Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks & the Sea

by Peter Benchley

The next day the shark was moved farther out of town, to the Bolivar Maceration Facility. This facility is a big, hangarlike building on open land, where whales and other large marine animals that washed up onshore were cut into disposable pieces.

  Bolivar was where Dr. Barry Bruce, a famous SARDI biologist from Tasmania, and I would be filmed dissecting the great white shark. (Actually, of course, he would dissect and comment while I watched and asked questions.)

  Bolivar stank. Oh, my, did it stink! Every square inch of every surface, every atom of air that flowed from the great gleaming tanks full of rotting flesh reeked. The smell was so nauseating that it brought tears to our eyes. I was given a chic yellow rubber apron to wear, along with striking black rubber boots and lovely pink rubber gloves. Still, the stink invaded every fiber of my cotton clothes. Eventually, after a few useless washings, I had to wrap them in plastic and put them out with the garbage.

  The shark lay on her back. Her rigid dorsal fin forced her to be tilted slightly to the left. This shifted her massive insides leftward in a bulge that threatened to roll her off the dissecting table. Barry and his team of assistants and students had placed buckets and plastic vats all around the table to catch whatever fell out when the shark was opened up. Barry sharpened the twelve-inch blade of a carving knife. John Bredar placed me, his cameraman, his lights, and his sound equipment in perfect positions to announce and record any and all discoveries.

  Nobody knew what we would find inside the shark. Nobody guessed aloud about the possibilities, though we all silently shared the same thoughts. A keg of nails? Half a horse? A whole swordfish? A sea lion? A human leg? An entire person? All of these and a thousand other unlikely objects had been found before inside great white sharks.

  Barry placed the point of his knife against the belly of the beast. I cleared my throat. The cameraman said the magic word, speed, telling John that the camera was rolling at the proper rate. John gave Barry a quiet “Action!” and the dissection began.

  Have you ever daydreamed about plunging your knife into the belly of an attacking shark? Perhaps you're diving down to open the treasure chest. Suddenly a dark shadow falls over you and the giant shark attacks. You duck below the monster and reach up with your knife hand. You slide the blade into the soft white flesh of the underbelly, splitting it open like a ripe melon and sending the mortally wounded shark off to die in the deep.

  Well, forget it. Your knife would either bounce off or break off, and you'd face a future as lunch.

  Barry struggled to slice through skin—no, meat!—more than an inch thick. He explained that female great whites are armored by nature to protect them during mating. It's a violent affair. The male repeatedly bites the female as he tries to keep his grip on her.

  As the slit in the shark's belly grew longer, pressure increased from within, and cutting became quicker.

  Someone said, “Watch out.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “The liver. It's a third of the body weight. Here it comes!”

  And here, forcing its way out through the hole in the shark, came a thousand-pound liver. This immense organ of energy storage permitted the shark to go without eating for a month or more after one substantial meal.

  For a couple of hours the dissection proceeded methodically. Barry described each of his findings. First he used layman's terms for the camera, then scientific jargon for the tape recorder monitored by one of his aides.

  The shark's fins were sliced off. As each was tossed into a bin, we spoke of the sorry fact that there were people all over the world who would gladly have butchered this shark for her fins alone.

  She bore old mating scars on her flanks, and her uterus was stretched (indicating that she had borne young). But she was not pregnant when she died.

  We took breaks to change tapes and batteries and to rinse our lungs with fresh air. During one break I was taken on a hunt for Australia's notorious funnel web spider. Small (about the size of your thumbnail) and inoffensive-looking, Australian funnel webs are among the most poisonous spiders on the planet. Unfortunately, they are common in populated areas like suburbs. It took us less than five minutes to find several—in a woodpile, under old equipment, beside a corner of the building. This reinforced my belief that Australians are some of humanity's hardiest and most sensible people.

  Wherever they live, travel, hike, swim, fish, dive, kayak, or trek, Australians risk being confronted by something capable of doing them in with tooth, fang, claw, jaw, or stinger. Yet there is no public outcry to get rid of any animal because it is dangerous to humans. Australians have learned to coexist in relative peace with nearly everything. When occasionally a human life is lost to an animal, the public's reaction is usually thoughtful and rational.

  It was after noon when Barry decided that the time had come to open the shark's stomach and examine its contents. What would be in there? We all watched with great anticipation.

  Barry slit the stomach sac, and following a flood of liquid, there came …

  … not much, really, except confirmation of how the shark had died. The stomach contained three intact fifteen-or twenty-pound snappers, swallowed whole and complete with hooks, leaders, and lengths of line. There were a few bits and pieces of other prey: beaks from small squids and octopuses, otoliths (bony pieces from the inner ear) from different fish. A four-inch-long stingray barb, whose owner must have been eaten a long time before, had already moved through several inches of dense flesh on its way to rejection by the shark's amazingly rugged defense mechanisms.

  We shared a feeling of letdown. Inside the shark there were no seals or walruses, whole or in part, no scientists, or politicians—not even a license plate or two.

  By now, our excitement had been replaced by subdued silence. As Barry reached up behind the jaw and felt around for the shark's heart, we could see that the once magnificent creature had been reduced to little more than a memory. Only the head remained intact.

  What I felt most, I think, was sorrow at the waste. The death of this giant had benefited no one. Maybe Barry and his team would come up with discoveries or conclusions that might help protect other sharks. Maybe the young people in the crowds that had stood in line to see the great white would grow up with respect and affection for the animals. I hoped so. Because otherwise, the result of this accidental catch and all the attention that came with it would be merely one less apex predator in the critical food chain at the bottom of the world.

  Nature is very careful with her apex predators. They were not made with humans in mind. Remember, they've been present on earth, more or less exactly as they are today, for tens of millions of years. They cannot survive interference, accidental or intentional, from us.

  At the rate at which great whites are being killed all over the world, the existence of certain populations is already threatened. The survival of the entire species may soon be in doubt.

  Future generations may be able to know great white sharks only from film and videotape.

  The same is true, to a greater or lesser degree, of other sharks and other fish.

  The fact is that every major fishery in the world is being overexploited, pushed beyond its capacities. At a time when a swelling human population needs more animal protein than ever, catches of almost every important food fish are in decline.

  Everywhere, too many fishermen with too much sophisticated gear are chasing too few fish.

  This problem can be solved only by us, and only if we will reexamine our place in nature and rethink our conduct as members of the natural order.

  We are only one among millions of species of animals. We—that is, humankind—have long assumed that we are superior to all the others and that they exist only to serve our needs, our wants, our pleasures.

  Wrong!

  They are our equals as tenants of this fragile planet. Nature created each one to serve a purpose, to fill a place in the grand scheme of life on earth. It is not up to us to decide what will die and what will live. Nor do we hav
e the right to conduct our lives so carelessly that we destroy others by accident.

  Each and every animal deserves our respect and concern as we share our journey.

  Glossary

  AFT: near or toward the rear of a boat.

  AMPULLAE OF LORENZINI: bundles of sensory cells connected to nerve fibers in the head of a shark that allow it to detect electric fields.

  ANTHROPOMORPHIZE: to use human characteristics to describe nonhuman things.

  APEX PREDATOR: an animal at the top of the food chain.

  THE BENDS: (also called decompression sickness) pain and other symptoms caused by leaving a compressed atmosphere too quickly. Bends can be fatal.

  BIOLUMINESCENCE: light produced by living organisms.

  BOW: the front of a boat.

  BRACKISH: salty, dirty. Brackish water is often found where a river meets the sea.

  BUOY: an anchored float used to mark a reef or channel, or to moor a boat.

  CARNIVORE: a meat-eating animal.

  CARTILAGE: a tough, elastic connective tissue. It is found in humans in various parts of the body, such as the ear, nose, and throat, and forms a shark's skeleton.

  CAUDAL KEEL: the horizontal ridges along the tail fin of sharks and other fast-swimming fish.

  CETACEAN: a marine mammal in the order (Cetacea) that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises.

  CHITIN: a horny substance that forms part of that hard outer layer of crustaceans and insects.

  CHUM: chopped fish or other organic matter used as bait.

  CLEAT: a T-shaped piece of metal or wood on a boat, to which ropes are attached.

  CRUSTACEAN: one of a large group of aquatic animals with shells that includes lobsters, shrimp, and crabs.

  DERMAL DENTICLES: tiny scalelike teeth that make up the skin of a shark.

  DORSAL FIN: a fin on the back of a fish or marine mammal, such as the tall triangular one on a shark or a killer whale.

  ELASMOBRANCH: a class of fish with a skeleton made of cartilage (not bone), including sharks, rays, and skates.

  EMBOLUS: an air bubble or clot that has been carried through the bloodstream to block an artery.

  FLANK: the side of the body, between the ribs and hip, on animals and humans.

  FLOTSAM: floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo.

  NICTITATING MEMBRANE: an inner eyelid that closes to protect the eye of birds, reptiles, and many sharks.

  PECTORAL FIN: each of a pair of fins on either side just behind a fish's head.

  PLANKTON: tiny plants and animals that serve as food for larger fish.

  PORT: the left side of a boat (when you are facing forward).

  PREDATION: obtaining food by killing and eating animals.

  REEF: a chain of rocks or coral at or near the surface of the sea.

  REGULATOR: a device that controls the pressure from a tank of compressed air, allowing a diver to breathe comfortably underwater.

  SANDBAR: a ridge of sand built up by currents.

  SCAVENGER: an animal that feeds on dead or decaying matter.

  SHOAL: a sandbank or sandbar that makes the water shallow.

  STARBOARD: the right side of a boat (when you are facing forward).

  STERN: the rear end of a boat.

  SYMBIOSIS: the close association of two different organisms living together in a mutually beneficial relationship.

  TOURNIQUET: a device, such as a tight bandage, used to stop bleeding.

  WET SUIT: a tight-fitting rubber suit worn for warmth in water sports or diving.

  For more information about sharks and shark attacks and for directions to further educational sites and materials, visit the Shark Research Institute at www.sharks.org. For information on conservation efforts and how you can help, I recommend a group called WildAid at www.wildaid.org.

  About the author

  Peter Benchley is the bestselling author of Jaws, The Deep, and Beast, among others. His articles and essays have appeared in many publications, including National Geographic and the New York Times. He has written screenplays for the movie versions of three of his novels and has written, narrated, and appeared in dozens of television documentaries. Peter Benchley is a member of the National Council for Environmental Defense and a spokesman for its Oceans Program.

  Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children's Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York

  Copyright © 2005 by Peter Benchley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press.

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-54574-9

  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  Preface: Aliens in the Sea

  I

  South Australia, 1974: Swimming with Nightmares

  Jaws

  South Australia, 1974: Part 2

  South Australia, 1974: Part 3

  II

  Shark Attacks: A Summer of Hype

  Sharks: How Little We Know

  Six Dangerous Sharks

  Swimming Safely in the Sea

  How to Avoid a Shark Attack

  When Good Dives Go Bad

  You Say You Want to Dive with Sharks?

  Some Shark Facts and a Story

  III

  Dangerous to Man? Moray Eels, Killer Whales, Barracudas, and Other Creatures We Fear

  Even More Creatures to Avoid … and Respect

  Okay, So What Can We Do? 181

  Glossary