It s official: sharks muddle humans with seals
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News - Science alone won t save humpback dolphins
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First published by Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper
Sharks are declining worldwide and great whites have all but vanished from cage dives in southwestern Cape waters. A High Level Panel (HLP) appointed by Environment Minister Barbera Creecy to develop a shark management plan says whites left because orcas chased them and not because we target sharks like smoothhound and soupfin, a large part of their diet.
But here’s what scientists are asking: if it’s just about marauding orcas, why did whites not return to local bays when the predators moved off? Why did orcas not permanently displace sevengill and bronze whaler sharks which they were also seen hunting?
Are Fish and Chips Killing Great White Sharks?
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By Nick Dall
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WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
Cape Town has gone from being a great white hot spot to almost zero sightings. Australian diets might be to blame.
By Nick Dall
the place to see great white sharks. Now there almost no sightings.
Experts fear the increased fishing of smaller sharks, which the great whites feed on, for the Australian market might be to blame.
By far the highlight of Dr. Leonardo Guida’s trip to South Africa in 2014 was going cage diving with great white sharks in Cape Town’s False Bay. “There was this four-and-a-half-meter female just circling the cage,” the shark scientist and senior campaigner at the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMSC) remembers. “In the whole 45 minutes we watched her, she only bared her teeth once.”