On 25 January 2011, the Sharm Business & Community Magazine aired its discontent over what it saw as the continued lack of effort by local authorities to ensure the Red Sea resorts were luring back visitors:
We understand that some people won’t be happy to open the subject of shark attacks again, hoping instead that it will be forgotten. The magazine would like to tell them not to put their head in the sand like an ostrich and stop pretending that nothing has happened. It is a fact that there has been an impact on tourism and that impact has led to a bad economy in the city. We know that the relevant authorities who are supposed to be in harmony to solve the dilemma are not doing enough. The situation, according to the information we have, is still not clear. We have heard a lot of announcements in the local and world media from unprofessionals. These announcements have served only to make everybody more confused. The magazine has received many mails and calls from readers and tourists from different nationalities asking whether they can come to Sharm and use the beaches yet or not. We have been trying to reassure them that what happened was an unusual series of accidents, and that the city is full of other alternatives which they can enjoy so much.
In February 2011, reporter Jennifer Reade noted that the Red Sea resorts had started to see ‘a small increase’ in tourism, before adding: ‘After all the shark attacks that took place during last year, most of the beaches were left empty and some souvenir sellers and other retail establishments who have businesses in Sharm El Sheikh say they are struggling to stay afloat. A couple of sun seekers dressed in their summer gear explored the predominantly desolate town centre with its abandoned Bedouin-style coffee shops. One of the tourists from Devon in south-western England, who was travelling with his wife and ten-year-old twins said he is pleased that the town is empty and that there are no Russians around. The family booked their holiday prior to the shark attacks.’
That same month travelweekly reported that travel companies were continuing to fly holidaymakers out to Sharm El Sheikh, but this announcement had nothing to do with shark attacks. Massive anti-government demonstrations were rocking Egypt’s main cities and reassurance was needed that they were a long way from the Red Sea tourist hot spot, where the tourist trade was already so badly damaged.
On 23 February the South Sinai Governor issued a ‘decree’ allowing all shore diving activities and shore house reef diving activities in all Sharm El Sheikh areas. Then, on 9 March 2011, a British couple told a chilling story to the Sun newspaper. Richard King, 32, and his partner Laura Hooper, 29, said they had watched in horror from a dive boat as a 5m (16ft) Tiger shark ripped at a female corpse floating in the waters off Sharm El Sheikh. They were less than a third of a mile from shore. Incredibly, the dive crew insisted on continuing with the trip and refused to act on what had been seen. Instead they told Richard and Laura (and five other tourists with them) not to mention the incident. Said salesman Richard, from Swindon, Wiltshire: ‘The crew saw the shark soon after leaving Sharm Beach for a day’s scuba-diving. As we got closer, we clocked that it had been feeding on a human body. Laura ran into the boat in tears. We were asked by the crew not to say anything as it would be bad for tourism. We couldn’t believe it when there were people swimming in the water the next day – there was no mention of sharks in the water or a dead body.’
Indeed so horrified were the couple by the whole event, they cut short their holiday and flew home. The dive centre concerned insisted the crew had reported the body during the trip and that all the holidaymakers had said they wanted to continue. Police later recovered the body and began an inquiry. A spokesman for the tour operator insisted the incident had been reported by the dive crew on their return but added: ‘It was not a shark attack that killed that person.’ Dr. Adel Taher, director of the Hyperbaric Medical Centre in Sharm El Sheikh, said he examined the woman’s body and that her death was not due to a shark attack but due to drowning and subsequent propeller injuries.
The story of the Red Sea sharks goes further: not only are they the hunters but the hunted, too. In June 2010, six Yemeni fishing boats were intercepted and found to have several lengths of long lines on board, as well as more than twenty tons of dead sharks. This was despite a 2005 ban on shark fishing in a bid to halt declining numbers of the world’s once-highest shark population. Most local shark fishermen had heeded the ban but during the shark season of 2010, an influx of foreign fishermen once more threatened the sharks of the Red Sea. Said Amr Ali, HEPCA’s managing director: ‘Our local fishermen were never interested in sharks – nobody likes the meat; it’s bulky and sells very cheaply. About a decade ago the Chinese started showing up here. They taught our fishermen that they could get good money by selling the fins and they didn’t have to bring the whole animal back. They could just cut off the fins and put the rest back in the water.’
Egypt’s ban is only effective within 20km (12 miles) of the coastline. Beyond that, the waters of the Red Sea are fair game for fishermen. Dive boat captains have reported that off the coasts of Sudan and Entrea, long-line shark fishing – long fishing lines with thousands of baited hooks – is ‘out of control’. In an attempt to curb shark fishing, the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), in charge of managing fisheries in the Red Sea, has implemented regulations. These state that shark fins must not exceed 5 per cent of the weight of the shark carcasses on board, but this is hard to control. Said Ali: ‘Our shark protection laws have given sharks in the Egyptian Red Sea a chance to reproduce safely, but it has also made us a target for every shark fisherman in the region.’ As one naturalist observed: ‘It would be a shame to see the Red Sea sharks suffer a similar fate as those of the Mediterranean. However, as we are seeing now, the fishermen have apparently moved into the precious Red Sea at full steam. Unless action is taken immediately, we may ultimately witness the decimation of one of the world’s last remaining shark strongholds.’
In July 2011, HEPCA announced an all-out programme to preserve the sharks of the Red Sea:
Shark populations worldwide have been pushed to the brink of extinction within the last few decades. Millions die every year because of the insatiable human demand for shark fins and the highly destructive, unselective fishing methods practised by the industry around the globe.
The sharks’ disappearance is worrying on a number of levels. As top oceanic predators, they are of fundamental importance to the balance of the marine ecosystem. Removing them on a large scale has severe consequences through succeeding layers of the marine food web. It has altered other species’ abundance, distribution and diversity, and impacted the health of a variety of marine habitats, including sea grass beds and coral reefs. A recovery from depletion is hard to accomplish since most of the larger shark species have a very low reproductive potential; they take years to reach sexual maturity and produce very few young.
Besides ecological considerations, the high economic value of living sharks is being recognized by more and more countries. Shark diving is a growing industry; the interest in encountering sharks underwater creates far more revenue than the one-time profit to be gained from killing them.
All these factors have researchers and conservationist campaigning to convince lawmakers and governmental bodies to finally step up and include more shark species in their protection schemes. Their efforts are hampered by the lack of available information on basic population parameters and life history patterns of many of the depleted shark species, which are necessary to create and implement effective conservation programs.
Similar problems apply to the numerous shark species living in the Red Sea. Fishing pressure has (and has had) an impact of unknown magnitude, and – despite local or regional regulations – no protective legislation for the area as a whole exists. And while the sharks’ economic value, especially for the Egyptian tourism sector, is undisputed, scientific data is scarce; information on population status and ecological needs are insufficient or don’t exist at all.
To rectify that situation, the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association is launching a comprehensive research project on Red Sea Sharks, using such diverse methods as a volunteer monitoring program, photo-identification, electronic tracking, and dedicated surveys.
Overall aim is