Twenty attacks since 2011, including eight deadly. On the island of Reunion, sharks have become the public enemy n ° 1, that of surfers and pleasure boatersespecially. It has deeply divided the inhabitants of the island, between the proponents of fishing that must eradicate the sharks and those who consider it useless and amoral.
In fact, what observers have called the "shark crisis" is especially the relationship that man has with his environment. Because a Nature Reserve was created in 2007 in the West of the island to protect the degraded coral reef, which is also the only part of the island accessible to seaside recreation, it was quickly accused of serving as "a food cupboard" to sharks by surfers and tourism professionals. Therefore, and this is a paradox if we consider the image of the surfer favoring a harmonious relationship to nature, two conceptions of the ocean are opposed between those who think it as an element remaining more or less wild and those who conceive it as an "amusement park". But, to explain the presence of bulldog or tiger sharks, hitherto little present along these shores, scientists advance other hypotheses, all related to human activity: firstly, the disappearance of reef sharks - probably decimated by the overfishing of the species – which would leave empty an ecological nichein favor of these big predators. Then, the rejection of sewage that accompanies the galloping urbanization of this coast would favor the attraction of animals that appreciate turbid waters. Finally, they evoke the consequences of the "water shift", a vast project that consists in capturing four rivers on the very wet East side, to transport them through underground galleries to the West savannah land, to irrigate sugar cane fields and quench the thirst ofthe settlements that devour the slopes. As a result, freshwater streams into the ocean, degradingthe coral and may attract the bulldog shark who likes freshwater
If we add that the tension born from these attacks has revived the stereotype about the idigenous population who prefer « the high grounds » and who are supposed to be afraid of the ocean while sea sports are privileged by the metropolitain French, then we can see that this « shark crisis » is closely linked to man’s influence on this island that was just an uninhabited confetti in the Indien Ocean. This is what this photographic work would like to show over several years.