After weathering the COVID tourism slump, Alfred Nauka thought the worst was behind him.
But the New Caledonian tour operator could never have anticipated what was to come.
"If we want to go swimming, we have to travel about two hours up north," Mr Nauka told the ABC from his shop in the capital Nouméa.
"You can find a nice beach to swim but we cannot take our tourists up there, it's too far."
After a string of shark attacks in the lagoons surrounding the popular tourist city — the latest killing 59-year-old Australian tourist Chris Davis in February — local authorities decided to act.
That action came in the form of closing the capital's pristine tropical beaches for the year and enforcing a city-wide ban on beach swimming.
Mr Nauka, who has operated in the capital for 17 years, sympathises with the families impacted by the attacks.
But almost two months into the ban period, he believed the closure of the popular Baie des Citrons was too long, unreasonable and "negatively impacting" his tourism business — and others.
He said many tourists who booked with his company wanted refunds on beach tours.
The French island territory's relationship with sharks is long and complicated.
The island has recorded, on average, one shark attack every year since records began in 1958.
Local authorities removed tiger sharks and bull sharks from its protected species list in 2021 as part of a wide-ranging scheme to reduce attacks.
And in the month before the closure, a culling campaign killed 40 sharks near Nouméa's beaches.
But despite these measures there has been three attacks in the country so far this year, leaving many locals are questioning the sudden increase.
Talou Kesia works in a reef sporting goods shop at Anse Vata beach, just metres from the shoreline.
She said while the shark culling was sad, she believed it was necessary to combat rising shark populations.
When asked about the closure of the beaches just out the front of her workplace, the young New Caledonian wasn't as concerned.
"I think the ban is too long, but it has been put in place to protect us, so it's not that bad," she said.
'We won't be back'
The ban is proving divisive, with a protest against it drawing in hundreds of New Caledonians last month.
It came on the back of a petition against the culling, which has already gained over 40,000 signatures.
Despite the concerns of the scientific community, the local authorities in Nouméa have been standing firm, announcing nine upcoming capture-and-kill campaigns throughout the year.
But on Tuesday morning — after the ABC's story was published — Noumea's mayor Sonia Lagarde announced that until shark nets were installed, a special swimming zone would be opened in the Baie des Citron area.
She said the small zone would be under constant surveillance and restricted to swimmers in daylight hours.
In a further update on May 9, it announced the ban would now be lifted on November 30.
Nouméa resident Thierry Bernard has been windsurfing on the Baie des Citrons beaches for over 30 years.
He said the beach ban reminded him of the "COVID-era lockdowns".
"Everyone is going to swim in little corners of the city to hide, [it's] crazy," he said.
While Mr Bernard supported the initial response to capture and kill the sharks involved with the fatal attack, he believed the culling campaign had gone too far.
The city of Nouméa welcomes on average one cruise ship a week to its shores with tourists eyeing the crystal-clear waters and many tourists echo the sentiments of locals.
Sydney mum Nicole Plum packed her family's snorkelling gear for their New Caledonian cruise only to find the "strict ban" in place across Nouméa.
"We came to an island to swim," she said.
"If the ban carries on, we won't be back."
Shark ban 'rash decision'
New Caledonia is ranked 13th in the world by the Florida Museum's International Shark Attack File for number of shark attacks.
Eric Clua, a senior scientist and professor at the Paris École Pratique des Hautes études (Paris Practical School of Advanced Studies), has focused on shark ecology and behaviour for the past 15 years.
He told the ABC he believed the local council had made "a rash decision".
"The beach ban is a bad idea because it perpetuates fear [of sharks] among the public," he said.
Dr Clua said there was not enough evidence to suggest shark behaviours had significantly changed and, from a scientific perspective, more data was needed to understand if there was a problem.
"What is changing is the probability of an encounter," he said.
"We are changing our behaviour, not the sharks, and we need clever science aimed at improved management."
Dr Clua is not only concerned about the absence of science and data, but also the impacts on the surrounding ecosystems.
"Sharks play a key role in the natural system and culling campaigns will just [make that an unbalanced] ecosystem," he said.
Back at the Gare Maritime tourist centre, Mr Nauka said his team was doing its best to adjust to the wave of cancellations and refunds his company was experiencing.
Mr Nauka hoped the government would "reduce the length of the ban" so he could get his business back on track.
In the meantime, he said the challenge remained: attracting tourists on his tours without the prospect of swimming in New Caledonia's pristine beaches.
