Shark Catcher Heads To Mexico

October 10, 2006

Release from: John Yeld
Cape Argus (South Africa)

Great White Shark catcher Stephan Swanson's skills are in great demand internationally. He has just jetted off to Mexico to join an expedition headed for the remote island pinnacle of Guadalupe off the Baja California peninsula.

But Swanson is not a destructive shark catcher.

Rather, he helps protect this highly endangered and elusive species by catching them so satellite transmitters can be fitted to the creatures to reveal their migratory patterns.

Swanson, a highly experienced researcher and fisherman, worked for the Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) branch of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism for 19 years. He left last year to start his own business.

While with MCM, Swanson was part of a team that developed the pioneering technique of catching great whites up to 4m long, restraining them in a specially designed cradle while a transmitter was fitted to the dorsal fin, and then releasing them unharmed, all within 30 minutes.

Arguably the most difficult part of this operation is the actual catching of the individual shark, and this is Swanson's job.

"It's not too difficult to catch these sharks, but our highest priority was to ensure the shark was not injured in any way, during the capture, and this was more difficult," he said.

The team's most famous "patient" was Nicole, the 3.6m female shark that was tracked to Australia and back and whose movements researchers described and published in Science, one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals.