Hand-feeding Sharks To Save Them | South Pacific | BBC Earth

In Benga Lagoon in Fiji, the local people are proving that sharks can be more valuable alive than dead. Tourists will pay good money for an encounter with real live sharks. This is a community-owned reef, and some of the money goes to the local villagers, a big incentive not to kill the main attraction. Fijians have long had an affinity with sharks. Their ancestors worshipped a shark god who they believed kept them safe from harm. They would feed sharks, not hunt them, and these divers continue the tradition. First to the feast are tawny nurse sharks. But these sharks are scavengers. It's the big predators the tourists want to see. Bull sharks. Growing up to three and a half meters long, these sharks are one of the ocean's top predators, with an aggressive reputation. The chief shark feeder is from a village where the shark god is still worshipped, so he has no fear. A bowl of shark fin soup can sell for over a hundred dollars, but here each tourist pays that to see these sharks alive, and dives take place several times each week. To protect the sharks, this reef has now been declared a marine reserve, with the added bonus that other fish are protected too. Before the reserve was established, this reef had been fished out. Even a single giant trevally of this size was a rarity. Today, the divers are in for a special treat. A five-meter tiger shark. The dive leaders have named her Scarface. She turns up once a month or so. She's inquisitive, but not aggressive.