NATURAL HISTORY NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23707, 14 January 1939, Page 2

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES

Written for the Otago Daily Times By David H. Graham SHARKS Time and time again I have been asked as to whether all sharks will attack and devour human beings. It is a question that has been much debated by fishermen, sailors, and swimmers from many parts of the world. It is a popular fallacy that all fierce-looking sharks are “maneaters,” but as a matter of fact few can be definitely proved guilty of this practice. It is true that authentic cases are on record in which a large Man-eater or Blue shark has attacked and even killed a man, but it is fairly certain that this was because ne happened to be handy, as it were, and the shark more than usually hungry. The common statement that a man’s leg was bitten off by a shark “ as though it were a carrot,” betrays a complete ignorance of the strength of the apparatus required to perform such an amputation, states a Dr Lucas, who follows up these remarks with the following suggestion, “ The next time the reader carves a leg of lamb, let him speculate on the power required to sever this at one stroke—and the bones of a lamb are much lighter than those of a man.” Statements that men have been cut in two “ at a single bite ” are equally absurd.

Most sharks eat only living food, but not a few will turn scavenger at times, often following a ship for days in the hope of food being thrown overboard. Human corpses which have been partially eaten by sharks after death must be responsible for many of the tales of men killed by these creatures. There is a prevalent impression that sharks will not attack black coloured races. This idea may have gained ground by the common practice of black or coloured native boys diving for pennies in shark infested waters when passenger boats lie at anchor. Unfortunately there ’is no truth in this story, for some species of sharks will and all too frequently attack Australian aboriginal divers. In 1933 a Torres Strait islander was badly mauled by a shark; in 1934 a New Guinea diver lost his life from the same cause, and in 1935 four Island divers were attacked, but three of them fortunately recovered. The greatest of all recorded shark attacks occurred in 1914, when a Thursday Island native, known familiarly at “ Treacle ” or “ Teapot,” suddenly found his head inside a shark’s jaw; its teeth gripped him tightly round the neck and caused a terrible wound, but apparently as the shark opened, his mouth to gulp him, he pulled his head away, and, swimming frantically, effected his escape. He was rushed to hospital, where he remained for a month under treatment, and eventually recovered. A photograph of the native taken while he was convalescing in the hospital shows prominently the scars on his neck left by the shark’s great teeth

Records of a shark in New Zealand waters molesting a human being must be very rare, even though our coasts possess many species of sharks, but as far I know not the dreaded grey nurse, though fishermen have told me that they have seen odd ones far off land. It is quite possible that the supposed grey nurse shark was nothing else than a specimen of the Great Whaler shark, which might easily be mistaken for the former and which grows up to a length of lift and is frequently caught in the Auckland Harbour. Most sharks are arrant cowards, and as a rule will fight shy of bathers and prefer deeper water where their food is abundant to moving around among people swimming and splashing about and kicking up a noise. All sharks are predacious, and, although most of them feed on fishes, some feed on a more mixed diet, including a large proportion of crabs. Most sharks appear to chase and seize their prey as occasion offers, and in a more or less haphazard manner, but some, like the thresher, employ more systematic methods. These sharks frequently feed on pilchards and sprats, which move in shoals, and swimming round and round a shoal of these fishes they thresh the water with their tails, and, thus driving them into a compact mass, they find them an easy prey. Thresher sharks feeding in this manner have been described as “ throwing the fish into their mouths with their tails.”

The most dangerous shark in Australian waters is the grey nurse, which is so well known in and around Sydney beaches, and every year takes toll of bathers who will insist in swimming beyond the breakers. An unusual feature of the predations of the grey nurse shark in Australia is that it does not attempt to bite human beings other than in and around Sydney’s beaches, being unknown in Queensland waters., where bathers do not even consider the possibility of an attack. Long line fishermen of Otago often report the depredations of sharks while fishing in deep water at the North Reef, and frequent instances are on record where large groper are hooked and on their being hauled to the surface, a shark has appeared “ out of the blue ” and with one gulp has taken everything but the head, which has been severed as clean as if cut with a knife. This brings us to the old-time theory that a shark turns on its back or side when opening its mouth to seize an object. This is contrary to popular belief, and all sharks are known to dash straight forward at immense speed, the nose rises just before "Striking, disclosing the teeth fully bared, gulping their prey without turning and continuing on again with dorsal fin above the water as before striking. On one occasion a picture was shown on the screen and described as a “ true and remarkable feat.” It showed a man fighting a shark in the water—one arm was completely round it, the other upraised, hplding a knife as if about to plunge it into the creature. To the layman and ordinary observer, it was a wonderful and thrilling picture, but strangely enough in the shark, although it appeared upright in the water, there was no vestige of a dorsal fin—an excellent example of how the public are fooled The writer possesses many shark stories, but the most incredible one, yet given as authentic and which can be verified, is as follows: “In the 18th century an American privateer was chased by a British man-of-war in the Caribbean Sea, and finding escape impossible, the Yankee skipper threw his ship's papers overboard. The privateer was captured and taken into Port Royal, Jamaica, the captain was there placed on trial for his life, for violation of the Navigation Laws. As there was no documentary evidence against him he was about to be discharged when another vessel arrived in port. The captain of this cruiser reported that when off the coast of Haiti a shark had been captured, and when opened

the privateer's papers had been found in the stomach. The papers thus marvellously recovered were taken into court, and solely on the evidence which they afforded the captain and crew of the privateer were condemned The original papers were preserved and are now on exhibition in the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston, where the “ shark’s papers" as they were called, have always been an object of great interest. The French name for a shark is requin, a derivative from the Latin requiem, so named from a significant fact; if a man falls into the sea in the presence of sharks, his comrades at once begin tlie requiem, or recite prayers for the dead.