Raggy Charters, a marine eco tour company, will launch white shark cage diving off Bird Island, within SANParks’ Addo marine protected area, in Algoa Bay on 1 April 2020.
The Port Elizabeth-based charter company will be using a highly unusual method to draw great whites to its boat. They will play Johnny Clegg’s music.
According to Herald Live, Lloyd Edwards the owner of Raggy Charters explained how this approach was decided on at a launch event on Monday night.
‘I discovered this musical approach during a recent visit to see the white shark cage diving industry in Australia and New Zealand,’ he said.
‘There is one operator in Australia who uses AC/DC to attract the sharks. We will be doing the same except we will be using Johnny Clegg.’
Raggy Charters’ application for permission to run a white shark cage-diving operation in Algoa Bay was approved by the department of environmental affairs two years ago, however, concern was raised among locals about the practice of using fish parts and blood (chumming) to lure the sharks.
‘Chum does not lure sharks to an area. It simply lures them a few metres closer to a vessel’, said Edwards.
‘However, I asked the critics back then, if I found an alternative way to lure sharks closer without chum, would they be satisfied.’
‘They said they would. So that’s what I set out to do.’
Edwards said he had spoken to researchers at the Institute for Coastal and Marine Research at Nelson Mandela University and they said that they have an interest in studying the sharks’ attraction to music.
‘We’re not sure which tracks our sharks will enjoy the most but we’ll try a few,’ said Edwards.
He hopes that the new venture will highlight the value of great white sharks and ‘the threat that the species faced through the demersal longline shark fishing industry, of which PE has two lines in Algoa Bay.
The Raggy Charters shark cage diving tour will run in Algoa Bay from April to September. It will start at 7am at the Nelson Mandela Bay Yacht Club in Port Elizabeth Harbour and the boat will return at 3pm.
Image: Wikipedia Commons
