Ellen,

I agree 200% with what you said.

Here in Brazil there are at least 15 shark attacks in Recife every year.
100% of them to surfers (almost 90% of the cases) or to swimmers that go far
away the safe area. All attacks occur in a 10 - 20 mile strip of beaches. On
the other hand Recife is one of the main places to do wreck diving in
Brazil. Some people in Conch-L received some grit I collected in the wreck
of Pirapama. Even with all shark attacks being noticed every month in the
newspapers, nobody including me will loose a wreck dive there. There is NO
shark attack to divers in the very same area. Sometimes we can see sharks
during our dives and I bet they can know we are there even if we don't see
them. Nothing happens.

I believe that the majority of the animals only attack if they feel
threatened. If they can, they will run away or stay where they are. But...
if you try to collect a shell in a rock crevice... roll your dices and take
your chances... and don't blame if a moray eel bites you! ;-))

All the best,

Eduardo Moreira
Brasilia, Brazil



-----Mensagem original-----
De: Ellen Bulger [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Enviada em: Terça-feira, 21 de Setembro de 1999 13:34
Para: [log in to unmask]
Assunto: Re: [CONCH-L] Off Topic - sharks


I've missed all those television documentaries about harmless sharks. It
seems to me that every time the nature channels want to up their ratings,
they run a shark week. The narration may be about conservation, but the
music
is always a thumping ominous Jaws score and the footage tight shots of
gape-jawed great whites hurling themselves at boat transoms, shark cages and
hunks of bait. How better to handle sweeps week? It's like football and
boxing rolled into one.

If you often see sharks swimming along the beach and people are swimming
every day, isn't it likely that the sharks do not pose a serious risk?

I can't believe that shark attacks are routinely kept out of the papers. The
media loves mayhem. In the Keys, if a barracuda so much as takes someone's
toe, it's a headline. The story I remember from last year was about a nurse
shark that clamped itself to some kid's chest and wouldn't let go. They had
to cut the shark off in the emergency room. From what I understand, the kid
was molesting the animal. Nurse sharks aren't aggressive, but everyone has
their snapping point.

I don't suppose it's entirely fair to blame the boy. He may have been
misinformed. This spring I was on a dive boat out of Key West (Southpoint
Divers, if I remember right) and one of the dive masters said "The nurse
sharks around here are real friendly. If you see one, give it a pat."
Stupid,
stupid, stupid.

I'm have never been to the South Pacific, alas. The sharks there sound
feistier. But along the East Coast and in the Bahamas and Caribbean sharks
tend to leave you alone.

In New Haven, we have a health food store called "Edge of the Woods". It's a
nice shop, if a bit hippie-dippy. The bulletin boards are plastered with
animal rights notices and the merchandise is strictly vegetarian, with one
exception. They sell shark cartilage, lots and lots of shark cartilage.

I asked about this once, and the woman behind the counter told me that
sharks
were bad. Why, I wanted to know. She lived on Long Island Sound, by the
water, she said. So she knew sharks were dangerous.

I spent my childhood on the Sound without ever even hearing about a shark
attack, so I asked her to explain further. She described an incident in
which
she'd been swimming and had seen a shark. Did it attack her? Well, no. The
upshot was her fear became proof of the danger posed by the shark. Talk
about
guilty until proven innocent.

Too many people see animals through some sort of fairytale/ Disney filter,
as
good guys or bad guys. Fuzzy fur seal babies are innocent. Predators,
especially non-mammalian predators, become villains. This is not irrelevant
to Conch-Lers. If the public ain't sympathetic to sharks, you can't expect
them to be concerned with mere slimey little mollusca and their habitats.