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Great White Sharks & Defanging the Myths
b i o p h i l i a
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Oh Carcharodon carcharias! You get such a bad rap. I live in New Hampshire and as you may know there are a plethora of Great White Sharks on the Cape which is just profoundly exciting in general and for our ecosystem. What really is disheartening is how the media attaches words like "lurking" and "blood thirsty". Great Whites are not out to get us and just waiting to bleed us out. There is a video going around about a Great White that breached and took a fish off of a line from a family on the Cape. Most headlines include the young boy, and in a way eludes to the fact that a) the shark was out to get him b) the shark was being incredibly rude c) how dare the shark take this families fish and upset them. Also last year there was a whole big upset because a great white had taken a seal close to the beach. All sorts of ruckus was going on. How dare the shark dine near us humans...on OUR beach! Great Whites are curious and investigative animals.That's what most people don't realize. When Great Whites bite something unfamiliar to them, whether a person or a buoy, they're looking for tactile evidence about what it is. A great white uses its teeth the way humans use their hands. This being said, This is where they live, and therefore eat! Monsters they are not. As such, sharks do attack people along U.S. coasts and around the world, even if the nature and number of encounters truly do belie expectations. There are steps society can take to reduce the number of incidents. Admittedly, and absolutely, I do not want to see anyone get hurt or killed. 26-year-old Arthur Medici of Revere died last year as a result of a great white shark. The first fatal attack off the cape I believe in over 80 years. Very tragic indeed. Sharks are being sharks. Why is everyone so quick to demonize them?
b i o p h i l i a on
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Jaws (the movie) created the modern fear of sharks.
The author of the original book has since expressed regret at ever writing the book, and I believe dedicated a lot of effort into shark preservation.
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The reason folks on the cape are blowing the story up is because they live and die by beach crowds, and it's hard gettin folks to the beach if they can't reliably swim, or if due to misinformation they are afraid of the water. It also doesn't help that it isn't just a one off situation either. Like last year was pretty bad for it, and we've had bad years before, but it's becoming more of a trend as of late. It's seeming like the once fairly tranquil waters of Nantucket sound which drew in tourists to fund the mid cape, are becoming notably shark infested, to say nothing of the outer bank beaches of the Atlantic side.
It's also not the best sign because while we've always had great whites in the waters here they used to be fairly rare because the water was too cold. The fact a bunch of sharks are showing up every year is indicative of rising water temperatures.
You don't go in salt water beaches?
Swimming at the beach is generally terrible. Between seaweed touching my legs and jellyfish, no thanks. Give me a pool any day.
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Off the coast of Maui, there's a collapsed volcano called Molokini that's a super popular place to take a chartered boat ride out, eat some lunch, do some snorkeling, and drink some tasty adult beverages / juice on the way back. Helluva wonderful way to spend the day. It's super popular because it is drop dead amazingly gorgeous holy shit.
Anyway, our tour guide had been doing the boat tour thing for years, and mentioned that basically every day at X o'clock, there was a shark* that would swim in, do a tour around the bottom of the crater, and then swim out. Anyway, I was lucky enough to be in the water when he came through that day. The guide got really excited, pointing it out to everyone who could hear, and I got to watch it swim by about 50 feet below me. Super cool stuff.
* I believe it was a sand shark or similar, but it's been so long that I don't remember. Definitely not a nurse shark.
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Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Interestingly the surfers of cape cod were ahead of the game on the whole shark issue they noticed the growth in shark population a few years ago before anyone died.
The articles about this talking to the surfers are kindof interesting.
https://www.surfline.com/surf-news/cape-cod-huge-great-white-shark-problem/57043/amp
Also you don't blame a bear for harming a human who went traipsing into the forest, so I don't blame the sharks when people go into their territory. Yeah it sucks that some people are getting hurt but they're the ones intruding.
Oh, and we also fight back when bitten. Sharks don't want to try eating something that's going to gouge their eyeballs during the attempt
I am jelly. I have a strong desire to dive with sharks. What kind did you dice with?
It’s intriguing isn’t it? I read the article and this stood out to me: “For a lot of us, though, attitudes towards surfing here had changed well prior to last year’s tragic events,” Simpson continues. “Seeing a 600-pound seal on the losing end of a predation event at your favorite sandbar is horrifying, and at this point, that’s something that almost all our local surfers have witnessed. It might have taken a human fatality to get the attention of the national media, but with those types of Discovery Channel food chain scenes taking place in real life, the local surf community has been paying attention for several years.”
My understanding is that sharks need a large, fatty meal to justify the amount of effort they put into attacking and killing something. The way they determine this is by some subtle bioelectric signals that go through the nerves surrounding their teeth and nose; fat conducts in a particular way compared to skin and muscle. It's why people survive shark bites at all-- the "test bite" is to determine if you have enough blubber to be worth attacking. Fortunately, humans aren't nearly as fatty as the average seal and don't register as well, but the shark still has to bite to figure that out.
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First off, you get a plethora of kudos for using the word “traipsing”...I love that word.
Not to mention being on point with us being the ones intruding.
A nice eye gouge does seem like a definite deterrent, unless of course the shark is the width of a school bus! Then what? I wonder if it would hurt. My parents took me to see jaws when I was little and this is the result. Lol.
Yes! That’s my understanding as well, albeit, their teeth are also their hands. Great Whites, interestingly enough, are also known to regurgitate already eaten food to make room for more calorically rich meat.
Well that sounds like an amazing experience! Sand tigers look scary because they have those long jagged fish eating teeth, but they are seemingly mellow where sharks are concerned...that must have been kinda magical huh?
Tell me more.
Apparently there's a difference in movement between them hunting and them exploring. When they're test-biting, they move a lot slower and warily, waiting to see what we'll do in response if we notice them before it goes in for the nibble. However, when they have positively identified food the description of that movement is essentially an underwater rocket set to obliterate whatever it's aimed at (usually a seal). No exploratory movements, just straight missile to dinner.
Aha. Well I was gonna say that there are some humans I can think of who sharks would identify as food, but the likelihood of them being out in the water swimming with the surfboarders is probably low.
You underestimate how fatty seals are!
So true! They are quite majestic and look quite serene when just swimming....and then...there is the breaching!!!
https://www.oriannesociety.org/snappers-the-myth-vs-the-turtle/
If it were wasteful, they wouldn't do it. Since they do, it's not. If you've ever watched a shark documentary, you've seen that actually hunting down prey takes a lot of work. If they're close enough to take a test bite, it means they had a chance to just wander up to see if you're a snack, or just flotsam. Examples of sharks that are more aggressive and less exploratory include tiger sharks, from you hear the tales of 'found with car parts in their stomachs.'
I don't disagree with the core premise of your argument except the part where they wouldn't do it if it were wasteful.
My friend's cat just now went out through the window and in through the door next to it 5 times in a row, dolphins drown those other fish for fun etc. Plenty of wasteful behavior in nature!!
Eh. Humans step on things because the crunch sounds funny.
You are right. They are the only shark who can swim in fresh water....remember the attacks in Matawan creek (NJ) in 1916, they thought it was a great white shark and now surmise a bull shark.
Your humor is refreshing.