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Scientific analysis from Australia hailing the added benefits of great white shark cage-diving seems to contradict tips by the Mexican authorities liable for closing hotspot Guadalupe Island lately that the exercise is unsustainable.
A new report by Flinders University highlights what it claims is the successful management of shark cage-diving in the Neptune Islands off the Eyre Peninsula, the only spot in Australia – and 1 of the couple of now remaining in the planet – to give the action to visitors. The space has grow to be an international focal issue for white shark analysis, claims the university.
Proof-dependent procedures and guidelines established out under South Australia’s White Shark Tour Licensing Policy are guaranteeing that shark cage-diving is environmentally sustainable and socially dependable, it claims.
Operating in co-procedure with the state’s Division of Weather, Natural environment & Water, the scientists tracked the consequences of cage-diving tourism applying 20 a long time of details collected by the two tour operators, Rodney Fox Shark Expeditions and Calypso Star Charters, and 8 a long time of scientific checking and investigate.
The research states that shark tourism provides “the possible to lead to species conservation by means of neighborhood involvement and instruction, escalating conservation behaviour, and can considerably add to regional economies, even in producing countries”.
And its crucial locating is that raising shark residency in the late 2000s co-incided with a increase in cage-diving activity by operators based mostly in Port Lincoln.
Superior market tactics
“White shark residency has returned and remained at baseline ranges considering the fact that 2013, demonstrating that sufficient regulations and very good market practices can minimise impacts on white sharks and be certain extended-phrase sustainable wildlife tourism,” explained Prof Charlie Huveneers, director of Flinders College Maritime & Coastal Exploration Consortium and chief of the Southern Shark Ecology Group.
“White shark cage-diving is a unique eco-tourism working experience exactly where you can get up shut and own with the premier predatory fish on the earth,” reported South Australia’s deputy premier and setting minister Susan Shut, confirming that the point out authorities was committed to continued investigation to superior recognize the outcome of white shark tourism on the sharks on their own.
“These companies and their commitment to sustainable administration of shark cage-diving have recognized Port Lincoln and the Eyre Peninsula as the leading place for this activity,” she explained. “Thanks to this partnership, the shark cage-diving field proceeds to prosper in South Australia as it rapidly turns into the global gold standard for this action.”
White shark study and monitoring activities in the area had been stepped up this February. The scientific report is posted in the journal Marine Policy
Also on Divernet: Guadalupe Shark-Dive Ban Manufactured Everlasting, ‘Time To Struggle Like Hell For White Sharks’, When Hunter Turns into Prey
