Win For Shark Conservation

August 5, 2004

Release from: News24.com (South Africa)

Pietermaritzburg - The Pietermaritzburg high court has ruled in favour of divers who have been lobbying against shark hunting.

Divers along KwaZulu-Natal's south coast have been distributing pamphlets accusing a fishing operation in Shelley Beach, Sensational Charters, of "senselessly slaughtering" sharks.

The company sought an interdict to stop the protestors from distributing the pamphlets.

Sensational Charters argued that the pamphlets were defamatory, but high court judge Vuka Tshabalala ruled on Thursday that the protests were in the public interest and therefore not actionable.

Charters' owner, Denise Milton, had applied for the interdict against the owner of local dive outfit Aqua Planet, Trevor Krull, in August last year.

Krull had been leading the protests.

The fliers were being handed out on the beach and in a public parking area and called for a disruption of Sensational Charters' phone, fax and email lines.

Kinky The matter came to a head when Sensational Charters displayed a promotional photograph of fishermen boating a dead Zambezi shark.

Divers claimed the shark was Kinky, a female Zambezi well-known to divers, a tourist drawcard and identifiable by a kink in the tail fin.

Krull welcomed the court's ruling.

"It's good news for shark conservation and forms part of our drive to increase awareness about shark conservation," he said.

Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife coastal conservator, Cedric Coetzee, said the provincial conservation agency was compiling a new shark policy with the department of environmental affairs and tourism's marine and coastal management division.

He said that while it was legal to fish sharks, new research revealed that sharks were more vulnerable than previously thought.

"People have the right to say 'I'm worried,' and the new policy has to take into account public concern. In the past, sharks did not receive the protection they deserved," he said.