The Value of Ethology

While I preferred to study sharks directly through underwater observation, shark researchers often choose tagging methods which allow them to gain certain types of data remotely. The advantages of this method are evident, but the loss of contact with the animal itself results in a dramatically impoverished understanding of them.

A good example is the recently announced study concluding that grey reef sharks swim at different depths depending on the phase of the moon. (link here)

No mention of the effect of the moon on the sharks' general behaviour or subjective states was mentioned. The trouble is that it was not just ignored, it was not even seen. So the study is a dismal, one dimensional report, that might as well refer to robots, for all the understanding it provides of sharks. The hype with which the “finding” was announced also failed to acknowledge the many others over time who have noted that sharks, like other animals, use both of this planet's sources of illumination. 

While the researchers conclude that they hope that this information will aid in conservation, it could very well be used to aid fishing and finning efforts, and in creating and magnifying the distance between animal and researcher, the study points to the worrying way in which animals in general, and sharks in particular, are objectified by science.

My reason for observing the local sharks underwater was to learn what they are like as animals and individuals. But pure research is not favoured by the scientific establishment, which directs the course of its own path through funding. The only reason that no one had established the gestation period of my subjects before me, for example, was the total lack of scientific interest in it.

By explaining the world from the perspective and to the advantage of its dominant groups, the scientific establishment can ignore the search for truth while furthering the dogma and so-called needs of the industrialized society. Attention is shifted away from the subject at hand, and interferes with its objective appraisal in a form of intellectual hypocrisy. In this case it is the diminution of the wild animal concerned that results—the diminution of sharks.

When I first began looking through the Internet for information on sharks, the entry of the word into any browser resulted in the word “attack” coming up. Now, the shark finning crisis has inspired many people to view sharks as victims which need to be saved. But are we closer to learning what these mysterious marine animals are actually like? I wonder. Not even the “JAWS” dogma has been left behind yet.

One of ethology’s major principles is to “know your animal,” by observing its behaviour closely over an extended period of time. That is why the ethological approach can be vital in providing complimentary information to the tagging studies so conveniently employed to the detriment of the search for understanding of the true nature of sharks.

For more information about what sharks are like, including detailed information about how the lunar cycle affects not only the short and long term roaming of sharks, but their subjective states and social lives, see “My Sunset Rendezvous : Crisis in Tahiti.”

STOP Shark Fins at the B C Coast : A Petition!

Sign now : http://www.thepetitionsite.com/681/363/318/block-shark-fins-at-the-bc-coast/

Given the decision by Canada's federal government to support the shark finning business by defeating Bill C-380, British Columbia must act at once to block shark fins from entering Canada via its west coast.

California, Oregon, and Washington states have already made it illegal to trade, possess, or distribute shark fins, leaving British Columbia as the only remaining entry point for shark fins on the west coast of North America.

Across the Pacific Ocean the sharks inhabiting vast archipelagoes of islands are being massacred to supply the voracious market for the costly party soup across North America.

By halting this province’s contribution to the crisis, we will broadcast the strong message that British Columbia refuses to play a role in driving so many species of sharks to extinction.

The facts :

• Shark fin soup is a vanity dish.
• The monetary value is so high that much of the trade is in criminal hands.
• The shark fin business shows no respect for other cultures, slaughtering sharks in incalculable numbers on the coast of every country with a tropical or temperate coastline, including countries in which sharks are held sacred, and regardless of legal protections.
• Threats, intimidation and murder, especially of journalists and researchers are commonplace in the business.
• In a protein starved world, the waste represented by cutting off only 3 percent of each of tens of millions of animals and discarding the rest, is indefensible.
• Every second at least three sharks are finned for shark fin soup.
• Between 63 and 273 million sharks slaughtered annually represents an unsustainable massacre that is driving one third of shark and ray species to extinction.
• The destruction of endangered species is unacceptable under any pretext.

An oceanic crisis has been precipitated by the shark finning business. Shark populations world-wide have plummeted by 90 percent, with some populations at 1% of pre-1985 levels. The decline is comparable to the loss of buffalo from the great plains two hundred years ago, but on a global scale. The elimination of the top predators from all oceans will ultimately be reflected in comparable ecological upheavals world-wide; some are already apparent.

So we respectfully ask Premier Christy Clark, in concert with the government of British Columbia, to take leadership in this crisis, and close the door. Please act swiftly to block shark fins from entering the continent via British Columbia, and declare a total ban on the importation, exportation, possession and trade of shark fins in the province.

Ila France Porcher

Open Letter to the B.C. Government

Sadly, the Government of Canada has voted to support the shark finning business. So I, and many other shark advocates in British Columbia are demanding a total ban on shark fins in the province. This is an open letter I have just sent to the members of the B.C. Government asking that they act swiftly to block shark fins at the B.C. coast.

Dear Honourable Members, 

Given the federal decision to support the shark finning business, we are writing to urge you and your government to ban the importation of shark fins into Canada via its west coast, and make it illegal to import, export, trade, possess or distribute shark fins. By halting this province’s contribution to the crisis, you will broadcast the strong message that British Columbia refuses to play a role in driving so many species of sharks to extinction.

The destruction of endangered species cannot be acceptable under any pretext. Further, in slaughtering sharks in incalculable numbers on the coast of every country with a tropical or temperate coastline regardless of legal protections, and including countries in which sharks are held sacred, the shark fin business shows a total lack of respect for other cultures. The monetary value is so high that much of the trade is in criminal hands, and has resulted in threats, intimidation and murder, especially of journalists and researchers.

Shark fin soup is a vanity dish: its cost is a supposed measure of the wealth of the buyer and his ostentatious largesse to give and receive honour, with its alleged magical properties an excuse for consumption. But in a protein starved world, the waste represented by cutting off only 3 percent of each of tens of millions of animals for consumption and discarding the rest, is indefensible. 

An oceanic crisis has been precipitated by this practice. Shark populations world-wide have plummeted by 90 percent, with some populations at 1% of pre-1985 levels. The decline is comparable to the loss of buffalo from the great plains two hundred years ago, but on a global scale. The elimination of the top predators from all oceans will ultimately be reflected in comparable ecological upheavals world-wide; some are already apparent.

Every second at least three sharks are finned for shark fin soup—the latest estimate is between 63 and 273 million sharks slaughtered annually, an unsustainable massacre that is driving one third of about one thousand shark and ray species into extinction.

In recognition of this immense problem, California, Oregon, and Washington states have made it illegal to trade, possess, or distribute shark fins. So we respectfully ask that you act swiftly to block shark fins from entering the continent via British Columbia, and declare a total ban on the importation, exportation,  possession and trade of shark fins in the province.

Please feel free to share and send it on!

Shark Fishing : Experiments in Mega Death || CITES grants sharks protection

Delegates at the CITES conservation meeting in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, have voted to extend protection under Appendix II  to all three species of hammerhead sharks, the porbeagle shark, the oceanic white tip shark, and manta rays. This represents a decisive step in the right direction in terms of limiting commercialization and trade of these hard pushed sharks and their relatives, the rays. 

When I discovered sharks in the South Pacific in the nineties, you could still meet white tipped oceanic sharks exploring outside the reef, and when I asked a dive master about them being finned, he said, so what? They are among the most abundant animals on the planet. Not any more. While I was there they vanished, and the dolphins and reef sharks once preyed upon by the oceanic sharks no longer appeared with shark-bite scars, and increased in number. And the reef sharks were fished beginning in 2003.  Those are the most remote islands in the pacific, so if the pelagic species are gone from there, they are likely not more numerous closer to the continents. Asian divers say it is hard to find sharks in Asia, there are problems with the finning of the sharks off Africa, and the same story is echoed around the globe by eye-witnesses on location. 

In the Mediterranean Sea, in the heart of Europe, scientific analysis of available data indicates that formerly common sharks have declined by 99.9 percent, and in other large oceanic regions such as the Gulf of Mexico, sharks have been depleted to a similarly tiny fraction of their pre-industrial level.

Looking out across the planet, the loss of sharks compares with the loss of buffalo from the American plains but on a global scale, a daunting loss of life that no one in their right mind would consider normal or sustainable. Imagine seeing only a few birds where once you saw clouds of birds filling the skies. That is the kind of loss the accessable free swimming species of sharks have experienced. 

Thank you to the delegates at CITES for taking this much needed step!

Blackfin Reef Shark Evacuation from Moorea Island, 2002

Blackfin reef sharks (Carcharhinus melanopterus) reside in the lagoons and on the outer slope of the barrier reefs of Moorea Island. This coral habitat is shallow enough to facilitate underwater observation of the species. Regular observation at different sites centering in the Vaihapu region (Galzin and Pointer 1985) yielded a large amount of data on their movements, ethology, and social biology between 1999 and 2007 (Porcher 2005). In 2002, all blackfin reef sharks under observation, not only by the author but also by the dive clubs holding shark dives, left the north shore of the island for a period of ten days to two weeks. This event suggests an unknown pattern or influence at work.

With the surprising new information from Johann Mourier, that these sharks easily travel between islands, I'm re-posting my account of their unexplained and unprecedented disappearance from Moorea Island in late July, 2002.

Johann began studying the same sharks that I observed, using far more high-tech methods, just as I was leaving the island, and has worked within the scientific community in French Polynesia to make sure that they stay protected, while unfolding many mysteries about these interesting sharks.

http://johannmourier.wordpress.com/

Recently he discovered that this apparently sedentary species actually swims easily to other islands! They seem content to stay in their favored region of the coral garden—most particularly the matronly lagoon females—but if an adult female goes to another island to birth, thereby returning to the place she originated, it follows that she must have initially changed islands when still a juvenile! 

I often noted surprising roaming patterns in the lagoon juveniles—they seemed to travel widely before settling down into a home range at the age of about four. And males disappearing for months at a time during the reproductive season could have been going much farther than I imagined. Then there is the remaining mystery of how such reef-loving sharks got to these islands in the first place, since they result from volcanic eruptions in the relatively recent geological past, and are so far from the continents. Johann's finding indicates that these reef sharks are quite capable of oceanic navigation and travel.

If you learn of a similar event, involving the temporary disappearance of a community of sharks from its ranges, I would be glad if you would contact me by e-mail. Thank you!

The Event :

On the evening of Saturday, July 20th, 2002, I found many visiting male blackfins in the lagoon, though it was not the reproductive season when they usually visited. The resident females were absent which was highly unusual, and so were nearly all the older juveniles. The small juveniles, including sharks less than one year old, who usually remained hidden in certain regions of thick coral, were absent that night.

One of the visiting males appeared highly agitated, twitching wildly with successive instantaneous directional changes throughout the period in which he was present, a behaviour pattern I had only noted before in sharks after being startled, and then normally in juveniles. I had never seen an adult shark behave like this for so long (20 minutes) and later associated the episode with the unique event which followed.

On July 23rd, 2002, the divers conducting daily shark dives outside the barrier reef, and the commercial tours holding shark feeding sessions in separated lagoons on the north shore of Moorea (see map), reported that no sharks had appeared that day, something that had never happened before. Only Phillipe Molle, of M.U.S.T. Dive Club, Maharepa, said that he had been holding shark dives for 17 years and on only one other occasion had no sharks attended, on the day before a hurricane struck the island. He was expecting bad weather, but none came.

No sharks were seen for the next five days, with the exception of two sightings of “small sharks” who passed in the distance and did not approach. Usually these shark dives were frequented by approximately twenty to thirty male blackfin reef sharks, who met dive boats at the site and swam without fear among the divers during the dive.

These were the only places on the island where the species was regularly observed, so the actual extent of the evacuation is unknown. 

The juvenile males began to reappear first. I identified one on July 28^th, and one resident female came back by herself to my study area on Tuesday, July 30^th. But the majority of lagoon residents, the females and many more juveniles, returned on Friday, August 2^nd. They appeared to be on the move, travelling swiftly along the lagoon from west to east, displaying no socializing behaviour nor casual circling. Many had their home ranges to the west, and within the next days most had settled back into their home ranges. Though a few more sharks returned later, the majority of the lagoon residents returned that evening, travelling swiftly together, widely spread out across the coral landscape.

By mid-August their behaviour and distribution was nearly back to normal, but a major disruption had occurred. In some parts of the lagoon, the pattern of sightings I had systematically recorded prior to the disappearance took months to re-establish itself. Some adult residents never returned, and a high fraction of the small juveniles I had identified as inhabiting the protected areas of thick coral, never returned.

The approximately 10 day evacuation involved the populations of C. melanopterus from at least two lagoons (separated by a wide, deep bay) who normally don't interact. Adult females and juveniles of all ages, as well as the entire population of males who live outside the barrier reef, left.

Discussion

Intensive investigation of the shark evacuation revealed no applicable reason for it. There was no sudden fishing effort that could have caused the sharks to flee, no pollution event, the weather was normal, the water temperature was normal, there were circle island tours moving around the island daily who reported nothing unusual, such as an incidental food source which could have attracted the sharks into the ocean. Such a food source would be visible from far away due to the vast muli-species congregation of seabirds which would be circling above it.  No other species appeared to be affected, though at that time of year I did not normally see nurse sharks, Nebrius ferrugineus., and reef white-tips, Triaenodon obesus, so regularly in the lagoon. I did not see any of these species of sharks while searching for C. melanopterus, but whether they had also evacuated was unverifiable. Female grey reef sharks, Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos appeared as usual, however, off the north-west corner of the island, which was the only dive site where they were regularly seen.

There were no military events in the area, and no earth tremors. On one of the days in which no sharks had been seen at any of the sites, humpback whales were resting in the bay with a group of spinner dolphins. Whatever had affected the sharks was not troubling the whales. Dr. Michael Poole, a marine biologist observing the whales and dolphins daily along the north shore, and frequently down the west coast and around the entire perimeter of the island, reported no change in the patterns of the movements of the marine mammals and nothing unusual in the ocean during this period.

The oceanic current does not move fast enough to explain the return of the sharks in such a short period if oceanic conditions were responsible for the evacuation (personal communication from Arthur A. Myrberg Jr.).

The occasional appearance of a juvenile shark on the limits of visibility could be a clue that the sharks were in deeper water. The reluctance to approach to eat is typical of a shark alone. It is possible that the larger sharks had gone much deeper for unknown reasons, while the juveniles preferred shallower water, so were the ones who came into visible range of divers at about 22 m in depth.

Though I contacted every elasmobranchologist I knew, posted an inquiry on the elasmo-list shark discussion board, and received many interested replies, no one reported having seen nor heard of any similar event, nor did anyone have a plausible explanation.

Professor Myrberg considered the evacuation to be in the category of things that cannot be explained at this time.

While the reason for the spontaneous evacuation of Carcharhinus melanopterus from the north shore of the island between July 23, and August 3, 2002, could not be explained, the one factor that suggested that it was a natural event was that it occurred during the period of the full moon, a time favoured by individuals for roaming.

References

Galzin R, Pointer JP (1985) Moorea Island, Society Archipelago. In: B Delesalle, R Galzin & B. Salvat (Eds). 5th International Coral Reef Congress, Tahiti, 27 May to 1 June 1985. Volume I: French Polynesian Coral Reefs: 73-102
Porcher IF (2005) On the gestation period of the blackfin reef shark, Carcharhinus melanopterus, in waters off Moorea, French Polynesia. Mar Bio 146: 1207-1211

see also : Mourier, J. & Planes, S. (2013). Direct genetic evidence for reproductive philopatry and associated fine-scale migrations in female blacktip reef sharks (Carcharhinus melanopterus) in French Polynesia. Molecular Ecology 22 (1): 201-214.

When Sharks Really Attack!

The subject of sharks is usually approached either from the perspective of shark fishing, or shark diving, both of which also link into shark attack mania for different reasons. Due to finding myself in a particular situation, observing sharks and being with favoured individuals day to day for many years, my approach was entirely different, being that simply of one creature seeking contact with a community of another species. Sharks treated me as they would another shark, so I was witness to their intimate social and emotional behaviour. Thus what I have reported on the subject of sharks attacking is different. 

So saying, here is the link to the article X-ray magazine has published in its latest edition. It is illustrated with my paintings. 

http://www.xray-mag.com/content/when-sharks-really-attack

I hope you will find it interesting as well as exciting! 

The Spirit of a Shark

Richard Ellis's epic SHARK Exhibition at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which opened last May, has shown again the power of art to move people, and I am deeply pleased and grateful that my own shark story, along with four paintings, was included.

I began to paint sharks when I first encountered shark finning in 1994, when a ship full of shark fins docked in the port of Papeete. As a result of that experience, I went looking for sharks, tried to get to know them as animals and individuals, and began painting them as a way of encouraging others to appreciate and protect them.

What struck me spellbound about them from the first, was the way they would come and look. Those moments when a shark came to gaze straight back from just inches away stretched out for a very long time, and were nothing like the moments of eye-contact shared with other people or mammals. Sharks are different.

The shark's gaze conveys a spirit of considerable power which I tried repeatedly to capture in my paintings.

This rendering of Emma, the beloved elderly lady tiger shark of Tiger Beach in the Bahamas is an example. I was taken to see her by Jim Abernethy, who is a kindred spirit in shark appreciation and protection. The powerful bond between Jim and Emma was clear to see as she swam up to him repeatedly to be stroked, and opened her mouth so he could check her latest hook wound—he had removed more than three hooks from her mouth during their ten year friendship. Her trusting and familiar behaviour with him was unexpected in a fourteen foot tiger shark, and illustrated the strength of the human-to-shark bond that the two shared.

It was the first such bond I had seen subsequent to the companionships I developed with the Tahitian sharks during my quest to know them, which I shared in my book, “My Sunset Rendezvous : Crisis in Tahiti,” after nearly the entire community was finned.

GHOST . . .

One enigmatic shark I knew cruised endlessly, sensed rather than seen as he passed time after time through the vicinity. How often did I believe that he had gone, only to find him close behind me twenty minutes later, a ghost floating almost still in the cloudy light. 

I painted this in memory of those moments one reflective afternoon, years after he was finned. It is entitled "GHOST."  

Shark Week -- Demonizing Sharks for Profits

Since 1987, Discovery Channel, owned by Discovery Communications, has presented 'Shark Week' each summer. The week long series of shows promotes these endangered marine animals as man eating monsters, facilitating their mass slaughter with almost no public sympathy, nor protest.

The company has so effectively convinced their millions of viewers that sharks deserve to be hated, that many people think that sharks should be hunted to extinction. It has created a wave of fear of the sea, in people who grew up watching Shark Week.

Discovery executives know exactly what they are doing, and call it 'shark pornography,' while they rake in billions of dollars. They excuse themselves by claiming they are only giving the public what it wants, but the public's love of horror shows has nothing to do with Discovery's responsibility for having made sharks the subject of that horror. 

Through their dishonest use of sharks for profit in horror shows, Discovery is responsible for erecting a virtually impenetrable barrier to the protection of sharks from being massacred to extinction.

Until recently, even the dangers to sharks from overfishing was covered up by Discovery, because they considered conservation to be an unpopular subject.

Scientists who's work has been used for Discovery's Shark Week have found it twisted and misrepresented by the company. Shark Week is nothing more than tabloid journalism, and does not reflect modern scientific knowledge.

A Film by Shanon Sparks

While speaking on shark cognition during a tour in Florida, I was called the Jane Goodall of sharks because of the close bonds I formed with the local sharks in Tahiti. Accepted into their community, I documented their intimate behavior over many years before they were finned by a company from Singapore, for the shark fin soup market.

So when Shanon Sparks, who interviewed me for her film about shark intelligence, made a video clip about my book, she entitled it "The Jane Goodall of Sharks"

Oceana Fights for its Credibility

The giant NGO, Oceana, recently sent out a petition to thousands of its trusting members, charging Mr. Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba.com, with "profiting from the deaths of threatened manta rays". This astonishing move immediately caught the attention of those of us who know him to be one of China's most enlightened businessmen, who refuses to support the traffic in shark fins and threatened wild animals, and who serves on the global Board of Directors of The Nature Conservancy.

The entire affair has already been brilliantly documented by Wolfgang Leander, here :

OceanicDreams: Alibaba - here is the good news.

And by Mike Newmann here :
 http://fijisharkdiving.blogspot.com/2012/03/oceana.html 

The man that Oceana has vilified is actually a highly illumined Chinese leader, and a clairvoyant businessman. 

From Wikipedia : 

"On November 6, 2007, at a press conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Hong Kong, called to discuss the highly successful Hong Kong Stock Exchange IPO, when asked whether Alibaba.com was an ethical trading company, Ma responded by announcing to the assembled journalists - and reiterating when queried - that he and his family have "sworn off Shark Fin Soup now and forever" (echoing elite basketballer Yao Ming's famous declaration, which angered Guangzhou's fin traders), which he said was a result of finding out what the problems are. In January 2009, Alibaba Group revised its listing policy and banned the sale of shark fin products on all of its e-commerce platforms."

Mr. Jack Ma has not only been widely acknowledged for his leadership and influence in China, but also in the west, where he is considered one of the "25 Most Powerful Business People in Asia" by Fortune, one of "China's Most Powerful People" by Businessweek, and one of the 30 "World's Best CEOs" by Barron's. Time magazine honoured him with inclusion into the "Time 100 list" of the world's 100 most influential people.

Yet this is the man Oceana chose to vilify, by deliberately connecting his name with the criminal racketeering in manta ray parts. 

Jack Ma, and people like him who always make the moral choice, should be acknowledged and thanked, particularly in such a sensitive context as the Asian market for shark fins. He and his company, Alibaba, have become a beacon of hope to us who have had faith all along that if the Chinese people only learned the truth about shark finning, they would change the recipe for their special soup.

I, among many other shark advocates who were shocked by Oceana's ignorance and coarse behaviour, am waiting to see a humble public apology go out from Oceana to Mr. Jack Ma, in the wake of their unseemly petition.

Thoughtful Sharks : Eye Gaze

This series of postings entitled “Thoughtful Sharks,” which begins below, introduces cognition by first establishing that sharks know each other as individuals.

Recognition of others as individuals has long been established in fish and sharks, and is necessary for the complex social lives in which cognition is most evident.

The next posting in the series moved into the subject of self awareness. As well as knowing others, sharks demonstrate by their actions that they recognize themselves as being separate from others and observable. To this degree they are self aware.

This follow-up shows these qualities in their behaviour through their spontaneous gestures toward divers. They are interested in others and show curiosity toward other members of their submarine community, including divers who visit them, and who show interest in them. The interest is returned.

Thus it is possible through photos to capture the eye to eye gaze of these mysterious creatures of the deep, when for just few moments of their day, they meet us.

The Greeting Gesture

The photo shows one of my shark companions coming to greet me when she found me in the lagoon. She looks at me with first one eye and then the other as she approaches with her gently undulating movement.

She nearly touches my face with her's, then turns to swim away at an angle over my shoulder.

She looks back

I gave her a treat after she had followed me for a long time, and snapped a photo as she accelerated away shaking her scrap. If you look closely, you can see her right eye looking back at me. Sharks, like horses, can look straight behind them as well as in front due to their serpentine motion.

Tiger sharks do this too.

This tiger shark had come over to look at me and when she left, she turned and glanced at me behind her, with one eye after another.

Here a tiger shark had come to see me, then swam away and suddenly turned back.

She swam straight back to me,

And came much closer to look again

This curiosity seemed to be associated with the shark's interest in the other large animals in the region. Her focus on my eyes is typical of all of the close approaches of this sort by sharks that I have witnessed.

I have often come across statements by people, especially fishermen, who were approached by a shark in this way, that the shark was "attacking," or "would have attacked" had the shark not been shot or blown up with a power head, or something like that. But the real reason for these close approaches is the natural, social curiosity of this intelligent animal.

Bull sharks will come for a look, too.

So will Caribean reef sharks

And Lemon Sharks

If so many different species of shark will do this, the behaviour pattern is likely wide-spread among them. Curiosity that is not based on a biological need is a sign of intelligence, and in this case is apparently linked to a wish to socialize. In each case the approaching shark looked at me (or any object of interest) with one eye first, then on the next undulation, the other.

A powerful communication passes through a shared gaze in eye contact, and it seems important to sharks,  given this common behaviour with divers, as well as to us mammals.

Thoughtful Sharks : Self Awareness

As described in my former posting (below), the blackfin reef sharks (Carcharhinus melanopterus) I was able to study closely for many years, demonstrate that they know each other as individuals in a variety of ways, one of which is their tendency to travel with a preferred companion. This pattern of swimming with a companion may have facilitated their acceptance of me, permitting me to swim over long periods of time with different individuals and learn where they went and how they passed their days.

They spend much of their time in home ranges, familiar regions where they prefer to be. Such areas are not defended in the way that territories are, so sharks with overlapping home ranges know each other. When they travel, they often go with one or more of these “neighbours”. They follow circular paths hundreds of feet across, oriented in different directions so that from above, their path has the shape of figure eights or cloverleafs. Following such circling pathways, they repeatedly cross each others' scent trails and thus remain in loose contact while moving together, yet they are rarely within visual range of each other.

It became apparent through a variety of types of observations, that these sharks are accustomed to being in contact with others while remaining out of visual range.

Further, in a variety of situations they hid behind the limits of visibility to observe something without showing themselves. Sometimes, they came into view for a brief look, but other times they were capable of staying hidden for long periods, waiting, while I thought that they had left the area.

One illustration of this unexpected behaviour occurred during a period in which I was medicating a sick shark. Night after night I waited for him, holding his medicated food out of the water while encircled by a whirlwind of healthier sharks who wanted to get the treat instead. Each night I had to think up some new tactic to get the medicine to the sick one, because the others always seemed to be one step ahead of me.

Some of the sharks waited beyond visual range for me to throw the food, then zoomed in at top speed and snatched it the moment they heard it splash into the water, before the sick shark, or any others present, noticed what I had done.

Their actions indicate that they were concentrating on (observing) what I was doing from beyond the visual limit, and waiting in expectation for a signal that they knew. They were holding a mental representation of the signal in mind, with the intention of acting when it came.

On some days I travelled a long way looking for the sick shark. The rest of the group of fifteen to thirty sharks followed, remaining out of visual range until the right moment.

One juvenile shark always followed me from the moment I arrived in the lagoon until the moment I left, showing herself only about four times in the two hours I usually spent there, though I could check on her continuing presence beyond the veiling light, by ceasing to swim ahead, and waiting.

The sharks I knew always came straight up to my face when they saw me, in an apparent greeting gesture, while shy strangers waited out of sight, only briefly passing into view from time to time until they felt confident enough for closer approaches. Sometimes a shy shark would suddenly come from behind me for a close look. If I looked above the surface, that was when a curious shark would come up to me for a look or a sniff. They clearly used the knowledge of whether I could see them at a given moment opportunistically.

Once a lemon shark came early to a stormy evening session with my sharks, in which I was obliged to cling to my kayak to remain stable in the torrential current. He came and went as if I weren’t there, and it was easy to imagine that he had not seen me. He had been out of sight for fifteen minutes when I drifted away from the boat, whereon he immediately appeared, passing just within visible range to investigate the kayak. He had been aware of me, and keeping track of my location; he came to investigate my kayak as soon as he could do so while remaining out of sight.

Sharks are self-aware to the degree of being aware of being present and observable. Since any animal is a self-serving entity, seeking food for the self, protecting the self, saving the self, and so forth, it is logical that to be aware of the self, as distinct from others and the environment, would result in survival benefits. Thus, evolution, through natural selection, must favour self-awareness.

Much of our train of thought is automatic. We tend to think all the time, just as our hearts beat all the time. The predominant nature of thought in our subjective experience suggests that its roots are deep in our nervous system, and argues against the position that thinking is a recent evolutionary development. The way this automatic flow of thought tends to centre on the interests of the self, further supports the hypothesis that self-awareness and self-interest were selected for, and are likely primary in other species as well.

The originator of the scientific field of cognitive ethology, Donald R. Griffin (Animal Minds 2001), argued that when an animal hid itself from human view, it was demonstrating its awareness of itself.

He described how Lance A. Olsen had reported that grizzly bears sought places from which they could watch hunters while remaining hidden. Other observers had reported that bears tried to avoid leaving tracks. The researchers concluded that these bears were aware of being present and observable as well as creating effects―their tracks―through their movements, which could be seen by others.

The sharks’ habitual way of remaining concealed behind the veiling light until an opportunistic moment, or approaching from behind to avoid being seen, is in the same category.

(c) Ila France Porcher

Thoughtful Sharks : Knowing Others as Individuals

In Tahiti, I observed the reef sharks inhabiting the nearby lagoon. They soon accepted me into their community, and by noting the behaviour of each individual in a variety of situations over a period of many years, I found an unknown dimension of their lives, never before observed or documented. This included much evidence that the sharks were using cognition, or thinking, in their daily activities, rather than the automatic stimulus/response reactions that had been assumed to control their behaviour.

To illustrate the difference between automatic behaviour and cognition, consider a calculation. The act of calculating, which is so easily and swiftly accomplished by computers, is analogous to automatic behaviour. But understanding the reason for the computation requires cognition, which the computer will never achieve.

Various domains of science use different definitions of cognition, but for me as an ethologist, the most straightforward definition is : the purposeful manipulation of mental representations. (For more information, see the section on cognition on my website at: www.theplayoflife.org or the chapter "More on Thinking in Animals" in my book.)


Recognition of others as individuals has long been established in fish and sharks, and is necessary for the complex social lives in which cognition is most evident.

In the sharks I observed, the tendency of the blackfin reef sharks (Carcharhinus melanopterus) to travel with favoured companions, was one indication that they knew each other as individuals. An unusual and telling example involved the visits of two elderly female companions to my study area each year for four years, during the dark of the moon at the end of April, and at no other time. They came together and left together, and I never learned where they came from, so it must have been very far away. For the last two years they were accompanied by a third elderly shark whose home range was about two kilometers farther along the lagoon. Unlike them, she returned every few months after her initial visit to the region.

I documented many other companionships, showing that both female sharks and the males, who lived in the ocean beyond the lagoon, had favoured companions of the same gender. Each individual was different. Some sharks often travelled alone, and others changed companions relatively frequently. Often, companions were joined temporarily by residents of the regions through which they travelled.

One shark who tended to be a loner, joined two companions whose home ranges over-lapped hers, when the three ventured into a new, and possibly uncertain, situation. They approached in triangular formation, the loner taking the position in front of the companions, who followed swimming side by side, equidistant from her and from each other. I saw the same three sharks take this formation on several occasions over the years, always in new circumstances.

Observations that at least some species of sharks and rays choose which members of the opposite gender with whom they wish to mate, provides further evidence that they know each other as individuals.

All fishes have elaborate forebrains, and the degree of forebrain development has been correlated with social behaviour and communication, abilities which are integrated with cognition. Fish continue to develop neurons throughout their lives and do so at a faster rate in a stimulating environment, indicating a link between experience and neural development. Studies indicate that the ratio of brain to body size in sharks overlaps that of mammals and birds, and learning is considered to play an important role in their lives.

Memories are invoked in learning, and the memories of facts that are available for mental reference are called declarative memories, indicating consciousness. Several researchers have concluded that learning in fish calls on declarative memories and that fish are conscious animals.

That a particular shark will seek out and return to just one other shark in its travels, among all of the sharks present, is one example of a situation in which the animal is referencing declarative memories—the memories of the companion. I have seen a visiting shark arrive with its companion, in a place where many other sharks were circling, and swim nose to tail, or in parallel with, one shark after another, socializing over long periods before rejoining the companion with which it had arrived.

But my observations were cut short when the population was finned for the shark fin soup market. While they were being massacred, I wrote down their story so that the world would find out what they were like and what happened. The exciting story of this mysterious community beneath the sea, that was terminated by a shark finning company from Singapore, is recorded in my book: "My Sunset Rendezvous : Crisis in Tahiti."

The sharks' capacity to think and feel provides another crucial reason to save them from extinction, as well as their importance ecologically.  Knowing of their cognitive abilities, shark behaviour will never seem the same again, and the world-wide, barbaric massacre of sharks for the profit brought in by just their fins, becomes even more tragic. 

©  Ila France Porcher
author of "My Sunset Rendezvous : Crisis in Tahiti"

References :
Bshary R, Wickler W, Fricke H (2002) Fish cognition: a primate's eye view. Animal Cognition (2002) 5 : 1-13
Butler, Ann B. and William Hodos (1996) Comparative Vertebrate Neuroanatomy: Evolution and Adaptation. New York: Wiley-Liss, 514 pp
Chandroo KP, Yue S, and Mocci RD (2004) An evaluation of current perspectives on consciousness and pain in fishes. Fish and Fisheries 5. 281-295
Gödel, K. 1931 “Über formal unentscheidebarre Sätze der Principia Mathamtica und verwandler System I” Monathshefte für Mathematik und Physik , 38 pp. 173-198
Gruber, S.H. and Myrberg, A.A. 1977. Approaches to Study of Behavior of Sharks. American Zoologist 17, 471-486.
Guttridge, T. L., Myrberg, A. A., Porcher, I. F., Sims, D. W. and Krause, J. (2009), The role of learning in shark behaviour. Fish and Fisheries, 10:450–469.
Kotrschal K, Van Staaden M. J. Huber R. (1998), Fish brains : evolution and environmental relationships. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 8, 373-408
Lovibond PF, Shanks DR (2002) The role of awareness in Pavlovian conditioning: empirical evidence and theoretical implication. Journal of Experimental Psychology 28 3-26
Overmier JB, Hollis KL (1990) Fish in the think tank: learning, memory, and integrated behaviour. Neurobiology of Comparative Cognition (eds Kesner RP, Olson DS), Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsday, NJ. pp. 205-236
Penrose, R, (1990) The Emperor's New Mind. Oxford University Press
Maren S (2001) Neurobiology of Pavlovian fear conditioning. Annual Review of Neuroscience 24. 897-931
Northcutt, RG. 1977. Elasmobranch Central Nervous-System Organization and Its Possible Evolutionary Significance. American Zoologist 17, 411-429.

Channel Twelve News on CBS

Due to the urgent need to save sharks from extinction, CBS here in Florida aired an interview with me on the subject.

You can see it on my website at :

http://www.theplayoflife.org/

Just click on the menu bar on the left hand side labelled "My Sunset Rendezvous" and you will see the link on the right.

Ode to Madonna

Shark Savers picked up my post in Memory of Madonna, for all of the sharks being finned, and published it at:

http://www.sharksavers.org/en/blogs/communityblog/741-in-memoriam-to-finned-sharks.html

Ode to Madonna

Hello All,

"Ode to Madonna" was written during the period in which I was waiting for the sharks of Polynesia to be protected by law. I had to wait a long time. 

Here in Florida giving presentations about them -- so that the world will find out, what they were like and what happened to them -- I arrive home remembering, and mourning again, Madonna.

Since this was posted so very long ago, I decided tonight to post it again for those who didn't see it the first time, in honour not just of Madonna, but all of the sharks who are being yanked brutally onto ships, having their tails and fins sliced off, and thown roughly back into the ocean, to face the end of everything they have known, as consciousness fades and they sink, sink, and writhing, sink into the abyss.

Ode to Madonna

"In just the last couple of months, waiting for the law to be passed to protect the sharks, the last of the older, mature females I first met some years ago have vanished from my part of the lagoon. This includes my number one shark, Madonna.

Madonna was the first shark to meet my kayak when I arrived in the lagoon in the mornings. She was nearly six feet long, steel grey, and heavily built. When I dove down and swam to her, she would come to me and look into my mask.

Meeting her by chance in the lagoon, she would swim to me when I called her, and circle, spiralling toward me til she was within arms' reach. But she did not like me to swim with her. She would set off on a sinuous path, and when I followed, she would come back, often turn sideways, accelerate and stop, or just vanish into the blue, but usually not before we had gone to meet up with one or two of her friends. Never could I detect the slightest sign between them as they passed, but I didn't think it could be chance that we had met up with them, knowing that they were her friends.

Beautiful Madonna was not one of our brightest lights. When I brought a treat for her, as I always did when she returned to her home range after breeding or birthing, I would sometimes have to throw it for her time after time before she could locate it, and often one of her friends would coil through the water to snatch it the moment it left my hand, a trick poor Madonna could never manage. Once I spent 45 minutes in terrible current just trying to get her treat to her.

Nevertheless, she would hopefully come to me for a bite. When I had nothing, and was actually promenading in the lagoon with her friend Martha, she would come charging in. I would fin backward, till we were swimming nose to nose, me on my back and her on top of me, while Martha circled us, watching. Madonna would finally give up when she realized I had nothing with me, and me and Martha would go on alone.

Madonna did this once when it was almost too dark to see, having arrived with a group of rather macho males from the ocean. She behaved as if she were starving to death, having just had her babies. When she soared up to my face all her companions did too, and while I could guide her around me with my hand, I didn't have enough hands to push away half a dozen sharks at once, and didn't want to be rammed by the strangers or have my mask knocked off in the dark.

Feeling sorry for my poor shark, who did look awfully emaciated after birthing, I returned as soon as conditions permitted, and trailed scent through her home range, followed by a tiny juvenile who always followed me, just out of sight, at that time. Finally, Madonna glided in, the juvenile now flitting excitedly at her side, apparently more confident in the presence of the big shark.

As she circled, I tossed the food so it fell to the side of her swimway, and saw her target it, but she slowed, allowing the excited juvenile to get it first. Luckily I had brought enough for both. 

I spent so much time with Madonna, I can remember every gesture, every movement she would make in different moods.

We all read all the time about thousands of sharks being finned all over the world, but when the sharks meeting this shocking end are ones you have come to know, and with whom you have spent time for many years, sharks of whom you have grown fond, the psychological effect is more intense.

Just as it is disturbing to read in the paper that some dogs elsewhere were poisoned -- but if it is your dogs who were poisoned and died, you reel."

Ila

Press Release

May 3, 2011

Author and shark behavior researcher 

visits South Florida

Ila France Porcher, researcher of wild shark behavior, and author of "My Sunset Rendezvous," is in South Florida this month giving a series of informative presentations on the intelligence and social behavior of sharks. Her talk shares the excitement of her unique method of finding things out about sharks, which are often killed for science and studied dead.

From 1995 until 2009 she established never before achieved intimacy with the reef sharks that inhabited the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia.

During this intensive ethological study, she made some intriguing discoveries and had many strange and startling experiences. When the Internet became available, she began to connect with other scientists across the world, comparing her observations, while accumulating evidence about sharks that transcends common beliefs. Her book is the story of this study, set in the framework of life in the islands, and the shocking aftermath.

She and the late Professor Arthur A. Myrberg Jr., formerly of the University of Miami, found evidence of cognition (thinking) in sharks, and the degree to which they are social creatures.

Contacted by the BBC as a result of this work, she contributed her findings on shark cognition and social intelligence to the widely seen documentary “Sharks: Size Matters” for Discovery Channel’s "Shark Week."

In "My Sunset Rendezvous," the author takes you with her into increasing intimacy with each of the reef sharks, where new discoveries are laid out for the finding in the alien beauty of a coral lagoon. Her thrilling true story takes place underwater and the characters are the sharks, each identified by its unique appearance and markings. Learning about these fascinating creatures of the deep has become a memoir of a different kind in this remarkable account.

She hopes that animal lovers who had not considered sharks before, will finally appreciate the true nature of this misunderstood class of animals that is worth protecting from extinction due to overfishing.

New Zealand filmmaker Alan Baddock said of her book: “Your clarity of intent is stunning and beautiful. As a wordsmith, I recognise and acknowledge rare mastery. As a traveller who has picked up and cast aside the best of world literature in a thousand hostelries on half a dozen continents and countless islands, I recognise a book I would share with people I considered friends … Three chapters into a subject I am not especially interested in, I am waiting with a low, gnawing hunger for more. That alone tells me I have found something special.”

Porcher's calendar of events is swiftly filling, so if you would like to have her speak to your group or organization, or interview her, please contact her at: ilafranceporcher@gmail.com or 561 840 6571.

Notes to the editor:

For further information about Ila France Porcher's work, see her website at www.theplayof life.org. Click on "My Sunset Rendezvous" on the left-hand menu on the first page to hear her radio interview -- orange button at the top of the page -- which shows her abilities as a compelling speaker.

Ila France Porcher is known for her shark activism, her wildlife art, her new discoveries that illustrate the little-known intelligence and gentler nature of sharks, and for her articles on animal intelligence and cognition.

She was a driving force behind the "Year of the Shark" project in 2009, which used the power of internet to generate many new projects for shark protection globally. It resulted in a powerful grass roots movement for shark protection that is still expanding.

She published an article in the scientific journal "Marine Biology" describing the reproductive cycle of C. melanopterus and was commended by the reviewers on finding a way of studying sharks without killing them, which was said to be as important as the discovery of their gestation period.

The contact number for Ila France Porcher is : 561 840 6571