Bill Hinchberger Shark warning on Boa Viagem beach
Recife, Pernambuco - “If the pickpocketers don’t get you, the sharks will.” That’s the verdict handed down on Recife in Rum & Reggae's Brazil, a leading travel guidebook.
A 20-kilometer (12.5 mile) stretch of beach that includes the most fashionable district in Northeastern Brazil, Boa Viagem, has earned a reputation as the world’s most dangerous for swimmers. Crime there is arguably no worse than in other urban beach resorts like Rio de Janeiro, but the shark attacks are unparalleled. Since mid-1992, 50 encounters involving humans and sharks –19 of them fatal – have been recorded along the short strip of coast. By comparison, a relatively modest 18 unprovoked shark attacks were reported along the 1,926 kilometers (1,197 miles) of Florida coast in 2005, according to the International Shark Attack File compiled by the American Elasmobranch Society and the Florida Museum of Natural History. (At the same rate per kilometer per year as Recife, Florida would suffer nearly 350 attacks a year.)
Before 1992 shark attacks in the 1.5 million-strong state capital of Pernambuco were rare enough to pass under the radar screen, and guidebooks encouraged travelers to visit Boa Viagem. The 1991 edition of the South American Handbook praised the district as Recife’s “finest residential and hotel quarter” that offered “a striking view of the Atlantic.” The author’s only beef back then? “The beach is crowded at weekends.”
The main cause for the flurry of incidents is “environmental degradation – especially of the mangrove ecosystems,” according to Fábio Hazin, director of the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture at Pernambuco Rural University and president of the State Committee to Monitor Incidents with Sharks (CEMIT), a government agency founded in 2004. The mangrove swamps are essential to providing nutrients for marine life, but deforestation and real estate development have set siege on them.
Recife’s costal ecosystem is both fragile and deeply tied to the city’s identity. “Recife” literally means reef: Portuguese colonists named the settlement after the barriers that stand prominently just beyond the coastline. A decade ago the region’s mangrove swamps were celebrated by the manguebeat movement, led by the band Chico Science & a Nação Zumbi. At the time manguebeat earned Recife favorable comparisons for musical creativity with Seattle and its grunge rock bands like Nirvana.
The musically celebrated coastal swamps are also favorite reproduction and feeding grounds of the bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) – one of three species most often identified in incidents involving humans. (The other two are the tiger shark [Galeocerdo cuvier] and the blacktip shark [Carcharhinus limbatus].)
Shark habitats suffer from problems beyond the swamps. Industrial effluents, agricultural runoff and untreated sewage have helped to reduce the ability of the marine ecosystem to sustain life and thus provide hearty meals to large carnivorous predators. Industrial fishing boats trawl ever closer to the coastline – churning up the waters, damaging the renowned reefs, eroding the beaches and reducing biodiversity. “These factors have all contributed to the increase in the number of attacks,” says Hazin.
In an open letter to surfers, the most frequent victims of shark attacks, marine geologist Luiz Lira, scientific director of the Oceanic Institute based on nearby Itamaracá Island, outlined the phenomenon this way: “Sharks are coming closer to the beach and have attacked surfers and swimmers not to satisfy their hunger with human meat. They are looking for what’s left of the fish, turtles, octopuses, squid, lobsters and crabs. When the Pernambucan sea was fertile, with an abundant menu, encounters between sharks and bathers were sporadic.”
In addition to generalized degradation and pollution, some scientists and ecologists point an accusing finger at the Port of Suape, located 40 kilometers south of Recife. It began operating in 1984 and was subsequently expanded. The port and surrounding industrial complex occupy 135 square kilometers (85 square miles) and are protected by a 2,950 meter (9,700 foot) breakwater. Suape can accommodate ships with displacement of up to 80,000 tons. One of the main aspects of the project was a coastal landfill that changed the final courses of the Ipojuca and Merepe Rivers. Denied access to their traditional haunts at the mouths of the rivers, sharks followed the prevailing current north along the reefs astride popular beaches like Paiva, Candeias, Piedade, Pina and, of course, Boa Viagem. “One of the main causes was the construction of the Port of Suape,” says Hazin. “There were uncertainties about human intervention in the area that weren’t foreseen in the environmental impact assessment.”
Not everyone in Recife, including some in the business community, is convinced of the direct cause-and-effect relationship between the port development and shark attacks. “There’s still no proof that the changes in the estuary are responsible for the incidents,” says José Otávio Meira Lins, president of the Pernambuco chapter of the Brazilian Hotel Industry Association (ABIH-PE). “A number of environmental factors are involved.”
Via CEMIT, Pernambuco state officials have attempted to reduce the risk of shark attacks through educational campaigns, oversight and research. A CEMIT patrol boat has captured 24 sharks found too close to the coast for comfort over two years. Other public policies include the posting of warning signs every 350 meters (1,150 feet) along the beach and the prohibition of surfing in threatened areas.
Meira Lins believes that his industry, in particular, must adjust to a new reality. “We need to take Pernambuco off the track of sun-and-surf tourism and move in the direction of cultural tourism. We have to leave the sharks alone in their environment and change our approach.”
Leaflets distributed on Recife’s beaches tell people to avoid swimming:
* in the open sea beyond the protection of the natural reefs
* during high tide, especially during the full moon and the new moon
* if you are bleeding
* in deep water where you can’t touch bottom
* when the water is cloudy
A slightly different version of this article appeared in EcoAméricas, a specialized monthly newsletter on development and the environment in Latin America.
, a leading travel guidebook.
, a specialized monthly newsletter on development and the environment in Latin America.