Etched into the grey predawn horizon a small yellow boat weighted with shark nets, bounces through the subtropical surf of Durban's Golden Mile in South Africa. Aboard is a crew of five men dressed in slick orange oilskins. They are from the Natal Sharks Board and their job is to maintain the seventeen shark nets that zig zag along the coastline.

With its engines off, the boat rises and falls with the large ocean swells. It is quiet except for the slapping of the net in the water. The men in the boat pull themselves along the raised shark net - meshing it, checking for damage. These shark nets have reduced over 90% of fatal shark attacks at protected beaches on the Kwa-Zulu Natal coastline. The Natal Sharks Board was formed as a result of "Black December" in 1957 when there were five fatal shark attacks and something had to be done to entice the tourists back onto the beaches. Today anchored just past the bathing area, the nets do not stretch down to the sea bed, but only some 20 feet down in the 45 feet deep water. "The shark nets are not barriers preventing sharks from coming into the shoreline," says Craig Charter, a visitors guide with the NSB. "They are fishing nets, designed to catch sharks that encroach on human bathing areas."

The dawn sun has broken the horizon. As it brightens the crew continue to mesh, toiling with the wet weight of the net. This morning it is heavier than usual. A black-tipped shark has been caught. It had entwined itself so tightly in the netting that it suffocated. Sharks breath by swimming with their mouths open, taking in water and oxygen, which then passes out through the gills. Sharks caught in the nets become restricted and panic. Thrashing about, they become more entwined and it takes two hours for them to suffocate.

The men heave the shark into the boat. They haven't reached this one in time. They cut the meshing to release the dead weight of the shark and replace the net with a new one. "Contrary to belief, most sharks get caught on the shoreline side of the nets," says Craig. "At dusk they come in to shore to feed by swimming in low underneath the nets. At dawn, when the sunlight glints brightly off the shallow waters, sharks with their sensitive eyesight head out to the darker deeper offshore waters, forgetting about the nets sitting between them and the deep blue sea." This is the reason the NSB go out net-checking at dawn, to free any entangled sharks before they asphyxiate.

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