Shark-Net Replacement Story for Umdloti and 36 Other Beaches Confirmed a Hoax

On 10 July 2025, North Coast Courier identified a fabricated press release and a cloned website, posing as the real KZN Sharks Board. It claimed that shark nets at 37 KwaZulu-Natal beaches, including Ballito, Umdloti, Salt Rock and Zinkwazi, would be replaced with an electromagnetic barrier before 1 August 2025. The fake release included fabricated quotes attributed to a fictitious “Dr Jacob Ramsammy.”

The real KZN Sharks Board (shark.co.za, not the fake sharksboard.co.za used in the hoax) confirmed the story was false. No genuine net-replacement project of this kind exists for Umdloti or any of the other named beaches.

This site notes the hoax so the claim stops circulating. Any claim online that Umdloti’s shark nets have been or will be replaced by new technology traces back to this July 2025 hoax and should not be trusted without a direct, current statement from the real KZN Sharks Board. Umdloti’s beach remains protected by conventional shark nets positioned roughly 400 m offshore.

See are there sharks at Umdloti for the fuller picture on shark safety here.