Surfers travel to the ocean. Sharks live in the ocean. The math is simple, but the stakes can be confusingly deterring. After all, where there's saltwater, there's predators. But there's also waves. Sometimes.The difference here is we rarely, if ever, hear "government-sanctioned shark slaughter" or worse, "no surfing this season" when booking our tickets to South Africa, Australia or Hawaii. That would be a ridiculous proposition -- painting a thick, red smear over the otherwise idyllic, pastel dreamscape we've concocted in our heads. It's not that we'd rather not know there are monsters out there. Believe us, weIt's just we'd rather not hear about it under these terms.In response to the shark scourge that's claimed the lives of five people since 2011 including two fatal attacks this year -- one, a 36-year-old surfer on honeymoon this May, and the other, a 15-year-old swimmer, Sarah Roperth, a couple weeks ago -- the French government has given local authorities the go-ahead to prohibit any and all water activity along much of Reunion Island's coastline, including its most treasured surf spot, St. Leu, until October. Furthermore, the island's prefect, Jean-Luc Marx, announced a plan to kill 90 sharks on top of the two dozen already slain over the past year as part of a suspiciously disguised scientific research program.According to The Huffington Post , the island's Head of Tourism said (prior to Roperth's burial, tasteless as it may sound), "We are deeply sorrowful about this terrible tragedy... yet look forward to welcoming visitors to our beautiful island with a reminder to observe our local safety guidelines.""The politicians are being really stupid about this," says local informant Romain Cloitre. "Their stories are crazy. They did a big, 19km natural reserve on the west coast of the island, and you can't fish there anymore -- no spearfishing, no jet-skis. So all the sharks are coming closer to eat because there's more fish. Another reason for the shark attacks is the fish farming on the west coast. It's a big fight between the 'ecologist' government and the surfers/fishermen. I just hope one day I will surf my homebreak again."Cloitre is a very respected pro surfer in these parts -- but he's no scientist. A year ago, Surfline interviewed International Shark Attack File Director George Burgess (the chief expert for ichthyology studies in this country) about the phenomenon. So at the risk of sounding redundant, we contacted Burgess once again (during The Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" no less) to get an official scientific opinion on what makes the Reunion Island situation different -- if it's even different at all.George Burgess: Yeah, probably. That in addition to the fact that they're essentially shutting down surfing -- a real popular thing with tourists, including international surfers that want to come there. I'm not wholehearted in my evaluation on this. Local authorities need to make their own choices, and sometimes the calls are difficult ones that may affect some groups more than others. Without knowing exactly what their conditions are, I can't speak if that's the best way to solve the problem or not; but that said, the proposed shark kill doesn't give me a whole lot of confidence in their ability to make the right calls. That suggests pretty strongly that they're either grasping at straws or they're simply not getting enough scientific information to deal with this in an enlightened manner.No. To think of a time or place where someone went ahead and did anything like that, I'd probably have to go back to 1960 or so. We've made a lot of progress in terms of our understanding of the marine environment and ecology of animals. And frankly, we've grown in our appreciation of the fact that we're visitors to the sea when we enter it. That mindset of half-a-century ago is not the same mindset of the populous today. That's what's really going to hurt these guys, because I don't think they're giving enough credit to their user group: the tourists that come there. There's going to be a lot of people that say, "Screw it. I can go to some other island where they have a more enlightened view of the natural world."Well, there was selective banning of surfing at one or two beaches there [Brazil]. The situation was such that they were having real problems in terms of attacks, injuries and deaths. The typical measures -- which are to add more lifeguards and capabilities and things -- probably wouldn't have an effect [in Reunion]. In other words, these surfing areas are so far offshore as to the nature of the landscape and the fossil reefs found there, that if you were to be attacked in the surf zone there's very little chance of you getting in alive in a normal manner.I think it was a reasonable thing to do -- to protect surfers from themselves. Surfers have a mind of their own and are willing to accept risks and sometimes their choices on accepting the risks have a broader scale of impact and can affect a whole community, its reputation, tourism and things like that. So sometimes, you do have to sacrifice a little bit of personal freedom for the good of the whole. But [restricting access] wasn't done everywhere, across the whole area [in Brazil]. It was surgical cuts rather than wholesale chopping. And not everyone that dies are surfers. While they may be a high-interest group from the shark's perspective because of the provocative nature of that activity -- the kicking, splashing and wipeouts -- the fact of the matter is attacks are not confined to that group. I don't have the insight of being part of the situation there in Reunion. I'm not familiar with the thought basis for all the evidence, so I can't speak negatively towards some of that stuff. But these seem to be Draconian measures, both in terms of banning all surfing and obviously going ahead and killing sharks, which is generally regarded -- almost across the board -- as a very reactionary and archaic kind of measure.Yes, and it's really quite a shame, because not only are they doing some things that are... well, questionable in regards to the surfers and certainly unreasonable in regards to the killing of the shark. But this has gone on for several years now, and I can't think of another situation around the world where a local area hasn't addressed the issue in an enlightened way, and solved the problem. The reality is [Reunion authorities] are trying to do it all by themselves. But there are people out there that have a better understanding of shark attacks than they do. They really need to bring some people in that know what's going on.The fact that there's fish farming going on around the island, you can't help but wonder: "Fish farming as an entity is an attractive thing for sharks -- could that not be a contributing factor to why there's a sudden increase in interactions between sharks and humans?" Has that even been considered in a neutral manner so it can be looked at? There's no doubt that when we see a sudden increase in shark attacks -- particularly ones like these with fatalities -- there are two events of modification of the natural order. That means that we as humans probably have done something that's changing it, or there's some major ecological variation as a result of an oceanographic event, some paradigm shift. The latter doesn't happen very often; the former does. So my first sub-point of checking things out would be, "Okay, is there something attracting sharks here more now than in the past?" There's also been an increase in the number of people entering these waters. Tourism has grown, so I'm quite certain that's the case. Certainly a contributing factor is we're putting more humans in the water. But hey, Reunion Island is a sharky place! It's a tropical place where sharks have historically been common and interactions and attacks have been well documented, going back for decades. So if you put more people in the waters, especially in places where the sharks are known to be more common -- and the visitors don't bother to ask the locals where's the risky place and where's the safe place -- you're going to have more accidents. But there have been some other changes going on -- in addition to more people -- that clearly bares a close investigation. I'm sure the folks there aren't sitting on their hands, but it makes you wonder whether they're asking the right questions.