Or maybe a non-emotional response to a spiralling problem?
It’s been a busy few months on pretty Reunion Island. First, back to back fatal shark attacks which prompted the article Shark Phobia is Justified and the posit that if driving a car was, as the stats are always being quoted, more dangerous than surfing, there should’ve been 100,000 car deaths on the little island.
In April, a suspected Islamist opened fired on cops after his apartment was raided (weapons and the ingredients for molotov cocktails found). A neighbour said she had noticed the recent convert to Islam had grown a luxurious new beard.
And, last Thursday, five sharks, three bulls and two tigers ranging from six to twelve feet, were caught off Saint-Pierre (the bulls) and Saint-Gille, the tigers.
No controversy in that piece of news, am I right? The joint’s crawling with tigers and bulls, neither fish in danger of vanishing.
Even Kelly Slater, who ain’t one for the knee-jerk killin’ of sea creatures, suggested it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to manage the island’s shark population.
“Honestly, I won’t be popular for saying this but there needs to be a serious cull on Reunion and it should happen everyday. If the whole world had these rates of attack nobody would use the ocean and literally millions of people would be dying like this.”
But, oowee, folks lit up when the photos of the beached fish were published online. A Facebook page called Contre la pêche des requins à la Réunion (Against Fishing Sharks on Reunion), which counts a healthy 12,692 likes, wrote:
“5 Sharks massacres in the one day of 18 may. !!!!!
Spread, share en masse l image of l ignoble massacre committed by the state has the reunion French in this moment. Amazing share in a few hours. Thank you, thank you for the sharks and for the meeting, continue even louder, share we must show that the people of réunion and those who support them refuse this heinous massacre, paid for with your taxes that a minority of surfers saint gillois imposes upon them, with the complicity of the State.”
That piece was shared 5044 times and stimulated close to two hundred comments, mostly of the it’s-their-turf-surf-at-your-own-risk variety.
What an emotional and divisive issue it is.
Reunion is an island where surfing and swimming is banned unless there are shark spotters in place, and nets serve as protection on a couple of beaches. Go surf and getting your leg or arm torn off and bleeding out before your buddies can get your stump back to the beach isn’t just an abstract concern.
It’s also an island run by the mother ship in Paris.
Wrap the bourgeoise Parisian’s feel-good vibes for sharks around the actual residents’ valid fears and you hit a wall.
Now,
Let’s imagine it’s you, and not Emmanuel Macron, in the Presidential Palace. You greet representatives from Reunion in your office who ask for the marine park listing to be removed.
They show you photos of little Eli Canestri, one of the island’s best young surfers, who died surfing four years ago.
“Despite the ban in place and the instructions of his coach, how could one forbid a young boy of 13 from pursuing his passion when one lives on an island surrounded by the ocean and these magnificent waves,” the president of the French Surfing Federation, Jean Luc Arassus, said at the time.
Or the barely teenage girl bitten in half swimming five metres from shore.
And photos of the seven other surfers dead because of what is clearly an overpopulation of sharks.
Would you remove the marine park listing?
Or would you capitulate to the position that the bull and tiger shark are sacred animals and must be protected at all costs?
All costs.
my current situation informs my judgement, not what Fred Pawle writes in the Australian.
hard to say which is cause and which effect, but I’d say there is at least an equal and opposite reaction from the : Oh we can’t harm a hair on a single sharks head brigade”, and that this side has the numbers.
reality
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First of all, good back and forth, I must say, and I appreciate that you took the time to respond. My views below.
The fact that you refer to a “scientific consensus” either shows how politically motivated you are in your views, or how politically motivated the view that sharks should not be culled has become.
Science doesn’t operate according to “consensus”, for example, Galieo. Scientific revolution occurs by breaking with commonly held views.
“Consensus” is a political tool designed to shut down different views/research that would challenge a group’s hold on a particular topic, and is an offshoot of totalitarian ideology, namely, Facism and Communism, which argued for the scientific basis of racial superiority or redistributionary economic laws. Rigid and absolute, this politcal use of science is often proven wrong, precisely because it refuses to adapt to new information (for example, Jesse Owens 1936 olympics, or the economic history of communism and socialism from Stalin to Pol Pot, to North Korea). Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one.
Exterminator logic: Will fewer man eaters in the lineup mean fewer deaths by man eaters? Evidence from netted breaks suggest that fewer sharks mean fewer deaths, and still the greenies bitch and moan about the nets. What about breaks that aren’t netted or can’t be? “Re-hiving” doesn’t work for a species that can travel thousands of miles. I read of one man-eating species that was recently removed and placed 1km from the break. Fucking joke. The only real solution to deal with the immediate problem is to kill them. Even Burgess is acknowledges that shark populations are growing. He says tough titties; I say kill the sharks before they kill me.
Knee-jerk reaction? Are you suggesting the existence of a pure rationality separate from human emotion? Not possible. Many scientific breakthroughs have come about precisely because of emotional motivation, for example, penicillin. The point is these breakthroughs occurred because of the motivation to preserve human life, rather than throw it down the jaws of a fish. Clearly, scientists are often political in their views (burgess), and that motivates their conclusions and recommendations.
As to your last point, I agree, I place human life above that of a fish.
There are NO humans relying on sharks in Réunion Island, EXCEPT those “scientists” who are getting paid to study them, so as to “find a solution”…
But then again, they are so devoided of humanity, that the term “human” hardly applies…
If you are not for a culling then how about you stop eating all fish, crab, etc. to give back food to the sharks.
Even if we really try to kill every sharks near the island we can’t do a complete extinction of the both species Bull and Tiger.
And it’s not what we are doing. If you don’t know, we protect our fauna and flora better than you try to do for your’s in your country.
Just stay in your normal life where you live, we don’t care if you are an idiot who can’t know what we live in our island.
There are positions and then there are manipulation pieces like the tripe written here. The lazy and manipulative technique of associating sharks and terrorism was pedestrian, at best; dishonorable to say the least.
Its also clear this writer has not availed himself of the many scientific papers being produced about La Reunion and the shark “problem”. If he had, he’d see that these tiger and bull sharks are highly migratory throughout the Western Indian Ocean and, though, protected in La Reunion waters…are subject to fishing all along their migration routes.
What does this mean? It means that if their populations were to be affected by fishing, then the fishing off the island of Mauritius would be similarly affecting the shark numbers off La Reunion. This also means that “culling” sharks…WON’T WORK. As is mentioned in nearly every scientific paper covering the topic. It didn’t work in the past (1959-1976 Hawaii, 2014 Western Australia) and it won’t work now. These are not residential species – they are highly migratory.
It would be better if La Reunion looked to its local environment to see what has changed rather than opting to the simplest and most primitive option that has been universally determined to fail. If you can’t learn from multiple cases of the past, then listen to those who have.
As for this so-called “writer”, above, his work is extremely derivative and hardly reads at the middle school level of debate club tactics. Rule 1 – associate with bad stuff (terrorism – check), Rule 2 – mention kids, always mention kids (teenage girl – check). Rule 3 – make the opposition feel like it will be their fault if something bad happens in the future if they don’t listen to you (sacred animals and must be protected at ALL COSTS – check).
Actually, I take that back…I think this is more primary level school stuff than middle school.
If you’re looking for position papers, you’re in the wrong corner of the internet. They do street fights here.
Try not to let this article destroy your faith in the integrity of beachgrit.com
What a limp wrested European reaction to a problem remote and abstract to them. My view is a scientic and systematic culling. Or what?
There is a saying ” we are the only one who are able to deal with our own chaos”…
the problem isnt the squale kind…but man kind… Yes Reunion is one of the last “petite colonie” run by Paris. But it aint Macron, Lepen, Castro ou Kim Jung Hun who is going to change the balance in this debate, but the people who live in the Island. It’s their responsability to maintain the ecosystem they live in to manage “the squale crisis”. They have to realize the living wealth of their island, shark, whales and lagoon included.
Yes they’re sharks in the ocean, but it’s the human activity that brings more and more sharks by our shore : Wifi underwater wires, industrial harbour, industrial fishing, sun lotion on the beach, the destruction of the lagoon to the tourist population, waste management…yet we still kill thousands of sharks a year…
One thing important to see also, is that shark attacks matter…only when rich people are included… and I could even say white people, but it wouldnt be true for the Reunion island case.
there are more people dying from car accident than shark attack, yet we still build more and more roads. There are more people dying from toaster accident than shark attack, yet we still french toast! Herpes exists, yet I’m not going to stop french kissing. What I mean is that, in the early XXth century, as an answer to the encomic crisis, a guy decided to kill 6000000 people. Haven’t we evolved? Just a tiny bit…couldn’t answer to a crisis other than with violence, extermination?
Tree huggers are so quick to jump on any animal cause share-a-thon. Killing human beings however, not so much. 700k babies murdered in 2012, and it got zero shares. (CNN source). My thinking is take out the big human killing ones, put up nets, and educate people about feeding times.
The French eat horse, goose, frogs, snails. Not sure how willing I am to let their animal interaction compass guide me.
Fair enough, I’m prepared to admit that I jumped the gun on you.
Sorry.
That said, I think we’ve had enough human suffering, and I don’t thing we really need to kill all the sharks, just the gaping-wound, limb-removing, bitey ones that come close to shore. Moreover, in a dynamic system like the ocean, it is nearly impossible to predict anything with accuracy. What we do know is that a parents are hollow inside because a shitty politician preferred politicized science over what any roach exterminator could tell you to do.
It is because scientists rarely recommend the clear solution: fewer sharks, fewer deaths and less maiming. Scientists typically call for delay. Can you please point to any study that recommends the obvious? Maybe they are out there, I know that one Reunion scientist argues for culling. Such science rarely has a voice, and has, until late, had little impact on policy.
Moreover, that science is “objective”, following the scientific method, tangible results, is laughable. Science is frequently co-opted by politics. That fatso Floridian, Burgess, for example, recommends we give up beaches, that more sharks are good, and has no problem with the unavoidable consequences: human suffering and tragedy.
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yes, but lets be honest where most of the emotional impetus is coming from.
people shit scared about being hurt in the ocean!
Because you don’t know the ocean, boy.
even worse , god fearing , greenie scientists who sniff redneck pollen for breakfast!
i bet reunion’s just been overfished. toss some salmon fillets in the soup for the bulls and tigers and i’m sure it’ll be alright. anyway, if overpopulation is your worry i’ve got bad news for you about another species…
Can’t put anything on a pedestal. Sharks, icons, pussy. None of it.
Okay. I get it. This is where you tell me that “locals rule”, and that Yuppie insects like me shouldn’t be surfing the break.
We can’t put pussy on a pedestal? Surely, you must allow one exception to your otherwise fine rule.
ha you have been visiting the wrong clubs!
People that attach themselves to causes like this have too much free time. People > sharks. It’s not that hard.