As passionate Great White shark lovers, our role is to educate people on the Great Whites’ natures and to give visitors the unique experience of seeing GWS in their natural environment and where fears and myths are quickly dispelled. The Great White shark is not a ruthless killing machine as is made out in popular culture. Instead people are pleasantly surprised to see how graceful, elegant and curious these fish actually are.

Stewart Island is one of only five places in the world where Great White sharks aggregate so their protection in this location is paramount.

Shark Dive NZ has seen first hand the brutal way in which Great White sharks are treated by those who are fearful of them. Great White sharks’ survival is threatened daily by fishers who set their nets at known GWS aggregation areas around Stewart Island. Not only are the unfortunate sharks caught up in these, so are other protected species, such as Yellow-Eyed penguins, blue penguins, NZ Fur seals, Sootys Shearwater birds and Stewart Island shags.

This is unacceptable especially when there is an easy fix.

We propose the introduction of a shark sanctuary around Stewart Island. This would mainly include the known aggregation zones for the GWS around the Northern TiTi Islands, north of Half Moon Bay. This sanctuary area would include a ban on all commercial fishing to keep the GWS and other protected species’ safe.

A shark sanctuary has already been successfully implemented at the Neptune Islands (Ron and Valerie Taylor) Marine Park and is an excellent example of marine conservation in action.

Show your support for the shark sanctuary at Stewart Island by signing this petition. These signatures will be presented in our submission to the Department of Conservation who are currently consulting on the Draft Threatened Species Strategy.