In the island paradise of New Caledonia’s capital Nouméa, it’s illegal to swim in the sea — except along a 200-metre stretch of beach.
The months-long swimming ban came into effect across Nouméa in February, shortly after Australian tourist Chris Davis died following a shark attack at the popular Chateau Royal beach.
In May, heavily-restricted swimming was permitted at a roped-off area at Baies des Citrons.
The ban — which is on track to be lifted by the end of the year — is a stopgap measure, but it has hit New Caledonia’s tourism industry hard.
Francisco Maie owns a bar across the road from Anse Vata beach, which is now largely deserted.
“Certainly the economic impact has affected our work, that’s for sure,” he told ABC’s The Pacific program.
“When tourists arrive and see our beaches closed, honestly, they find that stupid, because where they come from, shark attacks occur and they’re worse than here.”
Tour operator Alfred Nauka told the ABC his business was down by 60 per cent, and the lack of swimming meant a large cohort of tourists on cruise ships chose to stay on board rather than exploring the beaches.
“I cannot wait until the beach or the water opens,” he said.
The months-long swimming restrictions meant some in his industry were going to work in the country’s nickel mines.
“They wanted to work in the city, but now they have no more choice — they have to go back to the mines,” he said.
“We have to do something to … get the bread and butter on the table.”
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Rise in fatal shark attacks
Since 1958, there have been 76 shark attacks documented in the Pacific island nation, with 17 of them fatal.
This year alone has seen four shark attacks, two of them lethal.
For its small population of 270,000, the rate of shark attacks is increasing, and it’s one of the highest per capita in the world, according to Claude Maillaud, a shark attack expert at the University of New Caledonia.
“If you compare the last 20 years of the 20th century, with the first 20 years of the 21st century, we have a double-fold increase in shark attacks,” he said.
“Shark attacks are increasing worldwide. So New Caledonia is not an exception — we are following this trend.”
Dr Maillaud said it’s difficult to pinpoint the reason for the increase, and little is known about the size of New Caledonia’s shark population.
But he said that a decade-long protection on fishing tiger and bull sharks could have bolstered the population.
Those protections were removed in 2021, causing dismay to many in the local Kanak Indigenous population, for whom sharks are considered a sacred totem.
Shark culling has been taking place from earlier this year — with up to 40 sharks killed in the month before the swimming ban — and the local government also plans to install a 750-metre metal net at Baie des Citrons by October.
Nouméa’s city council secretary-general, Romain Paireau, said the unprecedented measures taken are necessary to restore confidence among tourists, which he said was “a condition for a strong economy”.
“We don’t want to be known as the ‘shark islands’ in the long term,” he said.
“It’s all about reducing the risk as much as possible.”
Will shark culling or nets solve the problem?
Shark culling, Dr Maillaud said, may be effective in the short-term, but presented unknowns and was controversial on scientific and ethical grounds.
“If we kill all the apex predators of this ecosystem … it’s very likely we have some bad consequences,” he said.
Tagged sharks in Norfolk Island had been shown to travel 750 kilometres to New Caledonia, he said.
“[If] you take these sharks out of the water, then it’s likely that many sharks from other areas will come in and take [their] place,” Dr Maillaud said.
Mr Paireau pointed to the strategy of shark culling at Reunion Island, another French territory nearby.
“In 2017 they had two fatal shark attacks and they restarted culling sharks… they’ve had no attacks in nearly five years,” he said.
But Dr Maillaud pointed out Reunion Island is relatively small and insulated, compared to New Caledonia and its archipelagos, making it harder to exhaust the shark population.
Shark nets, too, are controversial, he said, as they often caught other marine life such as turtles, dolphins and harmless shark species.
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Their use in New South Wales this week has also been called into question, with some experts suggesting sharks could circumvent the nets, while the carcasses of trapped dead sea animals could actually attract sharks.
A state government report found of the 228 animals caught in the nets in 2022–23, just 24 were sharks considered threatening to humans.
“Shark nets do not work and there’s no data to support that they do,” Christopher Pepin-Neff, a senior lecturer in public policy at the University of Sydney, told ABC’s PM.
“Forty per cent of the sharks that are caught in the nets are caught on the swimmer side trying to get out.”
The state government has said its ambition is to move away from using shark nets in the future, but the replacement technology is not there yet.
What are some other solutions?
In New Caledonia, protected areas for swimmers were a good first step as part of a mix of preventative measures, Dr Maillaud said, while authorities considered longer-term solutions.
He pointed to strategies deployed in Australia, such as surveying sharks with drones, “which is absolutely harmless to sharks and rather effective to protect the public”.
But Mr Paireau said that technology is expensive and wouldn’t guarantee security.
Dr Maillaud said wider areas could also be protected with electric shark deterrence — devices which generate electric fields.
They’re often used by spearfishers, as they create a kind of shield around the diver, but Dr Maillaud added in South Africa they have also been used on underwater fences in an experimental capacity.
“We are running out of solutions here. So why not try innovating solutions? [Like] electric fences to protect swimming areas?”
Hydrophone technology, which picks up acoustic signals from tagged sharks, could also be an option.
“The heart of the matter, as always, is money,” he said.
“To protect both humans and sharks is something really ambitious, and which requires probably a lot of money to be done.”
He added that a lack of data also made it difficult to make informed decisions.
“What makes Nouméa waters attractive for dangerous sharks like tiger and bull sharks?” he said.
“I wish the provincial authorities allowed scientific investigations to understand why those dangerous sharks are so numerous in Nouméa’s waters.”
The Pacific program airs on the international ABC Australia service on Thursdays at 7pm, in Australia on the ABC News Channel on Thursdays at 9:30pm and on Fridays at 11:30am on ABC TV. It can also be seen on ABC iview.