Unlikely Words » shark week

Shark Week Is Coming

aaron cohen — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:36:56 +0000

Just found out next week is Shark Week and I'll probably unplug the TV to be safe. ###Possibly related posts:Shark Week: Megamouth Shark Eaten Shark Week: Interview With Shark Expert George Burgess Part 2 Shark Week: The Sharks of Cornwall Coast ### Possibly related posts:

Shark Week: Megamouth Shark Eaten

aaron cohen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:39:31 +0000

No one would confuse me for a shark lover, but I'm not a COMPLETE jerk. That's why I think it's a shame that a megamouth shark was recently captured and eaten in the Philippines. This was only the 41st megamouth shark ever found. I'd support an international law preventing the killing, hunting, or eating of any shark species with a population lower than 200.

Via Boing Boing.

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Shark Week: Interview With Shark Expert George Burgess Part 2

aaron cohen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:17:26 +0000

Continuing right where we left off yesterday with our interview with George Burgess, the director of the International Shark Attack File, which tracks shark attacks all over the world. If a shark bites a person somewhere on this planet, Burgess and his crew track down all of the information and keep it safe in the File.

It seems like the number of unprovoked shark attacks is very low relative to the number of people who spend time in the water.

Boy, that's true.

So how scared should someone really be about spending time in the ocean?

I think that if one is worried about being scared or that sort of thing, they ought to be more scared about the ride to the beach in their vehicle. There's certainly a much greater danger in that than in the other. That said, any time we enter the sea, we need to remember that it's a wilderness experience. We're entering an alien environment, one that we're not pre-adapted for and one that can, occasionally, cause us some harm. Whether it be jelly fish, or barracudas, or stinging corals, or whatever it is, the fact of the matter is that there some things out there that can do us damage and occasionally do. So we need to go out there with respect, we need to go out there with the understanding that we're not a member of that environment, we're not pre-adapted for swimming, we don't have gills. And in fact, we're pretty lousy when it comes to being participants in the water by nature of our activity.

We're at a huge disadvantage in the water and just like we show caution when we go on other wilderness experiences, whether it be hiking in the Rockies and remembering that there are mountain lions and bears or taking a tourist trip to the Serengeti Plain and understanding that there are lions and cheetahs and elephants and other things that can do us damage, we need to do the same thing of course with the sea and know that we have to exercise some caution. That said, the sea is a pretty forgiving space and most people enter the sea don't even think about it at all and don't pay a price. It's a pretty darn safe recreational activity. When you consider we've been averaging 4 deaths per year worldwide in all areas, that's such a ridiculously low figure compared to other risks associated with aquatic recreation or any other recreational activities you probably put that at the bottom of the page if you make a table of dangerous recreational activities. In any case, one shouldn't be really worried about this kind of thing, but one should have respect.

I have one more questions and then I have a bunch of questions submitted by readers. Do you have a specific mindset when you go out on the water as far as getting ready to work. Is there something that you do to prepare yourself to focus on sharks or focus on the water?

Well, we've been doing the shark attack part for decades now and we know the general questions we would like to ask people. We have an attack questionnaire form that we ask victims to fill out and that's on our website. And quite frankly, we've been answering questions like yours for a long time so we pretty much know the gist of the kind of concerns people have. One of our big things is to try to prepare people for the understanding that shark attack is a minor problem and that the real problem with sharks is that we're killing way too many of them and that they're in great decline and in need of conservation management. Most people don't necessarily understand that dichotomy, nor do they appreciate it so we spend a fair amount of time trying to get that distinction through to people. Do we have to give ourselves a pep talk or something? Nah. The only time you gotta give a pep talk to yourself is when you're dealing with a fatality. Obviously, despite the fact that they're very rare and statistically happen very uncommonly, they are real people that died and they have real families and they have real stories and so the loss of the unfortunate statistical person isn't any less hurtful than any other. So one does by necessity in those cases have to sort of put on a different face and have a different attitude than the normal scientific one. Particularly if you get involved with autopsies, it's a moving experience to deal with a dead person, obviously.

So these are questions that are submitted by readers. Besides humans, what would you say is the biggest enemy to sharks?

Besides humans… Other sharks. Some sharks eat other sharks and that would be the major predator of sharks other than a hook and a line?

If someone is swimming and sees a shark, what's the best thing to do?

Well, it's pretty obvious now to get out of the water. And it seems obvious, but a lot of people don't, especially surfers who are very much glued to their activity and more prone to take risks. But certainly get out of the water as fast you can. If you can't get out of the water, find yourself some sort of physical barrier that you can use to get yourself against. A pylon, a reef, a sandbar or something that cuts down the angle of that the shark can get at you. If you're physically under attack, literally being attacked, certainly fight like mad, don't be passive. If I was being grabbed I would try to gouge the eyes or the gill openings, both of which are sensitive areas in a shark, as aggressively as possible.

What is the smallest shark?

Smallest shark is a little lantern shark. Coincidentally a species I described with my colleague Stuart Springer, it's a little lantern shark from off the northern coast of South America and it reaches sexual maturity at well under a foot.

How is it possible for aquariums to keep sharks in tanks with other fish?

Not all sharks are good aquarium fishes and aquarists know that. So there are certain species that they put in and some they avoid. Of those that they do put in the community tank, they feed them well. The idea is to try to keep them well fed by giving them the food you want consumed rather than them having them make their choices of food and having them eat the other aquarium fish. As a consequence, you'll see that in many aquaria the sharks seem to be over fed, they're a little pudgy and so forth. This is the dynamic that aquarists have to work with. To feed them enough to keep them uninterested in his neighbors without turning them into doughballs.

Sharks have a legendary sense of smell. At what distance can sharks really smell blood in the water?

They can smell blood in the water, or other things, 100 meters away. In fact, they can smell a drop in an Olympic sized swimming pool. So their sense of smell is very good and it goes for quite a distance.

Can you talk about some times that you've been scared of a shark?

One time I was scared with shark was for something I did and it was my fault. I was in the Bahamas with a friend and I jumped into the water in what appeared to be a little path, a highway where small lemon sharks were cruising, going back and forth. I jumped in to see what would happen if they encountered me and as expected they weren't happy and they started swimming circles around me. But they were little sharks and there was no concern. What I hadn't counted on was there was another, bigger lemon shark a bit off-shore, and attracted presumably by the irregular swimming activity of the little lemons came dashing in find out what was going on and of course I was there. That's the only time I've been essentially charged by a shark and it got close enough and the path was such that it didn't look like it was going to swerve off. So I went aggressively at the shark, I got in the water and swam at it and basically swung at it. When I got aggressive it swerved off and left and of course I immediately got out of the water.

Have you ever been bit by a shark?

I've been bit many times, but not in the water. Shark teeth are very sharp, so any time you're cleaning a jaw or reaching into a specimen tank you're almost assured of getting bit by a shark's teeth. So I've left a lot of blood on land, but not in the water.

What's the weirdest shark story you've ever experienced?

Well, one of the best stories I would guess was a 3 sharks on one hook experience. While fishing in North Carolina one time, using a long line, which is a method scientists use to catch sharks to do biological studies, we caught a dogfish shark on the hook, which was then eaten by a black tip shark, and then a larger shark, a bull shark, grabbed the black tip shark. So when we pulled the bull shark in lo and behold, we found 2 other sharks that had been on the same hook. We caught 3 sharks on one hook.

Hmm. Lucky.

[Silence]

Have any questions for me?

No, I think we're cool and if there's anything you need, let me know.

Do you have a comment on Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus?

Who cares?

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Shark Week: Can Sharks Get Rabies?

aaron cohen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:01:03 +0000

You know the stories about animals with rabies acting abnormally and doing things their animal peers would never do? Here's a story about a body surfing shark. Without examining this shark's brain, no one can say with certainty that it DIDN'T have rabies. ###Possibly related posts:Shark Week: Cuddling Sharks Shark Week: The Sharks of Cornwall [...] ### Possibly related posts:

Shark Week: Interview With Shark Expert George Burgess

aaron cohen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:25:02 +0000

George Burgess is the director of the International Shark Attack File, which tracks shark attacks all over the world. If a shark bites a person somewhere on this planet, Burgess and his crew track down all of the information and keep it safe in the File. I tracked Burgess down a couple weeks ago and he graciously agreed to answer some questions. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.

Is there something specific that drew you to your study of sharks and your work with sharks?

I guess, like many people I grew up with a fascination for sharks, having grown up on the coast line. I think most people are excited about sharks on some level. The difference was that I was able to take that fascination with sharks and interest in sharks and turn it into a career.

So you grew up in Florida or?

I was an Air Force brat. My dad was in the Air Force. So we moved around quite a bit, but everywhere we lived was coastal. I lived in Virginia, Hawaii, Italy, New Hampshire, and eventually settled on Long Island, New York. In all cases I was fortunate enough to be able to be near the ocean and obviously my appreciation of things marine grew and I had lots of opportunity to get on the water and in the water.

Do you remember your first shark experience?

Let me think if I do. Up in Long Island we see no shortage of spiny dog fish, which are small sharks that we would catch. They get to about 3 feet or so, those are the first ones we caught. The real experience that might have been a watershed experience is I went down to the Florida Keys with my biology teacher in junior high school and we were able to get out on the water on a small boat in the upper keys to go fishing. As we were fishing, a very large hammerhead, turned out larger than the boat, came idling by and went right under the boat. Clearly anyone who might have seen that would have been fully impressed with the size and grace of that animal and I suspect for me it might have been the thing that clicked in my head that that's what I wanted to study.

It's nice that you can remember that. A lot of people don't have something like that to look back on.

Yeah, it is. And I feel very fortunate in that, not only have I had that kind of thing, but I pretty much had direction my entire life and certainly by high school days I knew I was going to be a biologist and I took courses and did stuff in anticipation of how I was going to move into that career. So I felt very fortunate that I had direction and obviously you need, not just direction, but you have to have passion. And I've had no shortage of that over the years. That's what I tell my students, if they want to be a biologist, they've got to have that passion.

Can you explain your process for confirming and documenting a shark attack for the International Shark Attack File?

The thing is that shark attacks, of course, occur on a world wide basis. No two attacks are exactly the same and obviously we can't be everywhere. So we need the cooperation of collaborators around the world who are willing to check out the details of an attack in their region. So we do have scientific collaborators in many areas of the world and especially in the areas where shark attacks are most common: South Africa, Australia, Hawaii, California, and of course, here in Florida, it's us. Those are the areas that have the most activity involving sharks and humans and we've got collaborators there. In recent years there's been an upswing of in the number of instances in Brazil and we have great cooperation with scientists in Brazil as well. That said, most attacks do occur in the United States every year. Two thirds of the attacks every year occur in our words, and that's our yard so we do the alpha investigations on those ourselves. Especially in Florida which has 20-30 incidents each year, in any given year Florida is responsible for 50-60% of the world's instances. So obviously that keeps us busy at home.

Investigations are done on the basis of timing and available resources. Certainly we want to talk to victims, we want to ask certain questions about their experience. We want to any other witnesses that might have seen or heard what happened. We want to talk to medical personnel that have treated the victims so we can document the medical treatment. We look for the physical environment: what were the tides, water temperature, fish in the area, was there feeding activity, what were the activities of the victims, the color of their clothes, a whole broad section of stuff which we try to piece together from as many sources as possible. In Florida. where we have a lot of what we call hit and run attacks, quick grabs and let goes by medium sized sharks, usually of surfers. Often times we don't have to go down to find the victim, we talk to them by phone or by email. We get photographs of the wounds so we don't actually have to make a site visit on all of them. Of course if there's serious wounds or the occasional death, we'll be on site and working hard to get all the available information and serve as an interpreter of that information for the local media and so forth so at least there's some level of knowledge and consistency in what's being said.

In other parts of the world investigators may do the same thing and then forward their reports to us. And we're in constant communication thanks to the wonders of email so when something happens in a given area we're bound to hear about it through the press. We can get on news sites and are and regularly get information from all over the world. And if we don't have somebody who is already there who is looking at that situation, we try to get somebody to do that for us if they can. If not we try to do it long distance, but it's always more effective if you have someone on the ground who is from the area. But sometimes you have no choice but to do long distance investigations so we work with police, emergency care personnel, doctors, beach safety personnel and so forth around the world in trying to get information on each and every instance.

You mentioned email a second ago. How long have you been running the file and how much easier is it to do now than it would have been to do 20 years ago?

Oh, so much easier. The File's origin occurred in the late 1950s, I think it's 1958. Take a look at our website, we got the whole history spelled out there and I don't want to screw up any dates. It originally was at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It made a short stay down at the Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, where it was analyzed by a Navy physician. Then it moved to the University of Rhode Island for a period of 1968 to about 1988. Then it moved here and we've had it since then. The period, obviously, since it's been here, has been the period of greatest growth. We've been able to put some resources into development of the file and developed of this very nice network of people who can help us out worldwide and they're collaborators with us. And obviously in recent years, there's been more shark attack incidents on humans, not only here in Florida and the US, but worldwide. Simply because the human population continues to grow and with that comes concurrent increases in the utilization of waters and that increases the chance of interaction with sharks. This has been a period over these last 20 to 30 years where we've had a great increase in the number of incidences and obviously that keeps us very busy.

Part 2 posted tomorrow.

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Shark Week: Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

aaron cohen — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:58:31 +0000

There's the story about Snakes on a Plane getting made because some LA movie makers were at a bar playing a game where the goal was the come up with the stupidest movie pitch possible. I have a feeling that people saw the cult attention Snakes on a Plane received before it came out and decided they could make a better marketing campaign. This was a bad idea because none of the people who gushed about Snakes on a Plane before it came out actually went to see it and the movie flopped.

I wonder how they decided how to bill Lorenzo Lamas above Debbie Gibson? I wonder how mega a shark would have to be to allow it to jump out of the water and catch an air plane?

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Shark Week: Jessica Alba – Shark Vandal

aaron cohen — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:50:42 +0000

First January Jones and now Jessica Alba, will no Hollywood bombshell disavow sharks? For her part, Alba was recently involved in an incident in Oklahoma City where scary and terrible posters of great white sharks where plastered all over town.

In a sign of hope, Alba has apologized for her involvement:

"I got involved in something I should have had no part of. I realize that I should have used better judgment and I regret not thinking things through before I made a spontaneous and ill-advised decision to let myself get involved with the people behind this campaign. I sincerely apologize to the citizens of Oklahoma City and to the United Way for my involvement in this incident."

I'll let you decide if she's gone far enough.

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Shark Week: The Sharks of Cornwall Coast

aaron cohen — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:00:50 +0000

This 30-ft long shark appears to be a vegetarian, but just to be safe, I've crossed Cornwall off the 'Places I'd go on vacation' list. Also on this list: Every city mentioned in this article and San Jose, whose hockey team needs a new.

(As mentioned yesterday, this is Shark Week on Unlikely Words. It will last until the Discovery Channel asks us to change the name or the end of the week.)

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Shark Week: Cuddling Sharks

aaron cohen — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:57:35 +0000

"In experiments carried out in the US some varieties of shark allowed themselves to be picked from the water and cuddled." It takes all kinds of people, it's true, but it shouldn't take the type of people that want to cuddle sharks. In this article they think they've found some sharks that can be trained. I don't know how often I have to say this, but please, let's NOT train sharks. Didn't any of you see Deep Blue Sea?

(Am I going to get sued if I call this week Shark Week? I'll let you know! Stop in everyday for tons of derisive sharksnark culminating at the end of the week with a 2 part interview with a shark expert.)

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