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 Editorials | Environmental | June 2008 
Is It Safe To Go Back In the Water?
 Evan Fontaine - Surfline
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It had to happen. Determined to move forward and in search of answers after a string of three shark attacks last month left two victims dead, one an American citizen, in the Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo region along southern Mexico's Pacific coastline, tourism officials, environmentalists and representatives from various sectors of government from the Mexican state of Guerrero convened at a closed door meeting last Thursday, May 29th in Zihuatanejo.
 |  | The irony is that they're really worried about surfing. Because the attacks are on surfers, they're really, really worried about surfers not coming to Mexico, which is interesting because I don't think they've ever really cared if surfers came to Mexico or not before.
- Wildcoast's Serge Dedinia |  | |
The meeting generated four promising initiatives.
The first - there was a unanimous commitment against the revenge killing of sharks. Often what happens after a cluster of shark attacks in tourism dependent areas, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo included, is a call for shark killings - a witch hunt to find the shark responsible, something that's near impossible.
This is because the local community is fearful that the attacks and subsequent press may negatively impact tourism. Shark killings are nothing more than an emotional response to a deeper problem in order to assuage the sensational and media-manufactured fears of the public. "From Chiapas all the way up to Baja, these fishermen are systematically putting gill nets and long lines out for sharks," WiLDCOAST's Executive Director, Serge Dedina said. "On a policy level, the big victory that we had is we got them to stop any talk of revenge killings."
"And they are absolutely freaked out about the impact of this on tourism," Dedina continues. "That's the number one thing; the irony is that they're really worried about surfing. Because the attacks are on surfers, they're really, really worried about surfers not coming to Mexico, which is interesting because I don't think they've ever really cared if surfers came to Mexico or not before."
Michael Bensal, owner of The Inn at Manzanillo Bay located at the north end of Troncones, where the first fatal attack occurred, said that they have experienced cancellations but that he doesn't anticipate any lasting effects on tourism in the region. Admittedly less than 50% of his hotel's clientele are surfers.
"First of all Troncones (and Ixtapa/Zihautanejo) has so much more to offer than just surfing for its visitors," Bensal said. "As far as surfing goes, we understand the risk, and the reality is the odds of getting injured or worse are much more likely to happen from getting hit by a un-tethered board, getting held down a bit too long or even worse - getting in a car accident while driving to the breaks. This is a first in my 13 years here. I also asked quite a few of the original villagers here - some have lived here over 30 years - and all say this is a first as well."
The second - a coordinated effort between Mexican tourism officials and the Mexican Navy to inform the population and surfers of the potential risk of shark attack. The consensus among leading shark researchers close to the cases is that it was either a Bull or Tiger shark somewhere in the range of 10 to 12 feet in length. Authorities are warning watergoers to steer clear of rivermouths, areas where rivers run into the ocean, especially during the rainy season which runs from June to September because sharks are frequently found in those waters.
The third - to start highlighting that Mexican beaches, and a lot of these tourist communities, don't actually have medical clinics. It's critical in these remote areas to have proper and immediate first aid, trained lifeguards and appropriate medical services. "If you look at Adrian Ruiz, the gentleman from San Francisco who died, he probably would have lived if he would have had medical attention much sooner," Dedina said.
The fourth - to conduct a research program to help better understand what's possibly happening, why these three shark attacks happened in such a short stretch of time and proximity to one another. "The experts definitely recommend at least one year of research trying to figure out what species they are, how many there are, trying to tag at least 1,000 sharks, see how often they are coming in this area, where they are moving, because they don't really know anything about sharks in the area," WiLDCOAST's Wildlife Conservation Program Manager, Aida Navarro said. WiLDCOAST was the only environmental organization present at last Thursday's meeting.
"I don't think the Mexican tourism officials have any idea of the biology of sharks and where sharks are," Dedina said. "I think the imagery, because of the press attention, is that there are sharks everywhere and no matter where you go you're going to get attacked by sharks. First of all, was this a coincidence? Maybe or maybe not. And then, if it wasn't a coincidence, what are the scientific explanations for this."
And there are plenty.
Dr. Oscar Sosa of the Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE) contends that the sharks are being driven in by cold water currents, characteristic of a La Niña year, when a combination of upwelling and winds cause abnormally low sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific. "In short, this is due to the oceanographic conditions that are making the sharks come closer to the coast because the waters tend to be cooler," Sosa said. "And with the sharks closer to the coast it's very easy to mingle with humans." The only other attacks documented in Guerrero were in the '70s and that was also a La Niña time.
Dedina takes it a little further, wondering if there is a correlation between global climate change and temperatures dropping in the area and the arrival of giant squid? "One Mexican scientist, Dr. Leonardo Castillo, believes that possibly there could be a giant school of squid in this area," Dedina said. "Sharks are always feeding on the outer rims of those schools. The other thing the scientists do believe, though, is that the proliferation of squid populations, especially off the coast of California, Baja and in areas off of Mexico, could be related to the absence of sharks; that there are less sharks than ever to feed on these things. And so you see a definite increase in the number of schools of giant squid, especially in areas where we haven't seen them before. That was something that was referred to in a study by the National Academy of Sciences not too long ago."
Another theory, one far less publicized, is being brought up by Steven Dunn, an American surfer from San Clemente, California with longstanding ties to the fishing community in Zihuatanejo. He said that on a recent trip he and a local fisherman pulled up an abandoned net, 100 to 150 yards long, just a half mile outside The Ranch and as close as 300 yards offshore. The "dead" net was littered with half eaten fish carcasses, smaller sharks and the like. This was the day before the first attack on Adrian Ruiz at Troncones, a beach just south of where the net Dunn spoke of was pulled up.
The fishermen he talked to said that poachers had been coming down from Michoacán, the state directly to the north, for the last six months setting gill nets relatively close to shore and abandoning them, for fear of being caught. The dead nets, then, were left to fester in the water for weeks. Dunn's account is a relatively new development, yes, but one that certainly could have contributed to the presence of big sharks closer to shore.
One thing that scientists have made abundantly clear is that there could be any of a number of factors in play. There is certainly nothing definitive yet. "It's unfortunate but there's a lot of things that are involved and many, many times none of the information that we have will ever help us determine motivation for the attack or whether it's the same animal," President and Founder of the Shark Research Committee, Ralph Collier said.
But everyone does agree that greater numbers of people are frequenting the beaches and water, thus increasing the likelihood of a shark encounter or, worse still, an attack.
"The reason that we're seeing what we think is an increase is because we simply have more people walking around on the beach today than we had a few years ago," Collier said, who works primarily with White sharks on the Pacific coast of the United States and is the author of Shark Attacks of the 20th Century. "You have more people surfing than you had a few years ago. So, are we finding these things and getting these encounters simply because we have more people in the water? Or do we have more sharks in the area? I don't think that's the case at all. I think what we have is more observers. So because of that, now we get more information than we used to get. Which is helpful because it gives us an insight into shark movement."
The big burning question for surfers, then, is do we stand a greater risk than anyone else in the water of being attacked?
"Only from the standpoint that (surfers) present themselves in the environment for longer periods of time than do others, which increases the probability that you might have an encounter," Collier said. "The thing that you could do, that I have recommended, is that you carry on your person at all times, say about, a three-foot length of surgical tubing that can be used as a tourniquet should something happen in the water because by the time you get to the beach, if you have severed a major vessel, you could be at the point where you're becoming very weak and could fall into unconsciousness because of loss of blood."
And if you can't find that three-foot length of surgical tubing lying around the house, no worries, your leash should do the trick. Remember: fasten it above the bite and tie it off as tight as possible.
Bottom line: Mainland has always been notorious for big sharks. "If you talk to the guys who were back there in the 70s and 60s, the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Michoacan and Chiapas were notorious for having big, aggressive sharks, especially in rivermouths where all the best surf is," Dedina said. "So this idea that somehow there's never been sharks in southern Mexico is not true. And surfers have always known about sharks and been worried about it."
"Look, surfers aren't going to stop going to Puerto Escondido because they might get bitten by a shark or surfing epic waves in Oaxaca or Guerrero because they're worried about sharks. In the surf community this has been blown up to be about surfers, but it really isn't. It's really about normal tourists who go to Mexico. People are more at risk from drowning in southern Mexico at dangerous beachbreaks than they are from a shark attack. What (WiLDCOAST) helped try to do is reduce the hysteria. I think the surf community has been pretty level headed about shark attacks."
Monday Dedina appeared in six different segments on the highest rated news show in Mexico on the Televisa network to, as he put it, "talk about this from a surfer's and conservationist's perspective and say, 'Hey, this is not something surfers are worried about at all.'"
While some surfers are indeed worried - after the third attack, many American surfers in the area cut their trips short and flew home - it remains to be seen exactly how the attacks will affect tourism in Mexico. |
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