The Island Where Sharks No Longer Fly
Flying White Shark, Seal Island, False Bay, South Africa © Dan Callister/Penguins & Sharks
False Bay is home to Seal Island, once the hunting ground of Air Jaws. This nearly 380-square-mile bay has long been a seasonal gathering ground for white sharks. During the colder months, many would patrol the waters around Seal Island, where tens of thousands of Cape fur seals gathered on this weather beaten island. In warmer months, the sharks would mover closer to shore, hunting fish and other sharks, including the sevengill shark. But sometime after 2015, this seasonal pattern began to unravel. Boat-based surveys, conducted over two decades, recorded a sharp drop in sightings (an 82% decline between 2016 and 2020). No white sharks have been seen there since August 2018. Sadly, we were one of the last to observe them at Seal Island.
What caused this sudden disappearance is still up for debate. Some point to increased removal by lethal shark control programs along the South African coast. Others suspect a specialized pair of orca Port and Starboard that target sharks, including great whites. These orcas have been seen disemboweling sharks and extracting their livers with surgical precision. Whether it’s shark nets, over-fishing by dermersal long liners, climate change or orca, the result is the same: white sharks have vanished from Seal Island.
