The administrative court of the French Pacific archipelago New Caledonia has prohibited the slaughter of sharks in protected areas. However, these zones represent only a small part of its waters and do not include the coast of Nouméa, New Caledonia’s capital. Due to an increase in shark attacks, the municipality has decided to continue hunting sharks.
On September 18, the Nouméa city council decided it would continue slaughtering sharks off its coast for safety reasons, despite a court ruling prohibiting it in protected areas.
The threat posed by sharks is a major concern for New Caledonia’s political authorities. According to a 2020 study, 67 shark attacks were recorded in New Caledonia since 1958, of which 13 were lethal.
New Caledonia ranks 13th in the number of unprovoked shark attacks recorded by the Florida Museum from 1580 to the present day, with the United States (1,604 attacks), Australia (691) and South Africa having the most attacks.
However, cases of shark attacks have multiplied in recent months. Bastien Preuss, a marine biologist interviewed by The Guardian, explains that “local fisheries fed sharks for over a decade and suddenly stopped, now fishing boats empty out thousands of liters of fishing juice onto the bay every day, constantly attracting sharks.”
In light of the situation, the mayor of Nouméa, Sonia Lagarde, has taken steps to “eliminate a certain number of them,” she told French media Franceinfo. She has forbidden access to the capital’s beaches until the end of November 2023. The beach closures are accompanied by a massive shark culling campaign off the shore. According to various public releases from the authorities, at least 127 sharks have been killed since April.
But on September 14, the administrative court of New Caledonia decided to suspend the campaign due to “the absence of precise scientific studies on both the size of tiger and bulldog shark populations and the impact of their removal on the environment.”
For Martine Cornaille, President of the association Together for the Planet (Ensemble Pour la Planète, EPLP), this decision is a “victory” for environmental protection against the government’s “manifest error.”
More shark culling?
The municipal committee of Nouméa stated that, despite the court’s ruling on September 14, shark culling will continue from September 18, as the court’s decision will only affect sustainable management areas.
Three islands off the capital — Master Island, Duck Island and the Pointe du Kuendu — are therefore protected by the court ruling from shark culling. But not Nouméa’s beaches.
A large part of Nouméa’s coastline is not regulated by this ruling, leaving the regulation wide open for the mayor’s actions. Only a small maritime area in the South of Nouméa is protected.
In fact, the slaughter of sharks thus continues in Nouméa, but outside the areas where the court has delivered its verdict, much to the dismay of environmental protection associations, scientists and some locals.
In Kanak culture, the native people of New Caledonia, sharks are sacred, and “fishermen here never hunt sharks,” told Seneiko Wathe, chief of the Hnapalus, to Franceinfo.
Other projects have been maintained, such as the installation of a 758-meter metal net in Lemon Bay. This Nouméa beach is not considered a protected marine area, despite the more than 1,000 different species it shelters.
