The shark-net debate flares again on the KZN coast
The debate has been going on since the 1980s
The KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board (KZNSB) has operated a beach protection programme on the KZN coast since 1964. The programme deploys a combination of shark nets (meshing nets anchored offshore at depths of between 6 and 9 metres, not barriers that reach the surface) and drum lines (surface-anchored baited hooks) at 38 beaches between Port Edward and Sodwana Bay. The programme is widely credited with the near-elimination of shark attack fatalities on the KZN coast in the decades following its introduction.
The critique of the programme has been consistent since the environmental movement began documenting bycatch figures in the 1980s: the nets and drum lines are non-selective. They kill marine animals that are not the intended target species.
The KZNSB’s own annual reports document the bycatch. In recent years (2023-2024), the recorded bycatch has included: 300 to 450 sharks (of which targeted white, tiger, and bull sharks account for approximately 40 percent; the remainder are non-target species including dusky, spinner, and sandbar sharks, all of which have declining population trends), approximately 150 to 250 rays and skates (including critically endangered giant guitarfish and bowmouth guitarfish), dolphins in the range of 15 to 30 per year, and sea turtles in the range of 50 to 70 per year, of which a significant proportion are leatherback and loggerhead, both endangered and subject to a conservation programme operating on the iSimangaliso coast within 100 kilometres of the net zones.
These figures are from the KZNSB’s own data, presented in their annual reports. They are the basis of the current criticism.
What triggered the 2026 escalation
Three factors brought the debate back to prominent media coverage in late 2025 and early 2026:
The IUCN white paper. A paper published in November 2025 in a peer-reviewed marine conservation journal, authored by researchers from the University of Cape Town and the South African National Biodiversity Institute, concluded that the KZN shark net programme was contributing to population-level decline in three ray species in the Aliwal Shoal area south of Durban, based on twenty-year survey data. The Aliwal Shoal is a designated Marine Protected Area and the finding raised a direct legal conflict between the shark net programme and MPA conservation obligations.
The Shelly Beach incident. In December 2025, a leatherback sea turtle that had successfully nested on the iSimangaliso coast — one of the estimated 80 to 100 leatherbacks that nest there each season under the KZNSB’s own turtle protection programme — was found dead in a drum line near Shelly Beach. The specific animal had been tagged as part of the conservation programme, making the death directly traceable. Local conservation groups publicised it extensively.
The electric barrier pilot results. An 18-month pilot of Sharksafe Barrier technology — a physical barrier of magnetic buoys and electro-repellent cables that exploits sharks’ electroreceptor sensitivity — at Kleinbaai (Western Cape) reported a 74 percent reduction in shark approach events with zero reported marine mammal bycatch over the trial period. The pilot results were cited by critics as evidence that effective alternatives to nets exist at manageable cost.
The KZNSB position
The KZNSB has publicly defended the programme on the grounds of public safety record. The last fatal shark attack on a KZN netted beach was in 2011. The Board acknowledges the bycatch and points to a programme of modifications introduced since 2010, including the installation of automated monitoring that checks nets every 12 hours (reducing entanglement duration), exclusion zones around turtle nesting beaches, and a tested drumline modification that reduces dolphin interactions.
The Board also notes that the Sharksafe Barrier technology has not been tested at the scale and surf conditions of the KZN coast, where beach-break surf conditions differ significantly from the calmer Western Cape pilot site.
The alternatives actually in use elsewhere
Several Australian states (New South Wales, Queensland) have moved toward or are trialling alternatives to traditional meshing programmes. New South Wales deployed a combination of drumlines with real-time satellite monitoring (the Smart Drumline programme) and drone surveillance at a pilot of 51 beaches in 2018, with bycatch reductions reported at 95 percent versus traditional nets. The programme was extended after the pilot and traditional meshing was discontinued at the trial beaches.
Drone-based shark spotting from elevated positions, which the Western Cape has used at Muizenberg and select False Bay beaches, has a strong safety record in conditions with adequate visibility but is unreliable in poor visibility and cannot be operated continuously.
What visitors to KZN beaches need to know
The shark net programme covers 38 specified beaches on the KZN coast. These are the beaches where the risk of unprovoked shark attack has been substantially reduced by the programme. Most of the popular tourist beaches — Durban’s Golden Mile, Umhlanga, Ballito, Salt Rock — are in the covered zone.
Outside the covered zone — including most of the iSimangaliso coastline (St Lucia, Cape Vidal, Sodwana Bay) and the Wild Coast — beach users are in waters without shark mitigation infrastructure. These are areas of genuine shark presence, including bull sharks (the species responsible for most attacks in estuarine and near-shore environments) and tiger sharks. Swimming in these areas requires awareness of the risk and adherence to local guidance on seasonal patterns and safe swimming times.
The debate over whether the existing bycatch-generating programme should be maintained, modified, or replaced with alternatives is a live policy question in South Africa in 2026. Visitors to KZN beaches are swimming in the context of that debate, on beaches protected by infrastructure that the conservation science increasingly identifies as ecologically damaging.