Shark anglers have come under the spotlight after the corpse of a ragged-tooth shark (Carcharias Taurus) and her unborn pup was found on the rocks near the Gonubie slipway recently.
Off Track witnessed this incident on a dark, stormy night, but the disturbing facts emerged only later when East London Museum principal natural scientist Kevin Cole was called in to examine the remains of the mother and pup in the light of day later.
Cole said: “There is concern about the number of recreational mortalities of large shark species along our coast, among them big raggies, white sharks and duskies.
“This female raggie was found on the rocks close to Gonubie Point.
“Females take six years to be sexually mature so the loss of this individual that mated in KZN waters before coming here to pup, is a sad loss for the species.
“One pup had already been expressed form her body while a second pup was removed. The tail was visible on investigation, and deposited at the museum.
“The litter for ragged-tooth sharks is two but normally only one survives. The pups collected were less than a metre in length, the size at which they are born live.
“A concern is that recreational anglers are irresponsibly using tackle that is inadequate when shark fishing generally and when a large shark is caught, such as this raggie illustrated, they inadvertently don’t survive.”
On the evening of Wednesday, August 28, this reporter was checking on stormy swells which had been predicted.
It was dark and three anglers, with head torch beams strongly lighting up the water’s edge, were down on the rocks at the edge of the popular fishing spot, the cement slipway, grappling with a catch still on the end of a line.
At that point, a thick, bunched-up wall of foam and fury drew back and bore down on the anglers.
This was a rogue wave, bigger than the rest, and it swept two of the anglers off their feet, torch beams going in all directions and one switching off.
One of the anglers, clearly visible from the light thrown by the Deary Drive street lamps, was washed for 10 to 15 metres from the shelf immediately below the end of the cement slipway.
He flowed in the river of foam and, after some thrashing, was released and deposited on a dolerite boulder-bed and was seen in his white fishing boots on all fours in a stationary position before started to crawl, with the odd fall, to safety.
The three men abandoned their efforts and trudged up the slipway where this reporter asked one of the anglers what had happened.
He said they had been trying to release a raggy they had caught.
When asked about the fellow angler who had washed away and recovered he said: “I was also washed off the rocks.”
Green Ripple spokesperson, conservationist and experienced angler Dr Div de Villiers said it was worrying to see how much damage and trauma fish experienced, even when conservation-minded anglers engaged in catch-and-release.
Many were unaware of how delicate the process had to be.
He described how experts, such as Dr Bruce Mann, formerly of the Oceanographic Research Institute , would carefully place a fish on a plastic sail to minimise thrashing and damage to the protective mucous layer and scales, put a wet towel over the eyes, carefully insert a tag damaging only one scale, then still in its protective layers, carry the fish back to the sea and gently release it into the water.
In worst-case scenarios, anglers were quick and rough in removing hooks, did not minimise thrashing when hauling the fish over the rocks, left the fish exposed on the rocks for too long, and then tossed the fish back into the water with little care.
Many did not survive and often undesirable catch, such as small sharks and barbel, which were thrown back in the surf, would be found a while later washed up on the beach, dead.
In the case of shark anglers, the exhausted shark, which often took a long time to reel in, would be hauled to a point where they could be weighed.
Pictures were then taken, friends called to witness, and as a result of a general lack of care, many of these animals would not survive when rolled and shoved back into the ocean.
De Villiers, who worked at the now-defunct fish research station in Amalinda, said it was surprising how susceptible fish were to being disrupted and handled out of their watery environment.
Handling fish meant wet, sanitised hands to prevent injuries which rendered the fish susceptible to germs and lice and other diseases.
As an angler and conservationist, he believed that most fish did not survive the stress of being caught and released.
Some were so traumatised that they simply floated on their side and were “virtually dead”.
For a detailed and accessible information on how to handle a fish to be released, go to the World Wildlife Fund’s online document, The Responsible Angler and see Page 10 “How do I reduce the mortality of released fish?” https://saambr.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/WWF-WEB-Responsible-Angler.pdf
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