Articles

Alison Kock and the Island of Giants

The Shark Spotters

Words by Philippa Ehrlich

Cover image

Great white sharks frequent the inshore waters of the False Bay coast in summer.
Photo by Alison Kock and Enrico Gennari

For most False Bay residents, Seal Island is a rocky silhouette 17 kilometres away from the land that only looms into view on crystal clear, calm days. It is a place shrouded in both fascination and abject terror. Its jagged shores are home to 75,000 Cape fur seals and five species of sea birds. It is also the mythical hunting ground of the most dreaded and talked about member of False Bay’s vast ecosystem: the great white shark.

For marine biologist Alison Kock, the island has become a scientific holy land. Over the past 12 years she has made hundreds of pilgrimages to its hallowed waters and has dedicated most of her waking hours to learning about great whites in False Bay and examining their relationship with local ocean users.

For South Africans her name has become associated with everything shark; Shark Spotters, shark science, shark conservation, shark nets and shark attacks.

Kock’s connection with the most misunderstood fish on the planet was forged completely unexpectedly and kilometres from the sea. Fifteen years ago, whilst studying marine biology at UCT, she spent her weekends managing a car wash in Table View. One very busy Saturday morning she walked over to yet another car, opened up its boot and saw something that stunned her: a pile of photographs of a great white shark fully airborne just off Seal Island. She could not believe what she was seeing, ‘Oh my gosh! Is that real? These big white sharks totally out of the water! Is that doctored?’

She had been studying marine biology for three years but had never heard a whisper about great whites breaching. That image electrified a string of questions that would propel the next 15 years of her life.

She investigated the source of the photograph and was determined to get herself a spot on his boat. A few weeks later, she found herself on the deck of Chris Fallows’ and Rob Lawrence’s shark-watching vessel. For Kock, it would be the first of hundreds of real life encounters with great whites: ‘I went out there and saw these sharks flying out of the water and attacking seals right next to the boat and I couldn’t believe this was right on my doorstep.’

From that very first trip, she became a volunteer on Fallows’ and Lawrence’s boat, and for the next two years she guided tours, washed boats and worked in the office, but a new goal was taking shape. Every day she would go out to sea with a boatload of tourists who were equally amazed by the animals, and with their awe, came curiosity. At the time, there was very little scientific information on South African great whites. Apart from a few statistics based on the number of animals caught by shark nets in KwaZulu-Natal, we did not know how big South Africa’s great white population was and there was not a shred of research about their behaviour. ‘I just realised that we knew nothing about these sharks. There was no literature. The clients continually asked us questions and we just couldn’t give them any answers,’ Kock remembers.

Cover image

Great white sharks frequent the inshore waters of the False Bay coast in summer.
Photo by Alison Kock and Enrico Gennari

Alison Kock Project Leader

Philippa Ehrlich Conservation Journalist

Alison Kock

I get this feeling that what I do is very special and I am very fortunate to work in this magical place.

The impressive teeth of the great white shark.<br />
Photo by Thomas Peschak

The impressive teeth of the great white shark.
Photo by Thomas Peschak

In 2003, after completing her Honours degree, she enrolled for a Masters under the supervision of Leonard Compagno, one of the foremost shark experts at the time. Compagno was the scientist who helped to design the mechanical shark used in the filming of Jaws, but more importantly it was his lobbying that led to the incredibly progressive conservation policies that have protected great whites in South African waters.

In 1991, under Compagno’s guidance, the government showed admirable foresight by becoming the first country to ban the commercial hunting of these sharks. They knew the population was vulnerable because of slow reproduction rates and the global demand for their jaws. Their actions 22 years ago provided Kock with one of the largest great white populations in the world on which she has been conducting pioneering research for the past 12 years.

Undaunted by the controversial, her first study focused on shark behaviour around Seal Island and together with her Canadian research partner, Karl Laroche, they looked at the implications of shark cage diving and chumming. The chumming of sharks for viewing purposes is prohibited in the USA, but South Africa has built up a highly profitable industry that is reliant on attracting great whites to boats by chumming them to the surface.

The first cage shark diving operations started in Gansbaai in 1991, following their new protected status. At the time of the ban, operators who had originally made an income by hosting sport fishing trips to catch great whites turned to cage diving. At first the industry focused on adventurers and filmmakers, but in 1996 an operation started in False Bay and the industry grew increasingly accessible to the general pubic.

At first Kock struggled to find sponsorship. She approached government, NGOs and the private sector, but funding was limited and for the first year she conducted research from her father’s small fishing boat. Fortunately, the founder of the Save Our Seas Foundation (SOSF) has a passion for white sharks and often came to dive with them. On one trip, during the early days of establishing the SOSF, they interviewed Compagno, who suggested that Kock apply to them for funding. She emailed the foundation, but at first support was not forthcoming. ‘I sent about 15 emails before I got a reply. I was kind of persistent,’ she reflects. Finally, in mid 2003, Kock’s research became one of the first six projects supported by the SOSF. They supplied her with funding for general running costs, a new research boat and acoustic tags and receivers to implement what was at the time the largest acoustic array for tracking great whites in South Africa.

One of the hypotheses Kock and her co-workers had was that chumming changed the behaviour of great whites. Surprisingly, and to the indignation of many anti-shark cage diving lobbyists, Kock found that the meager offerings that were being tipped into the sea could not compete with a shark’s preferred prey: ‘Unless you’re going out there and providing what is equal to or better than what the seals provide, you probably aren’t going to have a long-term impact on them. Essentially, our theory was totally wrong, as science goes,’ she laughs.

The impressive teeth of the great white shark.
Photo by Thomas Peschak

Great white sharks frequent the inshore waters of the False Bay coast in summer.
Photo by Alison Kock and Enrico Gennari

Studying massive marine predators is extremely demanding and challenging. Kock recognises that a vital key to her success was the guidance and support she received from the teams of advisors, colleagues and students she worked with. She emphasises that, ‘As a young woman scientist I received an extraordinary amount of support and encouragement for what I was aiming to do. This ranged from support of my co-workers, to local and national government, and even from the SA navy. I have forged life-long relationships because of this, and without those people I would not be where I am today.’

Ten years into her career, after thousands of trips across the constantly fluctuating expanse of False Bay, Kock is starting to paint a fairly comprehensive picture of what great whites are up to above and below the surface. She has tagged more than 80 white sharks (as well as 17 sevengill cowsharks), burnt thousands of litres of boat fuel and deployed dozens of acoustic receivers. Her PhD thesis analysed half a million data points collected between Cape Point and Hangklip.

Having published 10 scientific and technical papers on white sharks to date, Kock is now regarded as one of the leading great white experts in South Africa, and worldwide. Together with her co-workers, their research has answered a myriad of questions about the sexual segregation of great whites, their hunting techniques, seasonal habitat preferences, environmental influences and even their reaction to electric shark deterrents. She is also leading the research on a recent trial shark exclusion net in Fish Hoek and supervising the publication of two more papers that will be released in the next few months, but she knows there is still a lot to be revealed: ‘The funny thing about science is that you complete a study, publish a whole paper answering a key question, and then the first thing someone asks you is a new question you don’t have the answer to.’

Kock has found that whilst the public appetite for insight into these feared and revered ultra predators is insatiable, it is also refined. People are interested in science they can relate to. This is why her most popular studies so far are her research on the inshore movements of female great whites and her cage diving paper. There is one serious criticism that Kock has of the industry: ‘Part of the problem with cage diving is that because it is expensive, most South Africans don’t get the opportunity to experience it. All they get to see are sensationalist documentaries, which give a very skewed perception of what’s going on out there. People don’t get to have that phenomenal experience and only interact with the negative side – the ‘shark attacks’ side.’

In 2005, after a few relatively uneventful years, there were two fatal incidents in less than 20 months. It was because of her exclusive profile as the only expert on False Bay’s sharks that Kock’s role evolved from scientist to spokesperson. She remembers the uncomfortable transition: ‘2005 was when we got thrown into the deep end. People wanted to know what was happening. Something was happening and we were the only ones who had information about the population. As a biologist, you aren’t trained to deal with conflict in that way.’

Great white sharks frequent the inshore waters of the False Bay coast in summer.
Photo by Alison Kock and Enrico Gennari

Seal Island lies just 17 kilometres from land and one of Cape Town’s most popular beaches. It is home to 75,000 Cape fur seals, five seabird species and renowned for its great white sharks.
Photo by Andy Casagrande

The first few years in this new role were extremely challenging and Kock found herself under constant attack in the media. It took time to learn that the irrational and pervasive fear of sharks is not something that can be appeased with science, no matter how solid it may be. She explains that, ‘As a scientist you need to be rational and logical, but I had to recognise that people are emotional at that stage and hearing someone simply say “shark attacks are rare” doesn’t help very much. You have to build a relationship of trust with the public, and it’s not easy. I’ve made mistakes along the way, but you have to learn from them and earn that trust.’

In 2008, she took on an even bigger role with regards to the shark/human interface, that of chief scientist for the Shark Spotters – an ocean safety organisation that aims to protect ocean users from sharks by warning them when the animals are in the area. All along False Bay and the Cape Peninsula, shark spotters are stationed on the mountainside, wearing polarised sunglasses and scanning for sharks. Beachgoers are warned with a siren and a number of colour-coded flags signifying the likelihood of incidents according to conditions such as visibility.

After five years at Shark Spotters she has found that it is vitally important to balance the concerns and safety of ocean users with the advocacy of sharks: ‘It can’t be one or the other, it needs to be both for conservation to work’.
Shark Spotters is a conservation organisation, but rather than aggressively campaigning for sharks, Kock believes in a subtly informative approach that allows people to share in her fascination with the animals whilst arming them with the facts they need to take personal responsibility and mitigate risks. Before entering the water, ocean users should be observant and make an assessment. ‘I don’t think you’re ever going to convert everyone to start loving sharks, but I do think you can turn that fear into respect and acceptance,’ she comments.

Kock’s own respect and enchantment for great white sharks continues to grow. She realises she is privileged to be studying one of the largest populations in the world with the biggest average-sized sharks. She also knows that with this privilege comes a serious responsibility: ‘This area is a crucial habitat for great whites, all year round. It is vital, especially for the females on the inshore. We don’t know where these sharks go and what threats they face when they leave False Bay, but we do know they’re our future breeding stock. The conservation of a much bigger and wider ranging population depends on the protection of this habitat. It’s incredibly important to get that message across.’

Today, even after countless pilgrimages to the edge of Seal Island, this is where some of Kock’s favourite moments are spent. On icy winter mornings, her feet planted firmly on a bobbing research boat, often surrounded by whales or sharks, she stares back across False Bay to the land, watching the twinkling lights of morning traffic as people make their way to more conventional offices: ‘I get this feeling that what I do is very special and I am very fortunate to work in this magical place. That is not something I take for granted.’