Category Archives: Shark Behavior

Day 102 10/5/13: The Shark Ate My Homework

by in Humor, Meme, Pop Culture, Shark Behavior and tagged , | Leave a comment

Reviewing the student responses to Ralph Collier’s lecture, I’m pleased that the majority wanted to hear more about shark conservation and that Ralph’s amazing stories about great white behavior made many of them realize that “fish can be smart.”

Ah students! They invent such striking turns of phrase. Ralph showed a video of a shark releasing a cloud of waste over a diving cage, and someone referred to this phenomenon as the “shark farting.” This was no fart. The shark rained shit and piss, but I have never read the words “shark” and “fart” in close succession and I must say there’s a playful musicality to the term.

I figured I get a lot of “pray” instead of “prey” (or even “preys”),  for this assignment, but this sentence exceeds my expectations: “Mr. Callier explained how sharks can be very specific with where they hunt their praise.”

When a white shark sinks his teeth into the edge of a kayak, is he simply saying, “Look at me, for Chrissakes. Love me as I am–with my lurid gums and sandpaper skin and efficient torpedo design? How many more femoral arteries do I have to sever to get a little attention?”

Sigh. Sharks Have Needs

Day 92: 9/25/13: Afternoon with a Shark Legend

by in Activism, Marine Conservation, Shark Attack, Shark Behavior, Shark Biology, Shark Charities, Shark Conservation, Shark Finning and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I am still ecstatic from Ralph Collier’s lecture this afternoon at Glendale College this afternoon. Great turn out–students, teachers from all disciplines, and people from outside school–including one dazzled shark nerd in a Jaws t-shirt who sat in the front row, and my dear friend Lisa and her fellow shark fanatic pal, Jack.

Ralph covered some fascinating stuff about shark behavior including “spy hopping” in which white sharks (and apparently oceanic white tips) stick their heads out of the water to check out what’s happening on land and sometimes startle random seals off the edges of rookeries. They also spy hop to calculate which group of seals in the haul-out area might be easiest to sweep into the water via a giant breach. Essentially, I learned that white sharks ain’t dummies. Not by a long shot. They have memories. They make calculated decisions. Ralph doesn’t believe in calling shark encounters “accidents”–he gives the animals volition—whether the intent is to investigate or to launch a predatory strike.

I learned two more disturbing consequences of shark finning:

1. When the discarded bodies of finned sharks are thrown overboard, they sink to the bottom where ammonia leaking from their ravaged bodies destroys coral communities.

2. Increasing numbers of people in Asia who consume shark fin soup are developing neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and A.L.S.  Researchers have proposed that the high concentrations of mercury in shark fin and flesh bind with other neurotoxins and create a lethal toxic compound. Could this new health concern become a powerful force in stopping finning?

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Day 91 9/24/13: Ralph Collier’s Awesome Resume

by in Education, Marine Conservation, Shark Attack, Shark Behavior, Shark Biology, Shark Conservation | Leave a comment

Writing the introduction to Ralph Collier’s lecture tomorrow. This man knows everything about white sharks from their interactions with people to their inspections of inanimate objects and sea birds. He was the first to notice how white sharks roll their eyes during predatory or investigative attacks. The Egyptian Government asked for his help after a series of attacks in the Red Sea in 2010. He’s appeared in 50 documentaries, his work cited in over 300 publications. He’s written stuff on white shark dietary habits, and how they see colors and respond to sound.

It is a fascinating thing—the devotion of one’s entire life to understand the behavior of such an alien creature…. I wonder how one might compare this obsession with sharks to the obsessive drive of the artist?   It’s a question that I’m frankly too tired to contemplate, so here’s a meme:

Codependent No More

Day 84 9/17/13: Teaching Mammals to Love Fish

by in Animal Rights, Education, Environment, Shark Behavior | Leave a comment

A cavalcade of shark chores at school: plastering the joint with handsome sea-blue flyers advertising Ralph Collier’s lecture, xeroxing piles of articles,  realizing that not everyone is as utterly fascinated with all things shark as I am, although some students seem keen on learning more and one kind soul gave me a shark Pez dispenser.

I realize some of  this lack of interest in sharks is not just disguised fear, but disgust.  Sharks are fish. “Fish are gross,” one girl said. “They stink.” I thought of Jonathan Foer’s argument (I am too tired to reproduce it here) about fish being separated from us–living in the water they retain their otherness.

Another form of distance. Another barrier to overcome.

I described how beautiful the leopard sharks looked when I saw them in La Jolla, their spotted gold bodies rippling in the current. I gently suggested that our associations with smelly fish perhaps originated with the dead sea creatures laid out on slabs of ice in the market or languishing in filthy tanks.

I asked the class to write a few questions to ask Ralph Collier about shark behavior, attacks, etc.

A boy in the front row said, “I want to ask him if sharks have emotions.”

“Great question!” I exclaimed.

Although I felt too embarrassed to admit it, I’m still recovering from the crushing realization that this widely circulated shark-man love story was  a hoax.

Wood, iron nails, pigments

Eyewitness Account: White Shark Sighting!

by in Environment, Shark Behavior, Shark Sighting and tagged , , | Leave a comment

My friend Dana had the eerie luck of seeing a shark breach in Santa Cruz this summer:

From August 12-14th, I was camping at New Brighton State Beach just outside of Santa Cruz with my girlfriend, Valecia and my Portuguese Water Dog, Aesop.  The campsite is on the bluff overlooking the ocean, so in the morning of the 13th, we went to the beach and spent most of the day swimming.

It was a very active day at the beach.  There were people fishing and kayaking, and the ocean seemed active in general.  There were a few young seals in the water playing with a bunch of little kids.  The seals seemed to be very social and curious.  Since my dog likes to swim pretty far out, I remember thinking he looked (perhaps too much) like a baby seal.  Aesop is an expert dog swimmer, but next to the seals, I worried that from a shark’s point of view, he might appear like a sluggish baby seal who had drifted from the group, so I tried to stay close to him in the water.

Valecia went to get supplies from the campsite, and Aesop and I got out of the water.  I was looking at the ocean and suddenly everything seemed very calm.  The seals had all disappeared and the surface of the water appeared still and glassy.  Shortly after, large pelicans starting lining the shore.  There were so many of them, and they were so large, that they scared a few straggling swimmers out of the water.  I looked at the water and thought, “Of all the times I’ve stared at the ocean, it’s never seemed as still and creepy as right now.”  I had never noticed every animal disappear so suddenly before.

And then, I saw a great white shark breach the surface of the water.  His whole body ejected straight up into the air.  The shark wasn’t huge, but I definitely recognized that it was a great white.  He was probably about 9-12 feet long.  The sighting lasted only for a moment, and I was looking around to see if anyone else had seen it.  I was dying to confirm what I had seen because I had never seen anything like this in my entire life.

About 6-8 minutes after the sighting, the pelicans descended into the water en masse.  Shortly after that, all sorts of life returned to the ocean, particularly the scavenging birds.

-Dana Marterella

English: New Brighton State Beach near Santa C...

English: New Brighton State Beach near Santa Cruz, California View of public beach area near cliffs from stairs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)