Lesley Rochat - Shark Warrior

Goodbye 2012! Hello 2013!

30/01/2013

It's time to get stuck into 2013 and loads of conservation work, but before doing so I would like to reflect back on 2012:

What did we achieve (the organisation I founded, AfriOceans Conservation Alliance, and my team and me), how can we improve, how can we have better impact?

These are important questions when planning a new year's conservation strategy. Before summarizing 2012 successors, it must be said that for me the beginning of a new year is a time to practice gratitude - no success achieved was done in isolation, but supported by many wonderful people to whom I am ever grateful.

For the incredible year of many achievements, I thank you all.

2012 began when in January I received a tip-off from the SA Fishery Department that our Minister of Fisheries illegally opened the Langebaan Marine Protected Area and destroyed the population of smooth hound sharks, which had just pupped, and through AfriOceans brought it to public attention, demanding our Minister be accountable; and freediving champion, Trevor Hutton became an AfriOceans Ambassador.

In February & March our AfriOceans Warriors Environmental Programme was in full swing, celebrating World Wetlands day and my wonderful team, led by Terry Corr, would successfully reach 27 000 children by end December 2012.

In this month we ran a Shark Education Programme for the Blue Flag Beaches in partnership with the City of Cape Town reaching 720 children, and I was developing the DEEP FREEDIVE FOR SHARKS awareness campaign with our ambassador, Trevor Hutton.

Read the full story here.

Catches Anything, Kills Everything

03/05/2012

For too long the shark nets of KwaZulu Natal have been killing our sharks and other innocent marine life. They are no more than indiscriminate walls of death. The Kwa-Zulu Natal Sharks Board themselves, no more than a fishing company who catch and kill marine life with archaic gill nets, which are banned in other places of the world. In the last few weeks a number of our sharks have been killed and in memory of them, Cormac McCreesh of Durban has organized a ‘paddle out’ to the death trap nets of Scottburgh, which will be attended by all shark diving operators of the area, including Trevor Hutton and myself as part of our DEEP FREEDIVE FOR SHARKS campaign. Date:7 May at 6.30am at Umkomaaz – join us and find out more here.

Unlike in Cape Town where AfriOceans presence is felt and my voice has a good platform, I have mostly felt powerless against the shark net issue so far removed geographically from me, leaving it to those on the ground to lobby against. I have however, supported where I can and it was the death of some tiger sharks in 2008 that initiated the AfriOceans WANTED! DEAD or ALIVE? Campaign, which is gathering momentum. It now represents a number of critical issues, the killing of sharks by the shark nets, the continued targeting of white sharks along our coast, the illegal fishing and finning of sharks in our waters, and the general lack of compliance and protection of our shark populations by an inept government. It also aims for protection of a number of charismatic shark species such as the tiger shark, bull shark and cowshark. Find out more here and sign the petition.

I am often asked to help raise awareness about critical issues and welcomed the challenge to help two good friends Walter Bernardis and Johan Boshoff, who have been lobbying against the shark nets for years, and be part of an awareness campaign idea, which they had. The call to help came soon after a number of tiger sharks were killed in the nets late last year. With Trevor supporting me in November 2011 we headed for Durban and for an exciting, albeit unusual shoot ahead of us.

I have gone to all kinds of extreme lengths to raise awareness, but it was the first time I went totally naked, tying myself up in gill netting, to make a point as visually powerful as possible. I’ve no issues against nudity with an open minded background as a former actress and swimwear and underwear model – that part was the easiest, but tying myself up in the netting, holding my breath, and having to untie myself without panicking to resurface was the part I found the most challenging. In those moments I got a real sense of what those poor animals must feel like as they struggle, trapped and so frightened, and finally die. For our shoot though we tried different scenarios, naked as the day I was born, depicting vulnerability, just like those poor animals who are caught and drown every day, was best. I have proudly joined women who have through the ages gone naked to protests against numerous issues of concern. For example, we have revealed all in our fight against bull fighting, against war, against the fur trade, and now against the senseless slaughter of our sharks and other marine life in the Kwazulu-Natal shark nets.

My opinion of the nets in summary: Yes, I’m aware of the death by sharks in years gone by in these waters, and of the inherent fear instilled in water-users as a result, and of course the reality that sharks do sometimes bite and kill people. But fear and loathing of sharks is what the existence of the nets thrive upon, while instilling understanding and appreciation of sharks is a threat to their continued use and therefore non-existent. I also appreciate that if nets in certain areas where there is high bather use were removed over night, and without proper by-in from the public, and someone were to be killed by a shark thereafter, it would be the same as cementing them in forever. Therefore so long as the city of Durban and its people support them, they will remain. All the protesting many good-intention-people do will as a result forever fall on deaf ears. But we can, perhaps slower than we would like, and with our persistent passion, eke them out, in particular in the marine protected area (MPA) of the Aliwal Shoal, a place they should not be allowed in the first place. In addition, alternative solutions for areas in the MPA that do have high bather use need to be considered as real solutions to the senseless loss of too many innocent animals. And lastly, the Sharks Board’s daily public shows of dissecting sharks they have killed as entertainment and means of financial gain needs to stop. Any justification is unacceptable - the South Africa fishery department justifies selling confiscated shark fins back to the triads to help raise funds they need for research etc. This is blood money and makes it wrong no matter which way you look at it.

I know it's a lot more complicated, but for progress I suggest two things: we need to sit at the table with the municipality of the area and the Sharks Board who need to be willing to hear us and find solutions with us – so far it seems the more pressure we put on them the more they skulk around, hiding like the guilty they are. We also need a public education an awareness campaign that is supported by them. These might be small steps but in the right direction and I am willing to help the process.

I believe in education and awareness, without it you cannot win the support of people and they will forever remain ignorant, slaves to their beliefs, in particular when it comes to sharks. With our new poster campaign I believe we have added just that much more to the move in raising the necessary education and awareness, the essence of change, that will help save our sharks and other marine life.

(Thank you to Walter, Johan and Trevor for their dedicated efforts – I love your passion for the ocean and working with you guys! - and to Basha for filming the 'making of', which I will share at a later stage. )

Watch my space!

Rethink the shark - Meet Wilson!

01/03/2012

I've just got to say it: I love my job, I really do. It’s not really a job in the normal sense of the word, it’s my vocation and my passion lived through a portfolio of titles, or rather hats I wear. I’ve become pretty adept in swapping and changing them at lightening speed many times in a course of day. Though I often feel over-burdened and under pressure constantly with a million projects running simultaneously, I am filled with immense gratitude for being one of those fortunate to love their work and be supported by so many amazing people from all over the world. So, thank you!

In particular a very special thanks must go to my very talented nephew, Andrew Mc Nally and his creative team for our latest PSA, Rethink the shark – Meet Wilson. We launched Wilson a week ago and within 4 days he had received over 10 000 views on Youtube! I have watched it countless times now and each time I’ve just gotta smile! How this powerful production was created goes back to last year when Andrew, who was in his final year at animation college, approached me to help AfriOceans with a new PSA. As always I needed help with changing peoples perceptions of sharks, and since our original Rethink the shark PSAs had done so remarkably well, it was decided to expand on this existing campaign. Seeing the final project I was blown away – what they came up with, the character, the attention to detail astounded me – it totally rocks, such immense talent! With all the attention on ‘shark attacks’, we believe Wilson will help us put the JAWS propaganda in perspective. Please help us spread this message our very cool dude, Wilson is bringing.

Watch my space!

Freediving with Trevor Hutton and Cowsharks

01/02/2012

Wanting to learn to freedive has been a goal of mine for the past 13 years. It started one sunny South African day in False Bay when I snorkeled down and sat on the sand glancing up at the beautiful kelp forest that surrounded me while practicing to hold my breath. At that time there were no freediving teachers in Cape Town so I bought the only book I could find on the subject and started to teach myself. A mere month later and after only a few sessions in the ocean unexpected events prevented me from pursuing it any further.
Many years later, and while on SCUBA, I would often watch those freedivers who joined me on shark dives around the world with awe. They looked so graceful, flowing through the water with the sharks around them, while I felt weighed down by my SCUBA gear. I was envious of their skill and felt compelled to explore a new dimension to diving.

I’m one of those people that believes in learning only from the best and good friend Jeff Ayliffe told me about Trevor Hutton, a South African freediving champion and the only South African to have broken official world records. Jeff had done Trevor’s freediving course and raved about it. So in 2008 I got hold of Trevor, went for my dive medical and planned to do his next course. Unfortunately work pressures at the shark centre I had just created got in the way and I had to cancel. It was only when I got to the Bahamas in 2011 that I reawakened my desire and need to learn to freedive competently.

It was clear to me while freediving with the sharks and the gregarious spotted dolphins of the Bahamas that I needed help. With improved technique I knew I would be able to stay down longer, and feel more confident in the water, and in particular amongst the sharks. I would also be able to get shots of the animals in a way I had not been able to, them coming curiously much closer to me without the interference of bubbles.

In the meanwhile, and since my first attempt to do Trevor’s course, I had heard that Trevor, being who he is, taught many already competent freedivers. Since I was a mere beginner I felt intimidated so I explored the possibility of doing a course with other instructors whose professional portfolios were far less overwhelming to me. But while their courses seemed to focus on breath hold, what Trevor promised to teach me was far more appealing: techniques that would make me a better diver, one that could handle things if they went wrong, one that was in tune with her environment, confident and capable in the water. This is exactly what I wanted to learn, especially given the animals I mostly dive with and the local, often challenging sea conditions. Three years later I gave Trevor a call again, and a few weeks later I was on his next course.

Nervous at first, I braced myself for what I thought would be a tough course. But not only did Trevor turn out to be the most patient and thorough instructor, who offered a top class course, but he was able to judge my abilities and pushed me only as far he knew I could go – often a lot further than I knew I could go myself. The course included theory lessons, pool sessions and Blue Rock sessions where skills were honed, and then, what I had done it all for, ocean sessions! Soon I found myself stretching my lungs and holding my breath till they burned to stay down with the cowsharks of False Bay – heaven! Returning to the Bahamas remains my dream to really practice my new skills…

Do I now consider myself a freediver? No, it takes a lot more than what I have done to wear that label, plus I have equalizing challenges to overcome. Besides I’ll always be first and foremost a SCUBA diver, needing bottom time to support my private obsession, underwater photography. In addition, getting to know Trevor and meeting and diving with other freedivers, including Trevor’s friend, Herbert Nitsch, I recognize them to be in a class of their own. But for certain I have learned skills and a new way of the water which I feel driven to improve upon further – there truly is nothing comparable to only a breath of air in my lungs, the precious water against my skin, the stillness, and the sharks and fish fearlessly close – it is then in that silence that I really get to hear the Ocean and feel at one with Her.

With the records he holds and his years of experience, which surpasses any other South African freediving instructor, and the fact that he is also an awesome person, I highly recommend Trevor's course – contact him via his website to find out when he is running the next one http://www.trevorhutton.co.za/

Thanks to Coral Wetsuits for my awesome red Shark Warrior wetsuit!

Watch my space!

Rethinking the Fish Hoek shark attack

14/10/2011

Let me begin by saying I am truly sorry that a shark harmed a man recently in my home village, Fish Hoek. I feel for the man, his family, and for the sharks. After reading the facts of the incident I am left with one big question: If someone warned you repeatedly that there was a lion in a park and if you walked about, there was a good chance you’d be attacked, would you still do it? No, you wouldn’t!

There’s one thing to be bitten by a shark without any warnings that it might be around, but to be warned that a shark is present and still choose to enter the water and then get bitten, well now that's plain foolish. This is exactly what happened in the last two cases at Fish Hoek Beach. Why did these people do it? Their behaviour appears to be totally irresponsible, irresponsible toward their families, toward the local Fish Hoek small business community eking out a living and tourism plummeting as a result, and irresponsible toward these majestic animals that are teetering on the edge of extinction, and which they have helped to brand as man-eaters.

In the first case, which took place in Jan 2010, I heard that Lloyd Skinner had emailed his mother that day to say he would see her later but not before he went for a swim at Fish Hoek Beach, AND he added, he had read the warnings of the high frequency of shark sightings in the area and was concerned, and yet he still went for his fatal swim, apparently close to a shoal of fish.

This latest case was another act of irresponsibility – Michael Cohen, apparently a frequent swimmer of the bay and apparently also a frequent ignorer of the Shark Spotters warnings not to swim when the beach was closed, as it was that day, still chose to do so. It cost him his leg. And it cost sharks a very bad rap, resulting in a tsunami of ignorant reactions from many members of the public, including gung-ho, testosterone-driven males wanting to ‘hunt the shark down’ (as if they would be able to determine the ‘culprit’ from any other shark. White sharks are also one of the only protected shark species in South Africa, a country comparatively far behind protecting its sharks due to local fishery department’s total inadequacies and inertia - but that’s another story for later - and it’s against the law to kill a white shark, if caught it can result in a two year imprisonment and/or a R50 000 fine).

To set straight the stream of self-proclaimed shark experts opinions which offer impractical/ignorant solutions to what they perceive as a problem, note that for biological reasons white shark populations cannot explode; that there is no scientific evidence that sharks become rogue animals and hunt people; that shark nets are not barriers but fishing devices, which indiscriminately kill marine animals, including whales and dolphins and therefore not recommended for Cape Town; and that culling some sharks is not an absolute solution as one remaining shark can still bite.

I reflect back to Tyna Webb, also a regular swimmer of the bay, that was killed by a shark in 2004 in the same place and recall the now monotonous tune being sung then already: I had rushed down to the beach minutes after the incident and interviewed some of Tyna’s friends on camera who told me: “They warned us there were sharks in the bay and we told her she mustn’t go in, but she wouldn’t listen to us, she never did.”

What I said on National Television E-News the day Michael was bitten, I say again, it’s their domain, not ours, and we really need to keep our wits about us, use the ocean responsibly and keep things in perspective by remembering some simple facts: we need our sharks because they keep our oceans in balance (no sharks in the oceans means no tasty fish on your dinner plate, plus a whole lot of other negative repercussions that will affect us all since the oceans are our life support system), we slaughter over 70 million sharks a year, while worldwide last year there was only 6 fatalities by sharks, 2 of which were in South Africa. On average from 2001 to date in South Africa there has only been 48 ‘attacks’ (a word I use very sparingly as it is misused and misplaced since sharks are not out to attack us – if this was the case they would be doing so daily), and of those 11 were fatal i.e. 1 death by sharks per year over 11 years in South Africa. Ever wondered what the murder stats are in South Africa in comparison – try 15,940 murders in 2010/11.

So why the huge fuss when sharks kill on average only 1 person a year in South Africa and little fuss over daily murders? Perhaps it’s because we have become desensitized to murder stories because there’s just so many in comparison. Unless of course it’s the murder of the wealthy and famous and the details are intriguing to the average Joe-Smoe who also happens to be an avid reader of ‘Heat’ or ‘You’ magazines and the like, or if the murder is comparative to the Chainsaw Massacre, which makes for a perverse, enthralling story. It’s about what sells papers, gets prime time coverage and the gorier the better. I mean, who wants to read about yet another murder in South Africa – pretty boring right? But a death by a shark or an ‘attack’ by a shark, with headlines like “Fish Food, Eaten Alive” with an image of a white shark bearing its razor sharp teeth, well now that gets the masses lining up at the café newspaper stand. People and the media are predictable.

According to the International Shark Attack File, it is true that globally the number of shark bites has increased. But before jumping to conclusion about increasing shark populations, sadly shark populations worldwide are in fact declining at an alarming rate, and many species will become extinct in our lifetime. It’s therefore a matter of simple arithmetic: an ever growing human population i.e. 6.8 billion and counting = more water users + spending increased amounts of time in the ocean = increased risk of encountering a shark.

And though white sharks are efficient predators that are potentially dangerous to people, considering the daily number of water users, the actual number of shark bites remains extremely low. As our Rethink the shark PSAs illustrate, you are more likely to be killed by your toaster, flying kite, or falling off your chair than by a shark! (Watch our award winning Rethink the shark here or see video below this post). Why sharks bite people is mostly unknown but possibly because of mistaken identity, curiosity, investigation and in few cases, aggression. But following these guidelines can further reduce the very, very, small risk of being bitten:

Pay attention to shark signage and flags on beaches and obey them.

Obey beach officials if told to leave the water.

If a shark has recently been sighted in an area where no shark spotters are present, use another beach.

First time visitors to beaches should ask local law enforcement official, life guards or locals about the area.

For those kayaking or surfskiing far out to the sea, consider paddling in groups and staying close together.

Consider using a personal shark shield when surfing or kayaking.

Don’t swim, surf or surfski when birds, dolphins or seals are feeding nearby.

Don’t swim in deep water beyond the breakers.

Don’t swim, surf or surfski on your own or at night.

Don’t swim if you are bleeding.

Don’t swim near river mouths.

Don’t swim, surf or surfski near trek-netting, fishing or spear fishing activities.

Don’t dive using a baiting bag.

Where there are Shark Spotting Programmes, and for those who have never quite got the flags meaning, myself included, here they are:

A Green Flag means visibility for the spotters is good and no sharks are visible to the spotter.

A Black Flag means visibility for the spotters is poor but no sharks have been seen.

A Red Flag means that a shark has been seen recently but is no longer visible to the spotters.

A White Flag with a Black Shark, along with a loud siren, means a shark has been sighted and you should leave the water calmly but immediately.

No Flag visible means that spotters are not on duty.

Just remember that though the Shark Spotting Programme is effective, it can never be 100 % guaranteed because of human error and bad viz days, for example. But cleary in the recent case, had Michael chosen to adhere to the safety measures in place, he would have avoided being bitten - informed decisions and responsible behaviour while using the sea greatly lowers any risk of ever encountering a shark.

Will I go swimming in Fish Hoek beach again which I love? Of course I will, but I will be sure to check the flag and obey the safety measures in place, I won’t swim behind the backline where each previous incident took place, and I will be mindful that the sharks are thankfully still out there, somewhere, but that there’s more chance of me being killed driving home after my swim than of me ever being bitten by one. Or perhaps I shouldn’t ever swim in this ocean again, but then I best never drive my car again…

Find out more about Lesley’s work www.lesleyrochat.com or www.aoca.org.za