Three stories in the press over the last few weeks, have given South African’s unusual concerns about swimming off Cape Town’s beaches, surfing around the estuaries of Eastern Cape Rivers and canoeing in the Umgeni River.
Sharks Around Cape Town Beaches
A Zimbabwean man holidaying in Cape Town was killed, when he was attacked by what is believed to be a great white shark at Fish Hoek beach in Cape Town.
Ninety three shark attacks, 12 fatal, were reported in the Eastern and Western Cape beaches in the last 18 years compared to only 19, with one death, on KwaZulu-Natal’s beaches. The shark nets installed there have reduced attacks by 99%, since the 1960s, when attacks were a frequent occurrence. But nets are not suitable for Cape beaches because of rough seas, the presence of whales and seals and the type of sharks.After the Fish Hoek attack Cape Town authorities concluded that nothing else could have been done to avoid the attack. Measures such as shark spotting, beach warning and bathing suggestions were all in place but the conditions and speed of the attack contributed to the tragedy.
Many believe the threat of shark attacks has been increased by the preoccupation of humans with the great white shark. This has lead to tour operators springing up along an area known locally as “shark alley” offering tourists the chance to “swim” with great white sharks in cages lowered into the sea. To attract sharks the operators bait the water with meat and fish, a practice known as chumming. Many believe that this brings sharks closer to the shore and gets them to associate this easy food with human activity.
Nahoon Beach Surfer Claim E. coli Infection Costs
An East London surfer is demanding that the Buffalo City Municipality pay the costs of his treatment for E. coli poisoning after he swam at Nahoon Beach in the Eastern Cape. He claims to have fallen ill 5 days after swimming and was diagnosed with “infective gastroenteritis” for which E.coli is the most common cause.
This is quite possible as the Department of Water Affairs reported in mid 2009 that the Nahoon River, which enters the Indian Ocean at Nahoon Beach, had E.coli counts of up to 25 times higher than the level recommended for direct contact recreational use by the EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency).
Crocodiles in the Umgeni River site of a Canoe Marathon
The Umgeni River passes through many unpopulated areas of Kwa Zulu Natal before cutting through the northern parts of Durban and entering the Indian ocean. Just before Christmas there was a definite siting of a 2 m crocodile as well as a number of other sitings at the mouth and up to 20 km inland which indicates there may be more than one crocodile.
Officials said there was no need for panic as no one had been injured and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife spokesman Jeff Gaisford said a crocodile of that size was unlikely to attack adults. But he advised parents to keep their children out of the water. He added that they were planning to trap the crocodiles, although they were not sure how many their were.
Crocodiles are not normally found in the river in this area, but there are theories that they could have escaped from inland crocodile farms and been washed downstream by recent heavy rains.
Meanwhile an international sporting event, the Duzi Canoe Marathon, will be finishing in these waters at the end of January. As the largest crocodile sited to date is only 2 m long organisers are confident it isn’t a threat to paddlers but would anyway prefer to have it removed before the race.
In the second week of January the authorities set a wire mesh trap for the crocodile that was reported to have been baited with chickens and had planned to move the crocodile to St Lucia when they caught it.
To date though, the crocodile has not been trapped. The trap has had to be moved because of interference by TV crews and it turns out the authorities used a dog run over by a car as bait. This was condemned by the animal rights authorities.
image credits
shark – by Terry Goss at Wkimedia Commons under a GNU Free Documentation License
Nahoon Beach – image clipped from Google Earth
crocodile – by tai strietman on Flickr under a Creative Commons License
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