Shark ecotourism is an ever-expanding global industry, engaging hundreds of thousands of participants each year. While this form of tourism serves as a vital tool for raising public awareness about the urgent need to protect shark species, its potential effects on the health and behavior of the animals themselves must be carefully considered. This video examines the long-standing practice of cage-diving in South Africa, a prominent form of shark-based ecotourism since the 1990s. It focuses on data collected from cage-diving operator boats in Gansbaai over a 14-year period from 2009 to 2024, excluding the pandemic-affected years of 2020–2021. Following approximately 560 hours of field observations—averaging around 45 hours annually, with about nine hours per year in 2023 and 2024—a total of 423 white sharks were documented, including five re-sightings. This video highlights that the frequency of shark sightings did not increase during cage-diving operations and that no evidence of site fidelity among white sharks frequenting the area was observed.

 A white shark is close to the observation cage, diving.