The mayor of a town on Reunion Island has been forced to rescind a decision to pay fishermen to hunt and kill sharks because it contravenes French conservation law.
On Monday, MP Thierry Robert, mayor of St Leu commune near Trois-Bassins, where a bull shark was believed to have killed a surfer last week, made the decision to “act to safeguard the security of goods and people of his town” by authorizing fishing of the bull shark “by any means, including spearfishing, day and night.”
He said the town would buy bull sharks of more than 1.5m and pay 2 euros (US$2.45) per kilo of live weight for the first 30 sharks caught.
Reunion, a French-administered territory in the Indian Ocean between Mauritius and Madagascar, reported no shark attacks between 2000 and 2010.
However, last week’s death was the seventh attack and third fatality since the start of the past year.
On Tuesday evening, concerned that it may be illegal, Robert withdrew the order following a meeting in Paris with Victorin Lurel, the minister of overseas territories. French legislation prohibits fishing or hunting “by any means,” in marine protected areas.
The decision had been welcomed by local people, with almost 300 surfers gathered in front of the prefecture building to demand shark fishing be allowed, but animal rights groups criticized the plans.
Ali Hood, director of conservation for the UK-based Shark Trust, a member of the Shark Alliance conservation campaign, said: “The Shark Trust expresses its sympathy to the family of the fatally injured surfer. However, the trust does not believe indiscriminate financially driven culling is an appropriate response and encourages the local government to reconsider its position and authorize a more detailed investigation into the circumstances which led to the initial incident.”
Shark expert and marine scientist for Oceana Europe Allison Perry said: “Obviously the loss of human life is a concern for the government, but a move such as this is worrying as we don’t know what the potential impact would be on the bull shark population.”
Shark attacks have been rising in the Indian Ocean, with two fatal attacks in the Seychelles last year.
Western Australia has seen an unusual number of attacks, prompting the Australian government to call for a review of the great white shark’s national protected status.
There have been five fatalities globally from shark attacks so far this year. According to the International Shark Attack File, there were 12 deaths from “unprovoked” shark attacks in the past year.
Conservationists estimate that up to 73 million sharks are killed each year.
“It’s important to keep in mind what sort of numbers we’re talking about. In 2011 worldwide there were 12 fatal unprovoked shark attacks reported, in 2010 there were six. Over those two years, there is an increase but in actual numbers this is relatively small. As far as the numbers of sharks go, we’re much more dangerous to sharks than they are to humans,” Perry said.
She cited an Australian study last year which found that the increase in shark attacks was related to an increase in human population: more people going to beaches, doing water-based sports, or visiting previously isolated areas.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
RSS