THE SHARK HUNTER

Evening Star, Issue 19002, 25 July 1925, Page 23

THE SHARK HUNTER

MEETING THE OAK-EATER Although Captain Charles Thompson of Miami, professional fishing guide, has killed more than 10,000 sharks, ha still insists that ho is deathly afraid of them. As we are told by a writer in the New York 1 Times,’ probably the captain owes his life to this fear —“ a fear which seems to have endowed him with uncanny intuition of approaching danger. His loft shoulder is seared with scars left by a man-eater’s trapliko jaws.” It happened in this way:—“I couldn’t figure it out then, and I can’t now,” explained Thompson. “ But I jerked my head clear to the right just the fraction of a second before I felt the terrific jolt, and my shoulder afire with pain.” It _ was in February, 1908. The captain was’ out in the Gulf Stream between Maimi and Bimini with some wealthy “clients” who sought thrills in a hunt for tigers of the sea. “ We were fishing in a 30ft launch, and I was about to demonstrate how to harpoon a shark,” he said. “I had sighted one of tho fellows, and we slowly approached him. lie was in just the right spot—down and before me—when I hurled the harpoon with all my might. Some one had carelessly left oil drippings upon the bow’s deck. As 1 threw, my foot shot out from under me, and I tumbled overboard. Of course, I missed the shark. Plunging downward, my first thought was to avoid the launch’s propeller. I took a few quick strokes, and in so doing missed the chance of grabbing tho harpoon rope. “ The man at tho wheel turned tho boat immediately, and put back after me. I was swimming breast stroke towards the approaching launch —both arms completely back at the finish of a stroke—when the shark struck me. If my arm had been forward or out to- tha side he would have dipt it off. I can’t figure why I jerked my head aside, because I didn’t see him coming Ho didn’t turn on bis bade to grab mo, either. I remember his mudcolored belly slipping over me. “ Every one in the boat thought ho had me until I bobbed up again. Speeded by terror, I was beside tho boat immediately, and friends yanked mo aboard before the monster flashed back for me. In spite of the pain and fright I had presence of mind to seize another harpoon'and plunge it into him as his black dorsal fin cut through tho water alongside. I was almost fainting when I reached the hospital in Miami. It was some mouths before the wound healed completely.” The captain attributes his horror of sharks to an experience when sixteen years old. With two brothers he dung for more than seven hours to the keel of their capsized fishing boat one day. dead fish of their catch floating about them, before rescuers by moonlight reached them. “ During those long hours,” ho says, " the thought or drowning never entered my mind,” but—

“ A thousand visions of myself being seized by saw-toothed jaws tormented P-io. I considered sharks from oil angles, and wondered where they came from and how they knew there was somethig in the water for them. I decided that if I were saved I would loam all about them, and I did.” Jlan-eating sharks are the most dangerous of all creatures on land or in the sea, according to Captain Thompson. lie does not believe that a man can kill a man-eater in the water with a knife;—

“ Of course almost anyone can dive into tho water with a knife and kill a nurse shark,” he admitted. “ A nurse shark is a slow-moving shark without teeth, that swims close to tho bottom. For the entertainment of tourists in various parts of the world, supposedly bravo swimmers dive into the sea and stage a daring encounter with these harmless creatures, drawing from the gullible spectators gasps of astonishment and silver dollars.

“ Buflet one of these performers get into tho water with a real man-eater of tho Gulf Stream. If the shark were not hungry, ho would probably dart away, but otherwise be would chop the fellow in two like a flash.”

The captain named three reasons for the shark’s being such a fearsome creature. Ho said it had incredible speed* developed through necessity in gaining a livelihood off barracuda, tarpon, amberjack, and the like—fastest of marine inhabitants. Secondly, bo emphasised tho tremendous chopping power of the shark’s jaws. “Anyone who has over tried to chop with an axe the bumpy back of a giant sea turtle realises what resistance tho shell, often inches thick, can offer,” he said. ,“ Yet these same turtles are favorite morsels of tho shark. Time, and again when landing a huge sea turtle 1 have seen a shark dart at him and bite out a goodly chunk, much as a person might bite into a piece of cheese.

“Sportsmen who have caught big fish in tho Stream know that sharks get possibly ono in twenty of hooked amberjack before they can be landed. It seems that tho minute a hooked fish starts to bleed a shark gptu on its trail. When tho fish is almost up to the boat there cornea a great spins)!, and tho lino sings out or breaks. If the line remains, only a portion of the fish is pulled in, and that portion is chopped off as clean as if sliced by a huge razem It’s appalling what those eruncliing jaws con do, I have seen sharks gobble up floating wooden tubes, boxes, pieces of driftwood, in fact, almost anything that hapoens along. It is not a matter of selection that causes them to attack humans—merely a desire for any kind of food.” The captain explained that tho third reason for fearing sharks was their ability to sense blood in the water from a groat distance. Most followers of the sea attribute this ability to the shark’s power of smell, but tho captain says he has proved this to bo wrong. He maintains that blood , sets up an oscillation or vibration that can travel against the current of water. As a test, some years ago he took two launches to a channel where thero was considerable current. Men in one boart throw out pieces of beef. When tho sharks came they identified tho markings on them. Then tho captain, in a launch some distance down tho current, chopped the heads off four chickens, and threw the blooding fowl into the water. Immediately sharks at tho upper launch started for the fowls. Men in the upper launchfollowed, and identified the sharks. I In spite of the number of sharks in' the Gulf Stream, the captain pointed i out that a person bathing on a Florida! beach was m no danger of molestation from them. On the other hand, persons bathing in summer on beaches of the north might bo attacked. His reason for this was that food was so plentiful in the Stream that sharks never came into shallow water, while in the north food was scarce, and sharkis did attack bathers.

“ I have never heard of anyone being attacked on Florida beaches by a shark, but I know of many cases whore bathers were bitten by barracuda, and were thought to have been attacked by sharks. Barracuda often attack bathers. Their backward-pointing teeth tear the flesh from the bone, but do not chop. They cripple, but do not kill like the sharks. They attack for lovo of battle rather than for food.”