Shark Words

Once again, Discovery Channel has followed its tried and true formula of using sharks to generate millions of dollars, by presenting them as monsters just waiting to get their teeth into the viewers.  Discovery's angle seems to hinge on the fear people have of the unknown, and especially the unknown in the water where they swim. Shark Week has been so good at tweaking and magnifying this fear, that generations of viewers who grew up watching the show are afraid to go in the water. Yet, all over the world wild sharks are welcome visitors during shark dives. How is this possible, without the divers being torn apart? I asked divers to describe what they felt on finding themselves deep in the sea, surrounded by sharks, and they used similar words to describe their feelings. In every case, they spoke of being thrilled by the experience. Not frightened. Many expressed having a transcendent experience on meeting sharks for the first time, saying that nothing had prepared t...

With the second edition of my book, The Shark Sessions in pre-release mode, I got busy and put a website online. It gives some more information about how I began writing about animal behaviour, and the strange true story of the lost sharks that drives my efforts to protect the ones that remain from extinction.  I began writing about wild animal intelligence and cognition after getting to know sharks, of all animals. Not expecting to see much of interest in  such an ancient line of animals,  after years of observing bears, raccoons, cougars, and the other large mammals of North America, I was intrigued to find strong signs that sharks were using cognition in their daily lives, and were more alert and quick thinking than people. Faced with an unanticipated richness of community into which the sharks had accepted me, I hung out with them for years, writing down everything that they did, everything that happened. It was ...

More and more divers are meeting sharks for the first time, and wondering, “What do they see when they pass, gazing at us gazing at them?” Sharks have a very different set of senses than we do, yet the eye-sight of the free swimming species is good, so passing sharks who have approached to look at you, are really seeing you. But you may have the impression that they are using senses other than their eyes most often, and indeed, apart from our shared good eye-sight, it is impossible for us to imagine how sharks experience their liquid realm. Sound and vibration are very important to them. Sound travels far in water, spreading out in a uniform spherical pattern, and sharks hear well. They are particularly sensitive to low-frequency vibrations, such as those caused by movement in the water, and crashing waves. And they can detect pressure waves with the sense organ called the lateral line. The lateral line is found in fish, sharks, and some amphibians, and is made up of a series of r...

Extinction Soup is the inspired name of a new, dramatic film on the shark finning crisis, which Hawaiian film maker, shark diver, and advocate, Stefanie Brendl is spearheading. Philip Waller is the writer, producer and director, Sidney Sherman is the producer, and Travis Aaron Wade is the co-producer. The film is expected to be released in early 2014. For more information, have a look at their site. http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/extinction-soup All support is much appreciated, and there are lots of perks for those who donate something to this important project. Congratulations Stefanie! Good on you all for creating this fantastic work on behalf of sharks!

Fisherman James D. Rose claims that fish can't feel pain. He has published a paper stating that the neocortex, the outer folded layer of the brain that is so highly developed in humans, is the seat of all higher mental functions, including consciousness of pain. Therefore, the neurological machinery required to feel pain is missing in a fish, and indeed, is present only in humans and apes. But, in focusing on a comparison of the human brain with the fish brain alone, Rose's article seems biased and anthropocentric. Rose did not give a reason for his assertion that consciousness depends, alone, on the neocortex. Nor did his argument take into account the straightforward evolution of the vertebrate brain. From fish to man, the brain has the same structures, arranged in the same way, with the exception only of the neocortex, which developed in mammals. Neurological studies have shown that the newly evolved neocortex of mammals took over certain higher functions, which were al...

If you find it hard to believe that fish feel pain, consider this! Cognition—the ability to think—was an important factor in the establishment of whether fish could feel pain, and it happened that in the same year as Rose's article was published, Bshary, Wickler, and Fricke published a review of the findings on the cognitive capabilities of fish (Bshary et al 2002). Here are a few examples: Recognition of others as individuals has long been established in many varieties of fish, both visually and acoustically (Myrberg and Riggio 1985). It forms the first step towards complex social lives, in which cognition is often most evident. I documented relationships among reef sharks for years. They, too, relate to each other individually. Social learning is illustrated by the migrations of the surgeon fish ( Acathurus nigrofuscus) , described in detail by Arthur A. Myrberg Jr. in 1998. These fish leave their territories all over the lagoon, and travel in single file through paths ...

In January an in-depth study of the current depletion of sharks was published (Worm et al 2013). It revealed that the numbers of sharks killed for shark fin soup are not falling, that no sharks have been saved, and that the ravenous market for the infamous party soup continues to be fed, in spite of the increase in support for shark protection that has come in the last decade. A review of the way our society treats sharks reveals almost no segment in which they are respected, with the exception of certain researchers, divers and veterinarians. Their fins are taken for soup by the Asians, they are vilified by Shark Week in the west, they are wrestled and stabbed by scientists for a few minutes of glory as a he-man “shark fighter” on National Geographic or the ill-termed “Discovery Channel,” and they are fished as sea monsters by “sportsmen.” Television with its monster shows has unleashed an out pouring of hatred that has allowed them to be massacred in full view with almost no p...