Word: sharking
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Largely as a result of this relentless slaughter, the populations of some shark species have plummeted an estimated 80% over the past decade. "At the current rate," predicts marine biologist Merry Camhi of the National Audubon Society's Living Oceans Program, "some species will reach ecological extinction within 10 years...
Meyer, luckily, is a pro. He has been working with sharks for years, and deftly avoids the open jaws. The last step before releasing the specimen is to tag it, a job Meyer assigns to me. I take a steak knife and stab an inch-long, inch-deep incision into the shark's back--no easy task, considering that its skin is as thick as a watermelon rind and as tough as leather. The shark doesn't even flinch. "That's nothing," Meyer reassures me, "compared with the wounds they inflict on each other during mating." I slip a barb...
...water," orders Meyer. This is the scary part. The shark, having been manhandled and disoriented, may be too groggy to swim away, and unlike other fish, most species of sharks must swim constantly to keep oxygen-rich water flowing over their gills. Someone has to be ready in case it needs help getting restarted. And to my surprise and fear--the image of those teeth is still very clear in my mind--I have been elected. I slip over the side. Meyer unbinds the captive, and the huge fish and I are floating free in the crystalline blue water. This...
Biologists like to blame Peter Benchley's best-selling 1974 novel Jaws and the Steven Spielberg movie that followed for the shark's fearsome reputation as a mindless, relentless, consummate predator. The truth is that people have always been terrified by sharks, probably since humans first ventured into the sea. Who can blame them? As any survivor or witness well knows, a shark attack, especially by one of the larger species considered man-eaters--great whites, bull sharks, tiger sharks--is mind-numbing in its speed, violence, gore and devastation...
...least one shark is accidentally killed, usually by longlines set by shrimp and tuna boats, for every one that is caught deliberately, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. When you add it all up, each human who dies in the jaws of a shark is avenged roughly 6 million-fold...