HUNTING SHARKS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 151, 30 June 1928, Page 20

HUNTING SHARKS

JOUEIST THRILLS NEAB HAVANA. ;' Havana is now offering, tourist* an opportunity; of seeing the actual hunting of sharks without the risks run by the hunters, says an American exchange. Th© business of capturing the great sea ' scavengers that infest the warm ■waters of the Gulf is not performed with a prosaic hook and line. Each morning launches laden with tourists leave Havana for the cruising grounds, some three miles off Cojimo, where the garbage of the city is dumped. Herej along the edges of this miniature Sargaso. sea of floating refuse,' eight open boats, each about fifteen feet in, length, are constantly passing, during the' daylight hours. Two men form the crew of each, and the luck is poor when from fifteen to twenty-five sharks are .not taken. • Tho harpoons havo detachable heads which open out when thrust into tho great fish; The lance handle bobbing up with a gyratory movement, together with tho rapid uncoiling of the inch rope, shows when a strike has been made. Then comes tho tusslo to get tho shark-alongside so that a noose may bo slipped over his bead. Once this is accomplished the prize is clubbed to death in order that its skin may not bo ruined, but the fish always- fights, des-. peratcly. Tho Cuban harpoonei- is'probably 'as skilful as tliosd of the whalers ■ who formerly'sailed; out of ' Now Bedford, and his work is extremely hazardous.. Tho sharks' range from tho "Very to tho hamm'el'Uen'd variety, n 200-pound ■fis'n being considered small.