Shark attacks unlikely here

EXPERTS say a shark attack along Jamaica's beaches is highly unlikely, despite several reports of attacks in at least one neighbouring Caribbean island and along the coasts of America.

But fishermen, the group most likely to come into contact with sharks daily, show little or no concern. To them, tales of entanglements with the big fish in the depths of the ocean are real but just a hazard of the trade.

"I know a diver who was bitten in the face by a hammerhead shark last year," David Flake, who has been a fisherman for eight years, said with a sly smile on his face.

Still, the environmental experts are firm about the "unlikely threat".

"We don't have anything to worry about, the shark population is fairly small. They are mainly in the Pedro Banks (St. Elizabeth) area with a few in the south coast," said Peter Gayle, Principal Scientific Officer at the Discovery Bay Marine Lab.

The north coast, which has the most visited beaches on the island, is especially safe, though for an environmentally unsafe reason.

"Because of severe over fishing along the North Coast, there isn't enough fish to support a shark population...if the sharks are there they are down very deep," Mr. Gayle said.

"Since the start of the year about three or four men have had their fish taken away by sharks...when you see them approach, you just have to stay still and watch them. If them come too close I try to run them with my spear gun but firing it at them would be the worst thing because the blood would draw down more sharks and if you don't have another spear you have nothing to defend yourself," said William Collymore who has been diving for 30 years.

Mr. Collymore said he has seen sharks come close to shore trailing the boats that collect the fish pots in the evening. Fish pots, he said are deposited at least 30 - 50 feet (nine - 15.25 metres) underwater about seven miles or more off shore.

Knut Borstad, manager of operations at Dive Tech, an underwater engineering and rescue firm said, there is also shark activity around Kingston's shores.

"I have picked up bodies eaten by sharks, but those are drowned victims not shark attacks. Sometime ago a six-foot Nurse shark got stuck in the intake pipe out by the Jamaican Private Power Company (in Rockfort). We sent two divers in who caught it, put a loop around the tail and took it out. We released it into the sea," Mr. Borstad said.

He also stated that, "there are sharks all the way around and inside the Kingston Harbour which gather there feeding on all that is flushed into the water, like dead dogs and the occasional dead persons. They're actually helpful, as scavengers they help to keep the Harbour clean."

The National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) does not log reports of shark attacks, which it says happens very rarely.

Mr. Gayle said that a wide variety of sharks are in Jamaican waters such as the Tiger, Bull, Mako, White Tip, Nurse and the occasional Hammerhead.

"A lot of the sharks here are accustomed to people and human activity. I wouldn't say don't be afraid or respectful of them, one has to be careful. But they don't bother you unless you bother them. I have been under water working and sharks have swum right up to investigate what's happening and we stay still and ignore them -- they just go away," Mr. Borstad said.

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