Manasa are former firewalkers. A similar type of magic, unique to natives of Beqa, protects their feet from being burned as they trot over hot coals. To ensure the efficacy of the magic, the firewalkers must abstain from 'grog' (kava) and relations with women for four nights before. When I ask Manasa if this is why he switched from firewalking to shark feeding, he just smiles.

Brandon Paige, a divemaster working in Fiji, started the Beqa Shark Reef dive. When he first visited Shark Reef in 1999 in search of a location for a shark dive, there was little there. He had reports from fish collectors of sightings of a few grey reef sharks, but what he found was a mostly dead reef with a rubble slope, and very few fish. He liked the site partly because there was so little live coral - guidelines proposed by the Shark Trust (www.sharktrust.org) suggest situating shark feed sites in areas of dead rubble or sand to avoid damage to live reefs. The name of the reef also seemed propitious. It was identified as Shark Reef on the old British Admiralty charts. After repeatedly leaving bait, he finally spotted some reef sharks and went to see the villagers about cutting a deal to use the reef for a shark feed. 'So, you want to take tourists to our reef to see the fish?' asked the village chiefs. Paige nodded in the affirmative. 'Are you aware that there are no fish there?' Paige nodded again and a deal was made.

Paige began setting out baits to attract sharks passing the reef while patrolling their home ranges. Over a period of years, more and more sharks learned that the sound of a certain set of engines arriving at Shark Reef at a certain time of day meant a free meal. By the time Neumann and business partner James Beazeley took over the dive for Beqa Adventure Divers in 2004, there were not only sharks, but also a thriving community of reef fish at the site. When ichthyologist John Earle visited Shark Reef, he counted more than 125 species of fish on his first dive. Within a few days he had more than doubled the count, estimating that he would have reached 300, 'if I hadn't been so distracted by all those big sharks.' Earle credits the input of nutrients from the bait offerings with bringing life back to the reef. Carnivorous fish are attracted directly to the bait. Their defecations feed other varieties of fish and invertebrates, and soon a whole food web is operating. Thus the shark feed supports a reserve that protects an ecosystem in effect created by the shark feed. Neumann says that fishermen are reporting increased catches in the reefs around the Shark Reef Marine Reserve, as big fish within the reserve force small to medium-sized fish off the 1km long reef. But is the dive safe? The operators believe that the key to safety is control and consistency of procedures. They operate the Big Fish Encounter four times a week, striving to do things exactly the same way each time. The certification of Beqa Adventure Divers as the only operation allowed to conduct feeds within the Shark Reef Marine Reserve reduces the chance of the type of accidents that have occurred in other areas where two operations used different and conflicting feeding methods.

The excursion consists of two dives in one morning. The first takes place at The Arena, where the rubble slope meets a flat bottom at about 35m. Guests watch from behind a rock wall as the staff feed the sharks. The dive finishes on the shallow reef, where the guests can see a large resident moray. After an hour's surface interval, the divers descend to a depth of 15m, where the bait container has been attracting visitors. The guests watch from behind a cable as the staff feed the performers. Although the sharks may pass directly in front of the divers, their attention is focused entirely on the bait container and the feeders. Accidents are always a possibility, but I never felt any threat whatsoever.

• For more information about diving Shark Reef contact Beqa Adventure Divers on 00 679 345 0911, email adventuredivers@connect.com.fj or see the website www.fiji-sharks.com.

Good migrations

In 2004, research was conducted into the migratory patterns of the sharks. Juerg Brunnschweiler, a PhD candidate at the University of Zurich, and shark expert Gary Adkison, attached 11 pop-up satellite tags to bull sharks at Shark Reef. The tags were programmed to pop up to the surface between November 2004 and January 2005 and beam to a satellite a record of each shark's travels, along with a precise location where the tag was released. Bull sharks in Fiji conduct their breeding migration from November to January, so the data from the tags could reveal where the sharks of Shark Reef go to mate and bear pups. Protecting Shark Reef itself may prove futile unless the migratory route and destination can also be protected. Beqa Adventure Divers is hoping that the economic value of shark diving in Fiji will convince the government to ban all fishing for sharks in Fijian waters.

By January 2005, ten of the 11 tags were transmitting data. That data is still being analysed, but the preliminary results are astounding. While four of the sharks remained in Fijian waters, five travelled between 600 and 1,200km in a period of two months. One bull shark travelled a distance of 2,500km over an eight-month period and released its tag between Australia and Papua New Guinea.

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