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On any given day in Thailand's Maya Bay, up to 40 black-tip reef sharks cruise in the cyan shallows while about 4,000 tourists visit its white-sand beach flanked by towering cliffs. Shark numbers have improved since almost every last one was driven from the bay by the influx of tour boats and tourists keen to see the uninhabited idyll that was made famous as the set of Leonardo Di Caprio's 2000 thriller "The Beach". The sharks returned after a tourism ban and the COVID-19 pandemic between 2018 and 2022 halted all visitors to the bay. Authorities allowed limited tourism to resume in 2022, and now conservationists say shark numbers are thinning out again, leaving Maya Bay struggling to strike a balance between preserving a pristine ecosystem and sustaining livelihoods dependent on tourism. REUTERS/Jorge Silva SEARCH "SILVA THAILAND SHARKS" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY TEMPLATE OUT
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