False Bay missing great whites: Chris Fallows blames nets, longlines and Aussie “flake and chips” — not orcas

The great white sharks of False Bay – once so abundant that film crews from around the world came to document them, have all but vanished. Wildlife photographer and conservationist Chris Fallows says we’re looking for blame in the wrong place. In this interview with BizNews, Fallows, famous for capturing the world’s first images of breaching great whites at Seal Island – explains why the two orcas, Port and Starboard, who are widely blamed for the sharks’ disappearance, “arrived after the crime scene”. Instead, he points to government sanctioned policies, shark nets, demersal shark longline fisheries; and Australia’s appetite for “flake and chips” as the real culprits. These sharks, immortalised in world famous series such as Blue Planet, once attracted more than 100,000 visitors to South African shores every year. Fallows argues they have now been lost through bad management and political infighting. And for those who insist shark nets remain essential in places like KwaZuluNatal, Fallows says modern technology and a different way of thinking offer a far more progressive solution. He also believes there are clear lessons to be learnt from the protection of humpback whales. While humpback numbers have surged under protection, including a world record sighting of 300 whales in a single day, great white sharks, an ecologically vital apex predator, are disappearing from our oceans.

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Edited transcript of the interview

Linda van Tilburg (00:00)

Chris Fallows is a South African wildlife photographer, conservationist, and one of the world’s leading authorities on great white shark behaviour. His images of breaching great whites at Seal Island became some of the most widely published wildlife photographs on the planet. So who better to ask what really happened to the great white sharks of False Bay? Chris, welcome to BizNews.

Chris Fallows (00:24)

Thanks, Linda. Lovely to be here.

Linda van Tilburg (00:27)

Well, I think before we talk about False Bay, we’ve got to talk about those extraordinary breaching great white shots at Seal Island. For people who might not know the story, how did you realise you were witnessing something the world had never seen before?

Chris Fallows (00:42)

Oh, it’s a long story, but in a nutshell, as a young man I’d already worked with great whites for four years at Dyer Island, which is close to Gansbaai, about two hours east of Cape Town for those who don’t know where it is. I’d learned a fair amount about great whites in my time working with the White Shark Research Institute, and we’d done documentaries with Sir David Attenborough and various others.

So I had a good indication of what white shark behaviour around the world was actually like. And when we started seeing Dyer Island starting to change, I had, by that stage, as a guy in my early twenties, saved up enough money to buy a rubber duck – a rubber inflatable boat. I decided to go and look for great whites where I thought they might be, and that was in False Bay, at a little tiny shelving of rock called Seal Island.

In 1996, I headed out with a couple of very trusting friends and went out to Seal Island. I’d recently finished working on a documentary with Sir David Attenborough’s team, where I’d watched a guy off the Farallon Islands in San Francisco throwing out a surfboard off the rocks and reeling it in, and a shark came rushing up and grabbed it. That gave me the idea to try something the size of a small seal.

I put out a little life jacket that was exactly the same size as a young-of-the-year seal, and we started towing it at Seal Island, not really expecting much, because my mates hadn’t allowed me to take fish with in the rubber boat – for very good reasons. So I thought, well, let me try with a little life jacket.

We started pulling this life jacket behind the boat and suddenly, literally not even a minute after we’d put it in, a great white – a small great white – came flying out the water with it clamped across its jaws. It was unbelievable. We’d never seen a flying great white before.

I thought, well, was this an incredible one-off? The shark spat the life jacket out, we went and reattached it, and my mates were screaming to go home. But as I was in charge of the boat and the tiller, I said, no, we’re going to try this again.

Chris Fallows (02:59)

We towed it for probably about half an hour, and it was at the point where I was thinking, well, you know, what an incredible thing to see, but it was a once-off. And then a proper great white – the only time in my life I’ve actually been able to say the shark was bigger than the boat – came flying out the water.

That’s when the penny really dropped. Not only had we discovered that there were great whites at Seal Island – which up until that point people had gone fishing for them there, and others who’d tried to do research there had never found them – but we’d learned they were doing extraordinary things.

That started, in the mid-90s, a career for me that spanned nearly three decades working with those animals. Once I got to know them a little better and improved the equipment I was using, I started taking photographs that garnered headlines around the world.

Quite simply, I was very lucky to find those animals. I think if anybody else had had those opportunities, their photographs would have done just as well. It was a lucky stroke of fortune on my part, and an incredible thing to be part of.

Linda van Tilburg (04:10)

Well, False Bay used to be the global hotspot for great whites, but now they seem to be gone. Have they disappeared completely, or are we looking at a massive drop in numbers?

Chris Fallows (04:29)

Yeah, that’s true. Seal Island, False Bay, became world-famous through all the different documentaries as the spot on the planet to see great white sharks hunting. Gansbaai became known as the great white shark capital of the world, and together with Mossel Bay, those three areas were widely accepted as having the largest population of great whites on the planet.

What we’ve seen – and this isn’t even recent anymore – from about 2007 onwards, and we kept data on every single one of the nearly three-and-a-half thousand trips we did at Seal Island, was numbers starting to decline. Slowly at first, and then ever faster. By 2014, that decline became precipitous, and in 2018 we saw the last ever great white at Seal Island.

So when you ask me, are there no great whites left? For all intents and purposes, there hasn’t been a white shark seen at Seal Island since 2018. Gansbaai has suffered the same fate. While they might see one or two sharks inshore every year, they used to see, on many days, upwards of 20 white sharks.

For all intents and purposes, white sharks have completely disappeared from those areas. We are still seeing small numbers further up the coast, but when you consider that between Gansbaai, False Bay, and Mossel Bay there were well over a thousand white sharks, the fact that people are seeing a little drop in the ocean further up the coast in no way signifies that these animals have simply moved eastwards.

Linda van Tilburg (06:14)

Two orcas, called Port and Starboard, are being blamed for attacking great whites and removing their livers. Is this one of the reasons they vanished?

Chris Fallows (06:24)

Port and Starboard have certainly played a part in impacting the few white sharks that were left. But it’s incredibly important to state that the crash of the white shark population precipitated Port and Starboard’s appearance by at least seven or eight years.

In the case of False Bay, before Port and Starboard were ever even seen at Seal Island, that entire population of sharks had already disappeared. In my opinion, you cannot blame something that was never even at the crime scene.

The same holds true for the rest of South Africa. Yes, Port and Starboard have been seen killing white sharks, but firstly, they’ve killed very few in the last nine years – a maximum of about ten documented cases.

Meanwhile, we continue to ignore devastating human impacts like the Natal Sharks Board, as well as a relatively new fishery that’s been around for just under two decades now, called the demersal shark longline fishery. Together, those two human-induced impacts caused around 70 to 100 white shark deaths a year.

So when you compare 70 to 100 white sharks killed annually by human means versus maybe one a year attributed to those two orcas, even the most challenged mathematician can see where the real impact lies.

Chris Fallows (06:24)

Port and Starboard have certainly played a part in impacting the few white sharks that were left. But I think it’s incredibly important to state that the crash of the white shark population precipitated Port and Starboard’s appearance by at least seven or eight years.

So in the case of False Bay, before Port and Starboard were ever even seen at Seal Island, that entire population of sharks had already disappeared. In my opinion, you certainly cannot blame something or somebody that was never even at the crime scene.

The same holds true for the rest of South Africa. Yes, Port and Starboard have been seen killing white sharks, but firstly, they’ve killed very few. In the last nine years, they’ve been implicated in a maximum of ten instances where white sharks were killed.

That’s subsequent to what was already a precipitous crash in the white shark population. In my opinion, having been there kind of from beginning to end, Port and Starboard are being used as scapegoats, while we continue to ignore the devastating human impacts – like the Natal Sharks Board, as well as a relatively new fishery that’s been around for just under two decades now called the demersal shark longline fishery.

Together, those two very humaninduced impacts caused in the region of about 70 to 100 white shark deaths a year. So if you look at 70 to 100 white shark deaths attributable purely to human means, as opposed to one a year blamed on those two orcas, I think even the most challenged mathematician can see where the real impact lies.

Linda van Tilburg (08:32)

Can you explain what impact they had, and why?

Chris Fallows (08:35)

The orcas, or the fisheries and the nets?

Linda van Tilburg (08:39)

No, the fisheries and the nets.

Chris Fallows (08:41)

Okay. So the Natal Sharks Board kills, on average, around about 25 great white sharks a year. That number has been dropping as the population has been dropping. If you look back to the mid1980s, even the 1990s, they used to average around 40 great whites a year.

The white shark population was never nearly as robust as people thought. Being an apex predator, right at the very top of the food chain, there were never huge numbers when you compare them to prey species. So with a population of somewhere around 1,000 to 1,200, maybe 1,400 animals, that population was already under pressure from the Natal Sharks Board.

You could see it through their net captures declining over the years. Then, when we brought in this fishery called the demersal shark longline fishery – which targets smaller species of sharks that we export to Australia for fish and chips – we found out that this fishery was not only killing these small sharks, which are a primary prey source for white sharks, but was also entangling and killing many white sharks as well.

This happened because white sharks were where these smaller sharks were – both the fishery and the white sharks were targeting the same resource. We learned that this fishery was killing somewhere around 40 to 60 white sharks a year.

So cumulatively, together with the Natal Sharks Board, the impact was far more than the white shark population could ever sustain.

Linda van Tilburg (10:20)

So who gives licences to these longline fisheries you’ve been talking about?

Chris Fallows (10:28)

The fishery is given licences by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. They manage the fishery through a practice called “total allowable effort”. They issue a certain number of permits every year, and those boats are allowed to catch as much of the shark species they are legally permitted to target as they like.

As if the devastating effect on white sharks isn’t bad enough, the two primary target species of this fishery – again, exported to Australia for fish and chips – are species called the soup fin shark, locally known in South Africa as phalae, and another species called the smooth hound shark, known in Australia as gummy shark.

When this fishery started in the early 2000s, the smooth hound wasn’t even listed as threatened, and the soup fin was listed as threatened at that time. Today, the smooth hound is listed as endangered, and the soup fin shark is now listed as critically endangered.

So both are imminently threatened with extinction, yet the department still sees fit to allow their targeting on an industrial scale to export to Australia for fish and chips. This brings in almost no revenue to South Africa, has nothing to do with food security, and has caused the collapse of arguably the marine equivalent of Africa’s lion – the great white shark.

This has had devastating cascading ecological effects and has also caused the collapse of an ecotourism industry that was valued at over a billion rand a year. In all respects, it’s very difficult to see how this can be allowed to continue along our coastline.

Linda van Tilburg (12:39)

So do you think there’s awareness in Australia that their appetite for flake, sold as fish and chips, is causing this problem in South Africa?

Chris Fallows (12:51)

Up until a few years ago, ignorance may have been a legitimate excuse, but certainly not in recent times. In Australia, there are various environmental groups that have been campaigning very hard to change the mislabelling of seafood and to make Australians aware of what they’re eating.

They’re eating incredibly longlived, slowgrowing, latetomature species that produce relatively few young, and that are now listed as endangered and critically endangered. So yes, a couple of years ago ignorance played a role, but nowadays, after coverage on the BBC, CNN, 60 Minutes and many others, I can’t believe Australians aren’t aware of what they’re eating.

Linda van Tilburg (13:39)

So are you putting pressure on the department to tighten fishing regulations?

Chris Fallows (13:44)

We’ve put huge energy and effort into pressuring the department. So much so that in 2019, the former minister, Barbara Creecy, was forced – for the first time in South Africa’s history – to set up an expert panel to look at what was happening to sharks along our coastline.

However, that expert panel was made up of the very same people who put the regulations in place for the demersal shark fishery in the first place. So it was essentially a tickbox exercise to placate the growing public concern.

Sadly, there’s a tremendous amount of politics in shark science in South Africa. Nongovernmental shark scientists are simply not listened to. A small handful of governmentaffiliated scientists make the decisions.

If you look at the scoreboard, it’s very plain to see what’s happened under the current management approach. I’m not a scientist, but I’ve contributed to many scientific papers and spent a huge amount of time on the ocean. For me, it’s been a very sad indictment of how science – something we hold in such high esteem – can be used to elevate academic aspirations rather than to protect the animals that built those careers in the first place.

Linda van Tilburg (15:45)

Some people say the sharks have moved to the Eastern Cape and are now seen at Plettenberg Bay. What do you say to that?

Chris Fallows (15:53)

At Plettenberg Bay, the numbers are actually decreasing. What’s happened in recent years is that through photographs and documentaries, people became more aware of these animals and wanted to see them. People started flying drones, taking helicopter tours, and suddenly the same shark might be seen by three or four or five different people and reported as five different sharks.

The reality is that the people who’ve been recording sharks at Plettenberg Bay for over a decade show declining numbers there as well. If there are 20 or 30 white sharks at Plettenberg Bay, that’s a lot – and in recent times, that number is down.

The only remaining area with a reasonable population is near East London, at a place called Sinshia, where people are seeing 30 or 40 different white sharks. But when you put that into perspective, there used to be around 1,200 white sharks along our coastline. So 30 or 40 animals is about 2 or 3 percent of the original population. That is not viable.

If you look at what’s known as the basin effect – how population contraction occurs – it’s like draining a basin. At first the edges dry out, and eventually all that’s left is the centre near the plug. That’s what we’re seeing now in the Eastern Cape.

That area correlates exactly with where the demersal shark longline fishery is not allowed to fish. But the moment those sharks move out of that area, they will eventually be caught. And the Natal Sharks Board is still using drumlines and shark nets as it always has.

I really hope I’m wrong, but I would put my head on the block and say those last few white sharks will disappear too.

Linda van Tilburg (18:43)

Just quickly explain the fisheries again. Are they local, and how do these longlines work?

Chris Fallows (18:55)

Yes, they are South African. They’re given permits by the South African government, and they are 100 percent local – not foreign. People blaming Chinese or foreign fleets are wrong. This is our own governmentsanctioned fleet.

Demersal simply means “bottom”. These lines are set on the ocean floor. You have a very long mainline, with secondary lines branching off it, each ending in a hook. These can run for kilometres, with hundreds or thousands of hooks.

They fish an area until the catch per unit effort drops, then move on – like ploughing a field and removing everything. The target species aggregate in large numbers, so when the longliners find them, they take everything: mature animals, juveniles, the lot.

Some soupfin sharks are 50, 60, even 70 years old, and only mature in their twenties. It’s completely unsustainable.

Linda van Tilburg (20:57)

So what do you want South Africans to know? Do you want them to know that this resource that we have, something beautiful that you've been filming, is disappearing because of an international Aussie appetite and the government's failure to look after them?

Chris Fallows (21:13)

I think it’s a combination of apathy and complicity that’s allowing this incredible resource to disappear. There’s no chance the white sharks will recover while the Sharks Board and the demersal shark longline fishery remain.

That fishery should be removed tomorrow. It should have happened 20 years ago. The Sharks Board could move to nonlethal methods that protect bathers without killing sharks, turtles, whales and rays.

At their peak, white sharks attracted over 100,000 visitors a year to South Africa. More than 200 documentaries were filmed here – Planet Earth, Blue Planet, Air Jaws – giving South Africa massive free global exposure, creating jobs, and doing so sustainably.

That’s what we’ve lost through bad governance and politics in science.

Linda van Tilburg (22:00)

Are there lessons from how we protected humpback whales that can be applied to great white sharks?

Chris Fallows (22:08)

Absolutely. When I started in the early 1990s, we almost never saw humpback whales. One or two a year was a big deal. Today we’re seeing superpods of over a hundred animals, and recently my wife and I photographed 300 different individuals in one day.

That’s what enlightened governance can do. We tell two stories: one of recovery, and one of collapse. As humanity, we get to choose which path we follow.