South Africa Shark Spotters - AP

We just finished a post about the Zambezi shark net issue surfacing in Port St.John.

This mornings AP news covered Cape Towns shark spotters program. The article reminds readers that there are viable solutions to shark and tourist beach interactions that do not always involve the permanent removal of these animals.

Kudos as well to writer Clare Nullis who took the time to really look into the issue of sharks producing an excellent and informative piece:

MUIZENBERG, South Africa - Shark spotter Patrick Davids is glad to see the back of the busloads of visitors who flocked to his powder-white beach over the New Year, distracting him with surfing spills, near drownings and illicit booze.

In contrast to the human hordes, the great white sharks under his watch behaved impeccably, says Davids. He regards the mighty predators as familiar friends with names like Speedy, Nosy, Rosy and Charlize.

Complete Article

Wicked Diving - Similan Islands

The face of the 200-300 million dollar global shark diving industry is changing. Now more than ever operators are realizing the need for site research in tandem with operations.

This paradigm shift is being lead by a few regional and forward thinking shark diving operators like Wicked Diving in Thailand and elsewhere.

Not only are they working to identify individual animals through the successful ECOCEAN project but they are blogging, raising awareness, and educating others outside of their region.

This is the new face of commercial shark diving going into the next decade. Local site preservation, shark research and education are the keywords for an entire global industry. At the rate we are loosing sharks to both habitat loss and fisheries these are the operators who have organically discovered "Noblesse Oblige".

As we have long said, shark conservation, site protections, outreach all start with "One" and kudos to Wicked Diving for leading the way in Thailand.