“Two weeks ago I saw a great white shark feeding on a spotted gully shark. This was my first proper sighting,” said shark scientist and advanced diver Sophumelela Qomu at the Cape Town premiere of the gripping documentary Shark Eat Shark.
Mystery. Menace. Action and humour. Heroes and villains. Shark Eat Shark — starring great white sharks and intrepid researchers — was the perfect thriller to launch SHARKFEST 2023, National Geographic’s month-long celebration of the power and mystery of sharks.
“The new documentary, filmed off the coast of Mossel Bay, provides evidence of sharks eating sharks,” said Qomu. The unexpected discovery that the white sharks of Mossel Bay mostly eat smaller sharks not seals, is demonstrated by researchers from the bay in Shark Eat Shark.
Co-owner of the Shark Research Unit in Mossel Bay, Qoma called for the protection of sharks in an interview and encouraged people to learn more about these marine predators.
“We need to learn about why sharks are important in their role in the ecosystem and educate other people. You don't have to fall in love with them, but you need to understand what they do that helps us as humans,” says Qoma, who is wild about sharks.
“My love for sharks began when I started interacting with them. I remember that amazing first moment I held a pyjama shark in my hand and that changed everything.”
Shark Eat Shark exposes the threat to the survival of white sharks off South Africa's coastline — from people fishing out the smaller sharks on which they feed to packs of orcas cruising into the bay to hunt them.
You don't have to fall in love with [sharks], but you need to understand what they do that helps us as humans.
— Shark scientist Sophu Qoma
Despite the white sharks’ aerobatic hunting of seals near Seal Island, breaching from below to catch them in their jaws, most of their hunting appears to be done close to the ocean bed, near three river estuaries.
Top white shark scientist Enrico Gennari and fellow researcher Lacey Williams observe the tags they have inserted into smaller sharks change colour as the smooth hound sharks get eaten, conjuring up an underwater version of Pacman with the white sharks doing the chomping.
The team set up underwater bait traps with cameras, took tissue samples off the back of swimming white sharks and slotted tiny cameras onto them — Gennari’s exuberance is captured on film each step of the way — tracking the white sharks with tags and drones. This is harder than it sounds, but the team overcame the obstacles one by one.
What they could not control is the taste orcas have developed for South Africa's white sharks, which almost foiled their efforts. Every time the orcas enter the scene, the white sharks vanish — or are killed with the orcas surgically ripping out their livers.
But as the months went on, the researchers gathered increasing proof that white sharks are preying on smaller sharks, many species of which are endangered.
“People can help [with shark conservation] by educating other people on social media, putting programmes in place and getting involved in citizen science,” said Qoma, who studied nature conservation at Nelson Mandela University.
From Gqeberha, she is the African regional co-ordinator for Minorities in Shark Science. MISS experts feature as on-screen talent in the SHARKFEST line-up this year, which has more than 20 hours of original material in its 72 hours of programming.
The 2023 SHARKFEST has footage from the US — Cape Cod, Florida Hawaii, New York, South Carolina — Australia, the Bahamas, Indonesia, the UK and Canada.
For example, Shark Below Zero looks at how white sharks are spotted off Canada, as far north as Newfoundland, while Return of the Shark looks at their return off the coast of Cape Cod, and Sharkcano: Hawaii explores why they are attracted to its volcanoes.
Two series look at when, how and why sharks attack, exploring what is known about these magnificent fish.
Other themes explored are the increasing number of shark-on-shark attacks, attacks between sharks and dolphins and whether dolphins protect people. (Survivors feel they do.)
South Africa is among the top five countries when “it comes to a variety of 188 species of sharks, rays and chimeras ... of these about 30% are considered endemic — and therefore only found around our shores”, Barbara Creecy, the minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, has noted.
But smooth hound sharks, one of the white sharks’ favourite foods, are heading for commercial extinction as they are being fished out nearly three times faster than what is sustainable, according to fisheries data.
Marine scientists have warned the primary cause for white sharks disappearing is overfishing of smaller shark species.
Qoma said: “There is huge pressure from humans on sharks and we could help by interacting with the fishing industry or writing to ministers to make sure they are protected.
“Whatever our feelings about sharks, humans need them,” she said. “They are apex predators, which means they are at the top of the food chain and balance the ecosystem. If you take out an apex predator in the ecosystem, there will be a collapse of that whole system.
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