Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks & the Sea
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For Christopher—
great traveler, diver, and boon companion
CONTENTS
Preface:
Aliens in the Sea
I
1 South Australia, 1974: Swimming with Nightmares
2 Jaws
3 South Australia, 1974: Part 2
4 South Australia, 1974: Part 3
II
5 Shark Attacks: A Summer of Hype
6 Sharks: How Little We Know
7 Six Dangerous Sharks
8 Swimming Safely in the Sea
9 How to Avoid a Shark Attack
10 When Good Dives Go Bad
11 You Say You Want to Dive with Sharks?
12 Some Shark Facts and a Story
III
13 Dangerous to Man? Moray Eels, Killer Whales, Barracudas, and Other Creatures We Fear
14 Even More Creatures to Avoid … and Respect
15 Okay, So What Can We Do? 181
Glossary
Preface
Aliens in the Sea
Shark attacks are natural news leaders. They are the perfect showstopping spectacle: blood and guts, horror (ANIMAL SAVAGES HUMAN!), and mystery (INVISIBLE TERROR FROM THE DEEP!), and they are highly videogenic. Even if the camera can't get a shot of shark or victim, it can pan the empty beach and the forbidding ocean, focus on the BEACH CLOSED or DANGER: SHARKS signs, and capture the comments of panicky witnesses.
Shark attacks often dominate the news in the summer. Newspapers, magazines, radio and television news, and talk shows keep count of the incidents of supposed carnage. Experts speculate on the causes and meanings of this assault on humanity.
The truth is that the hysteria is not justified by statistics or other facts. Though shark attacks seemed to occur more frequently as the twentieth century went on, thanks to increases in the numbers of people living by the shore and swimming in the water and to vastly improved communications, they leveled off during the 1990s. Sixty to eighty attacks are reported worldwide each year.
Shark attacks continue to occur. But in the United States homicides or fatal accidents at work are ten times more frequent. And motor-vehicle deaths are over a thousand times more common than shark attacks. As for shark-attack fatalities, well, they're so rare that they're not even on the scale.
I have a lunchpail degree in sharks. What I know about them I've learned not from books so much as on the job—or in the water. All my life I have been fascinated by sharks and have spent more than three decades studying, diving with, and writing about them. I've made documentary films about them and been involved in the feature films and television movies made from my novels about sharks, including Jaws, The Deep, and Beast.
I've swum with sharks of all species, sizes, and temperaments all over the world, from Australia to Bermuda, South Africa to San Diego, almost always on purpose but sometimes by accident. I've been threatened but never attacked, bumped and shoved but never bitten, and—many times— frightened out of my flippers.
Over the years I've learned how to swim, snorkel, and dive safely in the ocean. I've learned how to exist—coexist, really—with sharks and the hundreds of other marine animals I've been lucky enough to encounter. That's why I've written this book about sharks and other sea creatures, and about understanding how to be safe in the ocean.
In these pages, I pass along what I've learned about sharks and how to minimize the chances of getting in trouble with them. I also describe how to maximize the chances of seeing sharks, something that is becoming harder and harder to do.
Shark attacks on human beings generate a tremendous amount of media coverage. That's partly because they occur so rarely. But it's also because people are, and always have been, both intrigued and terrified by sharks. Sharks come from one part of the dark castle where our nightmares live— the deep water beyond our sight and understanding. So they stimulate our fears and our fantasies.
For some of us, the fear is a safe fear—a fear of something that is unlikely ever to happen to us.
But for those of us who spend much of our lives in, on, or under the sea, it is a genuine fear, one to be dealt with using knowledge, experience, and judgment.
Of all the shark statistics, one that is almost totally ignored by the media and the public is the most horrible of all: for every human being killed by a shark, roughly ten million sharks are killed by humans. Sometimes they're killed for their skins and their meat. But mostly they're killed for their fins, which are made into soup that is sold for as much as a hundred dollars a bowl all over the world. Shark fin soup is regarded as a delicacy in China and other Asian nations.
Sharks are critical to the ocean's natural balance in ways we know and in ways we are still discovering. Wiping them out, through greed, recklessness, or simple ignorance, would be a tragedy—not just a moral tragedy, but an environmental one as well.
For all we read and hear about “unprovoked” shark attacks, I've come to believe that there's no such thing. We provoke sharks every time we enter the water where they happen to be, for we forget: the ocean is not our territory, it's theirs.
None of us would stroll casually into the Amazon jungle wearing nothing but a bathing suit and carrying a tube of sun cream and a can of bug spray for protection. We know that the jungle is not our natural habitat. We realize we're intruders in the jungle, where many creatures regard us as a threat or as prey. Those creatures will use every mechanism nature has given them—sting, bite, poison, whatever—to ward us off or attack us.
In short, we give the jungle the respect it deserves.
Yet many people regard the ocean casually and don't think about its dangers. Humans need to recognize that we represent a tiny minority on our planet. Seventy percent of the earth is covered by water, leaving to us a mere three square miles out of every ten.
Of our planet's biomass (the grand total of all living things), more than 80 percent inhabits the seas and oceans. All of those creatures have to eat, from the tiniest cope-pod to the largest carnivorous fish in the world: the great white shark.
And so, when we plunge into the water, we must be aware that we are the aliens. We must heed the signs that a shark could be patrolling nearby—signs such as birds working a school of baitfish just offshore, fishermen in small boats with rods bent double and the surface of the water oily with a slick of chum, and other warning signs I'll describe in these pages. We need to realize that when we go into the sea, we are entering hostile territory. We should take at least the basic precautions, knowing that we are fair game to the predators that live there.
I don't mean for a moment that we should stay out of the sea. But we need to prepare ourselves to swim safely in it.
This book is about understanding the sea in all its beauty, mystery, and power. It is about respecting the sea and its creatures, many of which are exotic, complex, and more intriguing than anything ever imagined by the mind of man.
But mostly, it is about sharks and my experiences with them. Sharks are perfect predators whose form and function have not changed significantly in more than thirty million years. I'll try to pass on what I've learned about sharks and about keeping safe in the sea. I'll try to show you what sharks are like and why they don't want to hurt you or eat you. In fact, sharks would like nothing better than to be left alone to do what nature has programmed them to do: swim, eat, and make little sharks.
I
1
South Australia, 1974
Swimming with Nightmares
Let's start with a story about sharks: Dangerous Reef, in the Neptune Islands, 1974.
Blinded by blood, nauseated by the taste of fish guts, whale oil, and putrid horseflesh, I gripped the aluminum bars of the shark cage. I tried to steady myself against the violent jolts as the cage was tossed by the choppy sea. A couple of feet above me, the surface was a prism that scattered rays of gray from the overcast sky. Below me, the bottom was a dim plain of sand sparsely covered with strands of waving grass.
The water was cold, and my core body heat was dropping; it could no longer warm the icy water seeping into my wet suit. I shivered, and my teeth chattered against the rubber mouthpiece of my regulator.
Happy now? I thought. Ten thousand miles you flew for the privilege of freezing to death in a sea of stinking chum.
I imagined the people on the boat overhead, warmed by sunlight and cups of steaming tea, cozy in their woolen sweaters. My wife, Wendy, was there, and the film crew from ABC-TV's The American Sportsman. So were the boat crew and their leader, Rodney Fox, the world's most famous shark-attack survivor.
I thought of the animal I was there to see: the great white shark, largest carnivorous (meat-eating) fish in the sea. Underwater sightings were rare; rarer still were motion pictures of great whites in the wild.
And I thought of why I was bobbing alone in a flimsy cage in the frigid sea. I had written a novel about that shark and called it Jaws. When it had unexpectedly become a popular success, a television producer had challenged me to go diving with the monster of my imagination. How could I say no? I thought then.
Now, though, I wondered how I could have said yes.
Visibility was poor—ten feet? Twenty? It was impossible to tell because nothing moved in the blue gloom surrounding me. I turned slowly, trying to see in all directions at once. I peered over, under, beside the clouds of blood that billowed vividly against the blue-green water.
I had expected to find silence underwater, but my breath roared like wind in a tunnel as I inhaled through my regulator. My exhales gurgled noisily, like bubbles being blown through a straw in a drink. Waves slapped against the loose-fitting top hatch of the cage, and the joints creaked. When the rope that tied the cage to the boat drew taut, there was a thudding noise and the clank of the steel ring scraping against its anchor plate.
Then I saw movement. Something was moving against the blue. Something dark. It was there and gone and there again. It wasn't coming from the side or circling me. It was coming straight at me, slowly, deliberately, unhurried, emerging from the mist.
I stopped breathing—not intentionally but reflexively, as if by stopping my breath I could stop all movement. I heard my pulse hammering in my ears. I wasn't afraid, exactly. I had been afraid, before, on the boat, but by now I had passed through fear. I was in a state of excitement and something like shocked disbelief.
There it is! Feel the pressure in the water as the body moves through it. The size of it! My God, the size!
The animal kept coming, and now I could see all of it: the pointed snout, the steel gray upper body in stark contrast with the ghostly white belly, the symmetry of the pectoral fins, the awful knife blade of the dorsal fin. The tail fin swung powerfully back and forth, propelling the enormous body toward me. It came slowly, steadily, as if it had no need for speed, for it knew it could not be stopped.
It did not slow, did not hesitate. Its black eyes showed no interest or excitement. As it drew within a few feet of me, it opened its mouth. I saw first the lower jaw, crowded with jagged, needle-pointed teeth; then, as the upper jaw detached from the skull and dropped, the huge, triangular cutting teeth, each side serrated like a saw blade.
The great white's mouth opened wider and wider, until it seemed it would swallow the entire cage, and me within it. I stared into the huge pink and white cavern that narrowed into a black hole, the gullet. I could see rows and rows of spare teeth buried in the gum tissue. Each tooth was a holstered weapon waiting to replace a tooth lost in battle. Far back on each side of the massive head, gill flaps fluttered open and shut, letting in flickering rays of light.
A millisecond before the mouth would have banged into the cage, the great white bit down and was rammed forward by a sudden thrust of its powerful tail. The upper teeth struck four inches from my face. They scraped noisily—horribly—against the aluminum bars. Then the lower teeth gnashed quickly, looking for something solid to sink into.
I shrank back, stumbling, until I could cringe in relative safety in a far corner of the cage.
My brain shouted, You … you of all people ought to know: HUMAN BEINGS DO NOT BELONG IN THE WATER WITH GREAT WHITE SHARKS!
The shark withdrew, then quickly bit the cage again, and again. It wasn't till the third or fourth bite that I realized the shark wasn't really attacking. It was more like an exploration, a testing. A tasting.
Then the shark turned, showing its flank. I crept forward and reached between the bars to feel its skin. It felt hard and solid, a torpedo of muscle, sleek and polished like steel. I let my fingers trail along with the movement of the animal. But when I rubbed the other way, against the grain, I felt the legendary sandpaper texture. The skin is made of millions upon millions of tiny toothlike particles, the dermal denticles.
The shark was moving away, upward. It had found a hunk of horsemeat, probably ten pounds, possibly twenty, dangling in the chum. The shark's mouth opened and—in a split-second replay of the bite on the cage—it swallowed the chunk of horse whole. Its gullet bulged once as the meat and bone passed through on its way to the gut.
Excited now, the shark turned again in search of something more to eat. It bit randomly, gaping and snapping as if hoping the next bite, or the next, would prove fruitful.
I saw a length of rope drift into its gaping mouth. With a start, I realized it was the lifeline, the only connection between the cage and the boat.
Drift out again. Don't get caught. Not in the mouth. Please.
The great white's mouth closed and opened, closed and opened. The shark shook its head, trying to get rid of the rope. But the rope was stuck.
In a fraction of a second, I saw that the rope had snagged between two—perhaps three or four—of the shark's teeth.
At that instant, the creature's small, primitive brain must have sent a message of alarm, for suddenly the shark seemed to panic. Instinct took over. The animal's tremendous strength and great weight—at least a ton, I knew, spread over its fourteen-foot length—exploded in frenzied thrashing.
The shark's tail whipped one way and its head the other. Its body slammed against the cage, against the boat, from the cage to the boat. I was upside down, then on my side, then bashed against the side of the boat. Finally there was no up and no down for me, only a burst of bubbles amid a cloud of blood and s
hreds of flesh from the chum and the butchered horse.
What are they doing up there? Don't they see what's going on? Why doesn't somebody do something?
For a second I saw the shark's head and the rope that had disappeared into its mouth—and that's the last thing I remember seeing for a long, long time. For when the shark's tail bashed the cage again, the cage slid down and swung into the darkness beneath the boat.
I knew what would happen next. I had heard of it happening once before: the shark's teeth would sever the rope. My survival would depend on precisely where the rope was severed. If the shark found itself free of the cage, it would flee, leaving the cage to drift away and, perhaps, sink. Someone from the boat would get a line to me. Eventually.
But if the rope stayed caught in the shark's mouth, the animal might drag the cage to the bottom, fifty feet away, and beat it to pieces. If I was going to survive, I would have to find the rope, grab it, and cut it, all while being tumbled about like dice in a cup.
I reached for the knife in the rubber sheath strapped to my leg.
This isn't really happening. It can't be! I'm just a writer! I write fiction!
It was happening, though. And even in all that chaos, I appreciated the irony.
How many other writers, I wondered, have written the story that foretells their own horrible death?
2
Jaws
I began to think about writing Jaws in the early 1970s. I remember phoning my father, Nathaniel, one day in Nantucket, where he lived year-round. He was a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and author of children's books. His best-known novel was a wonderful story called The Off-Islanders, which was made into the movie The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! His books for kids included Sam the Minuteman and Red Fox and His Canoe. He had spent four years in the navy during World War II and was very knowledgeable about the sea.
“What would happen,” I asked him, “if you cut a body in two? What would float? Any of it?”