Thoughtful Sharks
Long term study of the behaviour of individual sharks has shown that they are not just acting on instinct. Not only are they thinking and highly intelligent—they are conscious too. So as the Year of the Shark in 2019 begins , here is a review of how their actions reveal some of th eir mental states. Over a period of fifteen years, I searched out and observed the reef sharks on different islands in the South Pacific and for seven years studied the population of blackfins intensively as individuals. By recording their actions long-term, I was able to access a dimension of their lives that had not previously been documented. My records ultimately included 581 individuals and I could recognize 300 different sharks on sight. Shark science has studied these animals through fishing them, dissecting them, and tagging, never through long term underwater observation, even though this is the method, termed “ethology” used to study wild animals on land. I concluded that they were u