MOSSEL BAY NEWS - The Mossel Bay Advertiser was sent a video of a shark thrashing on rocks at Beacon Point in Mossel Bay.

The shark is bleeding from the mouth. There are three people with the shark.

The video was posted online on 30 March, and a concerned member of the public sent it to the Advertiser the next day, together with a photograph. The shark looks about three metres long.

There appears to be something fleshy in the shark's mouth. Fiona Ayerst, director of Shark Life, an NGO set up 20 years ago for the conservation of sharks, told the Advertiser, when she was enquired of, that the shark had expelled part of its stomach.

"This is what sharks do when they are in a life-threatening situation. It's an automatic reaction, to avoid things getting lodged in the throat or stomach."

She said the part of the stomach in the mouth looks pulverised because the shark bit its own stomach.

'Cannot survive'

"It cannot survive after this," Ayerst said. Another expert on sharks told the Advertiser: "That shark will not survive."

The shark has been confirmed to be a female mako. The mako shark is listed as endangered worldwide on the IUCN Red List because it is sought after for its fins. 

The mako needs to be protected from overfishing because of its slow growth, late maturity and lengthy gestation period, according to Oceanographic Magazine.

With regards to the catching of shark in Mossel Bay, Ayerst says: "Four witnesses were there."

She said: "They saw something was caught about 250 metres offshore.

"They could see it was something big, jumping to get off a hook."

Regarding the long distance offshore, Ayerst said it was suspected the shark was caught using a drone.

"It took 25 minutes to get it to shore. When they got it to shore, there was shouting among the fishermen, 'It's a mako'."

She said: "By the time it reached the shore it was weak."

Drone fishing prohibited

Ayerst noted that on 24 February the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment sent out a notice that drone fishing was prohibited. She sent a copy of the notice to the Advertiser. The law must still be gazetted.

Ayerst said one of the witnesses of the mako incident said the anglers had wanted to tag the shark, which they were entitled to do.

The witness, Nico Booyens, a marine biologist who works for the Shark Research Unit in Mossel Bay, told the Advertiser the anglers could have kept the shark in the shallow water and tagged it in the water because it was lethargic, but they took a long time, pulling it out of the water and taking photographs with it on the rocks.

Booyens said the shark was out of the water for about seven minutes. He offered to help the fisherman get the shark back into the water but they declined his help.

He said: "It then swam into the water and was washed back on to the rocks and swam out again into the water very slowly."

The video shows one of the people with the shark trying to lift up the shark while it is on the rocks.

Ayerst said injuring an endangered animal just to take a photograph was frowned on by fishermen, because it gave fishing a bad name. "So you can imagine how animal rights activists feel about it."

Ayerst said: "A shark doesn't wash up like a marine mammal. It just sinks." She said it was probably "at the bottom of the harbour, dead".

NSPCA

In a statement to the Advertiser, the National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) noted it had "received complaints of animal cruelty" with regards to the video of the mako shark.

Douglas Wolhuter, NSPCA wildlife protection unit manager, said: "Mako sharks are covered under the definition of a wild animal as per the Animals Protection Act No.71 of 1962, and as such, this complaint is currently under investigation given the concerns arising from the video."

He also noted that makos are endangered, "with a current decreasing population trend".

He said: "This is all the more reason these animals should be left alone in their natural habitat.

"Research has shown many marine animals die after being released as a result of the stress, injury and/or disease caused when they were caught.

"The NSPCA is opposed to the fishing of any animal for sport. Aquatic animals play a critical role in our society and ecosystems and there is an urgent need for them to be regarded as valuable and receive the proper consideration they deserve.

"The NSPCA shared insight on this on Sunday, which was celebrated globally as World Aquatic Animal Day.

"This video further confirms how aquatic animals are generally the most forgotten animals and their suffering is often ignored."

'We bring you the latest Mossel Bay, Garden Route news'