Feeding sharks to save them?

31 October 2025Photos and text: Gilles Auroux29 images

01 / 29 · 31 October 2025Gilles Auroux / Collectif DR

The Fiji Islands are an ideal habitat for the bull shark, which finds both abundant food and shallow waters in which to give birth. The species is regularly fished there for consumption or for the sale of its fins.

In the early 2000s, a conservation project was launched with the creation of the Shark Reef Marine Reserve, in collaboration with local communities. The villages concerned voluntarily give up shark fishing in their areas in exchange for a share of tourism revenue. In 2006 the project became the Fiji Shark Corridor, stretching some 30 miles along the south coast of Viti Levu, Fiji’s main island, and gained official “National Marine Park” status in 2014.

The main attraction is taking tourists diving with bull sharks. But since this species is generally shy with divers, the activity has to rely on feeding to attract the sharks.

While the economic impact on local people is undeniable ($4M paid to the villages that own the reefs in 2010), what about the ecological impact on shark populations, given the negative effects often caused by feeding wild animals: sedentarization and therefore inbreeding, increased aggressiveness toward humans and dependence on them, changes in hunting behavior, etc.?by Gilles Auroux – Full story (text and photos) on request

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