Swimming With Sharks

This story was first published on Dec. 11, 2005. It was updated on Aug. 6, 2009.

There may be no single fear as intense and as widespread as the fear of meeting up with a shark. Sharks even inhabit the nightmares of people who don't swim. What a surprise, then, to learn that these days, more and more people are seeking them out, spending millions of dollars to get as close as they can to sharks.

But here's the rub: right where sharks are most visible, they're becoming more dangerous.

As we first reported a few years ago, shark attacks are on the rise. And many blame these attacks on shark tourism, in a place which is called "Shark Central."

Correspondent Bob Simon traveled to South Africa to get a first-hand look at the growing trend of shark tourism and the controversy that surrounds it.

"This is the best place in the world to learn about the secret lives of these animals. So that's what attracts me here," says Aidan Martin, an Australian scientist.

Their lives are so secret, says Martin, that very little is known about great white sharks. We don't know how many there are or how long they live, and we've never seen them mate, or give birth.

How do these enormous sharks manage to propel themselves above the waterline?

"It's essentially projectile, and it has sacrificed maneuverability for speed. So it's a little bit like having a truck trying to run down one of those bicycle couriers. I know we've all had fantasies about that," says Martin.

And then there are the seals. They are a remarkable sight for humans but for sharks they're breakfast; seals are their favorite food.

And the sharks linger around Seal Island, population 50,000.

When shark tourism operator Chris Fallows sees a shark going for a seal, he says he actually roots for the seal. "It's a Catch 22. Unfortunately for the seals, they need to go out and feed, and at this island, they've got a very good chance of being eaten by a white shark."

After watching a shark have a meal, a lot of tourists feel the same way and go back to shore. But some stick around, tempted to leave our world, if ever so briefly, and go underwater. It's the thing to do these days for seekers of adventure and adrenaline. You do it, of course, from the safety of a cage.

But a safety cage is not a 100 percent guarantee. Not far from where 60 Minutes shot this story, a shark actually got into the cage. If the shark hadn't lost his bearings and turned upside down, the tourists would have been toast.

But Chris Fallows assured us that this hardly ever happens and that thousands have gone down in cages here and lived to talk about it.

So Simon decided to give it a try.

It actually isn't quite as frightening as you might think. That could be because the great white is such a magnificent creature that you feel more wonder than fear.

"I've got to say, the closer it comes, the more awesome it becomes. It swims with unbelievable grace considering it's such a big fish!" Simon remarked.

Then, suddenly and quietly, a seal came by and got into Simon's cage.

Simon says he'll never know whether it was trying to escape the shark, or if it just liked him.

"He's looking right at me. Is this something I should worry about?" Simon asked.

"Don't touch the seal!" 60 Minutes producer Michael Gavshon warned.

When the movie "Jaws" came out 30 years ago now, it had such an impact that a lot of people stopped going to the beaches because they were so scared of sharks. Think about what has changed. Now, shark tourism has become big business. A lot of people are spending a lot of money to sit underwater in a cage and hope to get a good look at a shark.

But shark tourism has its critics. Surfers here are convinced that shark attacks are on the rise because tour operators attract sharks with bait and fish blood, known as "chum," to make sure their clients get what they paid for.

"When you go cage diving here, you don't necessarily put yourself at risk as a tourist, but you might be putting the local inhabitants at risk," says Craig Bovim, a local inhabitant and a surfer.

Bovim leads a group of concerned citizens who believe that chum makes sharks associate people with food. He thinks that may be why a shark attacked him several years ago.

He remembers it every time he looks at his hands. "I can't describe the fear that went through me then," he says. "It's everybody's worst nightmare and it was happening to me."

Bovim was diving for crayfish when a great white shark came up beside him, disappeared, and then returned.

"All I saw was this fin coming towards me at speed and he clamped down hard on both my forearms with a crunching sound. And then his body landed on me. I knew I'd been eaten, or bitten," Bovim remembers. "Well, I don't know if he was going, trying to swallow me."

But the shark wasn't letting go of Bovim. "I was stuck. And…I knew I was going to die," he remembers.

"So I reacted a bit and I pulled as hard as I could with my right arm and it seemed to… All that came out appeared to be the stump of my forearm because I looked down and I just saw the gushing stump, arteries exposed and bones and all sorts, and I thought I had left my hand inside his stomach. I said, I can deal with this. And now for the next one," Bovim recalls.

He eventually managed to pull that hand out, too, and the shark swam away.

Exhausted and losing blood fast, Bovim somehow managed to swim 70 yards to shore. Doctors managed to save not only his life but some use of his hands. Now he devotes himself to campaigning against the way most tour operators conduct their businesses.

Bovim says putting chum or bait in the water is domesticating a wild animal. "It's common knowledge: Don't feed wild animals. Why is this the only wild animal you are allowed to feed in Africa, is a great white shark? It's bizarre."

Shark attacks used to be virtually unheard of here. But there have been eight in the past two years. Two people died on the same beach this year alone.

Shark spotters have been hired to maintain a constant vigil. And many have joined Bovim's campaign for legislation to ban baiting and chumming, legislation which already exists in Florida and Hawaii. But tour operators claim that linking their practices to shark attacks is ridiculous.

"As you can see here, I've got two small tuna and a couple of sardines, any commercial fishing boat that is going out on any given day is putting fish into the water to attract other fish up to the boat to catch it. They're doing nothing different to us," says Chris Fallows.

But some people say that this is sort of like putting meat in front of a lion in a game park.

"Its an inevitability of going into the ocean, and when you've got millions of people using the sea there are going to be instances where people are going to be attacked, it's as simple as that," says Fallows.

Well, it wasn't as simple as that to the people who burned Fallows' boat in what was seen as a protest against shark tourism. Other people are directing their anger at the sharks themselves.

Vigilantes are vowing to take their boats out and shoot sharks, any sharks, whether or not they were the actual killers.

To dampen the hysteria, local conservationists put out a commercial which begins just like "Jaws." The commercial points out that the number of people killed by sharks worldwide is tiny. Last year, just nine people died. By comparison, the commercial says, 791 were killed by toasters.

But fear of sharks is so deep, psychologists will tell you, that statistics and commercials can't get below the surface.

"We're talking about something that humans don't experience every day. Being on the meal list of somebody else is a very, very unusual experience," says University of Cape Town psychologist and surfer Dr. Helgo Schomer.

Dr. Schomer treats people with shark-phobia, or tries to.

Why does the thought of getting bitten, eaten or killed by a shark evoke such terror and fear, compared to other ways of getting killed?

"Nothing comes close to it. You mentioned being eaten. You know, you can die in other ways, but dying is something we don't want to touch, it's a taboo issue. But now being eaten, that means I might be alive, I might actually feel what's going to happen to me," says Dr. Schomer.

"I have, in fact, heard sharks compared to terrorists, that they are somehow more demonic than other beings," Simon remarks.

But, in fact, sharks have far more to fear from us humans and our industrial fishing fleets, which bring in 100 million sharks a year. In some regions, shark populations are down 90 percent, and some species are approaching extinction.

Why is this happening?

The answer boils down, literally, to soup. Shark fin soup. In China, it's been an expensive status symbol for millennia. Chefs in the emperor's court were once beheaded if they prepared it incorrectly. But these days, with China booming, more people can pay $100 for a bowl. Finning sharks is a billion-dollar business, and it's not a pretty sight.

That's because as soon as a shark is caught, his fins are cut off and he is thrown overboard, alive, to sink to the bottom and drown. In South Africa and a few other countries, it's a crime to do that. But given the high price of soup, it's a very common crime.

What's a fin worth? A large one can cost thousands of dollars. And the black market in fins is tough to police because most of the sharks are caught in international waters where there's no law against finning.

But on land, laws can be enforced. In Cape Town recently, authorities raided several processing plants owned by Hong Kong Chinese. Seven tons of fins were confiscated.

It's not the shark's fault that we have demonized him for so long. Besides, we need our demons. They've been with us, in our minds, as long as gods. So the next time you're in a Chinese restaurant and feel like some soup, why not stick to the egg drop, or the wonton. Give the shark a break.

By Michael Gavshon and Solly Granatstein