I've been invited to Sunday dinner with a family on Reunion Island. Today we're eating shark.

EDSON:   A pity we can't have the smell on the camera!

My host tonight, Edson, has dressed for the occasion. He's dishing up two types of shark - Mako and Oceanianic White Tip. Shark has always been on the menu in this French territory.

EDSON:   Okay, enjoy your meal.

Now some worry it's humans on the menu. Reunion Island is now one of the top locations in the world for shark fatalities. The victims range from surfers and body boarders to a 15-year-old girl swimming five metres from shore. Public outcry led to an order from the French Government, granting the systematic capture and killing of 90 sharks in Reunion.

MAN:  Five dead people, Sara, the last dead victim, Sebastian, another one. Gilbert. It's crazy!

EDSON:   All the population say about this is they are dangerous animals.

REPORTER: Would you swim here?

CHRISTOPHE PERRY (Translation):  No way, no.

SURFER (Translation):   Let’s stop putting sharks on a pedestal – that’s what is happening.

LORIS:  How can you tell tourists from come from Australia or to come from Paris, to come over here for a month's holiday and not to bathe?

MAN 2 (Translation):   It looked like her body had been sawn off at the waist.

EDSON:   So what are you doing? Just kill them all.

In Western Australia a shark cull was introduced in response to the deaths of seven people over three years. The first kill in January prompted anti-cull protests around the country.

PROTESTER:  You know what, that's their ocean. We respect them, we love them and don't want them killed and hopefully Colin Barnet got the message today.

On Reunion Island over the same 3-year period, there were 13 shark attacks, five of them fatal. The reaction here is completely different to Australia. They're demanding people need to be protected, not the sharks. This message says: "Stop the attacks" and this: "Give us back the ocean".

Though different resident species are found in these waters, it's the bull sharks bearing the brunt of public anger because they're responsible for most of the recent attacks. This is the kind of small place where everyone knows someone affected.

Reunion Island is home to Australian Mick Aspery. As someone who's lived here for nearly 40 years, he can see why the response is so different. This is a tiny island with few people in the water compared to an enormous Australia where tens of thousands enjoy the sea daily. So proportion naturally, the attacks here are off the scale.

MICK ASPERY:   There's no that many people out there in a very small area and they're getting taken. And if anything like that happened anywhere in the world, they'd be killing all the damn sharks, you know. So people like to theorise and people like to have an opinion and a moral opinion, but I think it's relevant to be actually in that situation and the knowledge of the area and what's actually happening in the territory where these things are taking place. I mean, Western Australia is a whole different ball game.

Mick owns a surf shop. Like many businesses it is suffering because of a drop in tourist numbers to the island as a result of the shark attacks. He's been surfing 55 years and although he's never seen a shark here, he knows the threat is real.

MICK ASPERY:   We kind of think it's a couple of mean sharks doing all this. Definitely so aggressive, and so brutal, as far as I'm concerned, I don't really want to go around killing any animals, but there's a certain time that it has to be done, you know, and call it a cull or whatever you want. I mean if it's kangaroos or whatever.

Who's that? Hello mate. Bon surf. Look out!

Mick supports the local authorities in their decision to cull, but he's not so supportive of their other measure - banning swimming and surfing around most of the island. If they catch you it's a 39 euro fine, that's almost $60 for taking a dip in the sea.

In an attempt to get the message through to diehard surfers like Mick and his friend Rodolph here, the governor sent a patrol boat to the main surf spot. It didn't really work.

MICK ASPERY:   So he sends the army in, right, but it's cost a dam fortune for the boat and the whole big operation, and all they catch is one Rodolph. Just him. That's a classic.

REPORTER:   What did they do to him?

MICK ASPERY:   Let him go, because it was just so ridiculous. Such a funny story, mate.

RODOLPH (Translation):   I wasn’t going to give myself up, I ran away – I escaped to town, they pursued me for 20 minutes – they ran after me for 20 minutes.

Christophe Perry is one of the commercial fishermen employed to catch sharks. It's been run as part of an existing shark tagging program.  The team are going to show me how they bait the lines. It's a 6-month project using new technology - smart drum lines which send electronic signals.

CHRISTOPHE PERRY (Translation):   It’s an alarm. It alerts us to the presence of sharks.

When the alarm is triggered, they get an alert and have two hours to get to the drumline, so they can release any unwarted by-catch before it dies. That by-catch could be small sharks, turtles or rays. The tagging program is designed to monitor tiger and bullshark movement and this extraordinary file footage has been provided by those running the operation. They hope both the tagging and catching of sharks will provide data to make beaches in Reunion safer.

DAVID GUYOMARD:  There's the kind of tag we use with the sharks.

Fisheries scientist David Guyomard is Christophe's boss. He's the project manager running both the tagging and the shark reduction program. They avoid using the world "cull".

DAVID GUYOMARD:  If we get them close to the surfing area, the thing is with that kind of receivers we know exactly from where they come to visit the area and that's the aim, to protect this particular area.

For many here the rising tally of dead sharks offers a welcome psychological boost, even if no-one really knows if culls actually work here, or in Australia. Not one of Alain's six children shares his passion for surfing. It's not surprising, considering he lost his arm to a tiger shark in 1991. Neither the attack, nor the swimming ban, has stopped him.

ALAIN (Translation):   Most surfers say there is an imbalance; we have too many bull sharks when there were none before. It needs to be controlled - we must find a balance again. I’m for bull shark fishing, it may or may not be efficient but it has to be done.

Since Alain lost his arm, there have been 22 shark incidents. That's about one attack a year. All that changed in 2011. Seven attacks, two fatal. Mathieu Schiller was one of them and his violent death spread fear around the island. And Mathieu was Loris' best friend. He was fatally attacked by two sharks in front of tourists and locals on the main tourist beach.

LORIS:  I brought back a bodyboard to his mother. We didn't even find a piece of flipper or a piece of body or, we didn't find anything. The two sharks just got rid of that body.

Now a shark net here provides one of the few patrol spots we where you can still swim. Mathieu's death made people feel the sharks were getting more aggressive. The loss of the champion body boarder and well-liked surf instructor has been devastating. This video shows Mathieu teaching Loris' daughter how to surf. It's at this exact spot he was taken.

REPORTER: You think your daughter will ever get over the fear of the sea now?

LORIS:  When she talks about the sea, the word after is "shark". So I don't think she will ever forget that. I don't think she will ever forget that there's a high risk of dying, a high risk of getting chopped in two. Her little friends that are in class, when you ask them to draw something, they will -- there will always be a shark in the picture, always.

Mathieu's friend Vincent was the life saver on duty who tried to rescue him.

VINCENT (Translation):   It was after the attack on Mathieu that we realised something was not right, whereas we’d had no attacks before we were now faced with a massacre. A massacre. I have lost many friends in 18 months. And now…I have lost the ocean as well.

Many feel their very way of life is under threat from the shark crisis. The question is - what's causing the spike in shark attacks? No-one knows for sure, but everyone on the island has a theory. Herve Flament is President of an association called Protect our Children. He's taking me into the marine reserve on the western side of the island to explain why he think s the nature park is to blame for the shark crisis.

HERVE FLAMENT (Translation):   We are for the marine reserve, we are green, we love the sea…we want a marine reserve, we signed for it but we did not expect such results from nature.

The marine reserve is a 40km-long protected zone set up in 2007 to help rehabilitate the coral reef. Herve is worried the increasing number of fish is attracting these unwelcome visitors. 

HERVE FLAMENT (Translation):   For us it is a shark feeding ground, not for large sharks but for baby sharks. Baby sharks can feed on the many small fish that young sharks love to prey on. For us that is the problem – the mothers defend their young, defend their territory.

ROLAND (Translation):   The idea that the marine reserve as some claim, is a shark feeding ground is totally wrong.

Oceanologist Roland helped set up the marine reserve and he is critical of the local hysteria.

ROLAND (Translation):   Here in Reunion, with regard to the shark issue, personal beliefs, perceptions… take precedent over scientific analysis.

He said many scientists believe it's possible bullsharks are here because the reef eco-system has collapsed, not because it's recovering. They are hoping a healthy reef will see the return from natural competition from reef sharks which seem to have disappeared. Christophe the fisherman and I are rushing to the port in the middle of the night. It appears something large has taken the bait they put out earlier in the evening. 

It is 2:00am in the morning and the alarm has sounded, and so we're going out to check what's on the drumline. Since the program started in January, Christophe and his team have caught only tiger sharks along with several other smaller species, which were released - so far no bullsharks. Christophe has something hooked but can't quite make out what it is.

CHRISTOPHE PERRY: It’s a bullshark man.

  
REPORTER:   Bullshark?

CHRISTOPHE PERRY:  Yes. It’s a nice bullshark.

REPORTER:   Quite big, eh? Some people are going to be very happy with you. Your first bullshark.

CHRISTOPHE PERRY:  Yes, this is the first bullshark and we work to prove that this system is effective to catch bullsharks near the coast.

This male bullshark is almost 3m long, easily big enough to take out a human being, and so it will be killed. They wouldn't let us film that, because they're concerned the picture will also be taken out of context and fuel public anger against shark culling.

CHRISTOPHE PERRY:  We've got to really find the solution to find the balance between the protecting of the environment and the animals and human activity.

Commercial shark fishing was banned here 14 years ago. Christophe believes this has allowed numbers to increase and he's convinced removing sharks in this way is the best approach for now.

CHRISTOPHE PERRY:  You have to do something. If you don't do anything with this shark, especially bullshark, that doesn't stop them.

The sun is rising by the time we head back to port. Our catch will be upsetting for some, but definitely pleases this local fisherman.

FISHERMAN (Translation):   That’s good, it’s good to catch sharks, that way there will be less of them. They eat fish so there is less to catch for the fishermen. So that’s good, I am in favour of it.

For now the shark cull will continue until June when it will be reviewed. The government has already extended the swimming ban for a second time, which they feel is a necessary step for an island whose economy relies on tourism. Enter at your own risk is little comfort for a place traumatised by shark attacks.

LOISE (Translation):   What would you tell Uncle Mathieu if he was here?

DAUGHTER (Translation):   That I love him.

LOISE (Translation):   Great. Do you miss him?  Okay, that’s fine. Okay, shall we go?

MARK DAVIS:   In Western Australia the cull has taken 31 sharks and the Supreme Court there recently rejected a legal challenge by the environmental organisation Sea Shepherd.

Reporter
DAVID O’SHEA

Supervising Producer
BERNADINE LIM

Researcher
CALLISTE WEITENBERG

Editor
NICK O’BRIEN

Fixer
JOHAN TSIAVANGA

Additional footage courtesy of CRPMEN de La Réunion

Mick Aspery surfing photograph courtesy of Stephane Fournet Photographe

Protest footage courtesy of Christian Farcy