[Mb-civic] Endangered predator - The Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

  Endangered predator

By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist  |  February 15, 2006

AUTHOR PETER Benchley, filmmaker Steven Spielberg, and composer John 
Williams scared the planet so well in their 1975 movie ''Jaws" that 
three decades later my underwater photos of harmless nurse sharks 
inspire fear -- with not an incisor in sight. Nurse sharks, in fact, 
have whiskery barbels that make them look more like a giant catfish than 
a great white.

''How close were you?" I am commonly asked of the nurse sharks on my 
office wall or when I show the slides to schoolchildren. When I say 
''three feet," adults and children alike invariably roll their eyes and 
jerk back their necks as if the shark lunged out of the photo or the 
screen. Amazement about the grace of a turtle, the vibrancy of a 
parrotfish, and the playfulness of a seal nipping at my fins suddenly 
become accusations that I need a little man in a white jacket.

And that is before my closing slide for my younger son's classmates when 
he was in elementary school. That one features a sandtiger shark in the 
New England Aquarium tank. Never mind that sandtigers are also sluggish 
and relatively docile. Its exposed, jagged teeth, thrusting forth from 
rosy gums that could suggest a recent bloody feast, were always enough 
to make the room explode ''Whoaaa!!!" This is then followed by calls for 
men in white jackets.

I dutifully attempt to use the shock value of the teeth to get to the 
irony that humans are chomping the sharks out of the sea. Benchley, who 
died last weekend at the age of 65, came to understand that to the point 
of becoming a global shark protectionist. He told the London Daily 
Express in an interview published just nine days ago:

'' 'Jaws' was entirely a fiction. Knowing what I know now, I could never 
write that book today." He added, ''Sharks don't target human beings, 
and they certainly don't hold grudges. There's no such thing as a rogue 
man-eater shark with a taste for human flesh. In fact, sharks rarely 
take more than one bite out of people, because we're so lean and 
unappetizing to them."

We have become the rogues with our appetite for sharks. Researchers for 
the Pew Institute for Ocean Science's global shark assessment say that 
in the Gulf of Mexico, whitetip, silky, and dusky sharks have declined 
by 99 percent, 91 percent, and 79 percent, respectively, since the 
1950s. In a 2004 study, Ransom Myers and Boris Worm of Dalhousie 
University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, found that large predatory fish 
communities have declined worldwide by 90 percent over the last 50 to 
100 years. ''These declines are general and even higher for sensitive 
species such as sharks," the study said.

Despite global bans on shark fins for soups that the affluent in Asia 
pay $100 to $200 a bowl for, the global catch of sharks, rays, and 
skates is between 800,000 and 900,000 tons a year. That is at least 
three and possibly four times the catch of the 1950s, according to the 
United Nations and the World Conservation Union. Well-known species such 
as hammerhead, basking, blue, bull, and mako have been affected.

In some other places, like Bimini in the Bahamas, coastal resort 
development that wipes out mangrove nurseries and dredges the ocean 
floor bare is threatening the lemon shark. The Florida Museum of Natural 
History's website is full of extinction threats from around the world. 
In the Philippines, a rare megamouth shark was accidentally caught by 
fishermen. Researchers in South Africa predict coastal shark extinctions 
within a decade because of beach nets meant to protect swimmers.

In Australia, the gray nurse shark is on the verge of extinction and the 
average size of whale sharks spotted off the coast has shrunk from 21 
feet long to 15 feet long. Whale sharks are the biggest fish on Earth. 
They can grow up to 60 feet long over lives than can span 150 years. But 
they do not reach sexual maturity until 2 and 3 decades old.

This is no fiction. From poaching to overfishing to resorts, the decline 
of the shark is becoming a symbol of the human feeding frenzy. 
Unfortunately, protecting the oceans is not yet a strong suit of the 
United States. In President Bush's budget for 2007, the National Oceans 
Service, the National Fisheries Service, and the Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Research service were all cut.

Peter Benchley died saying ''Jaws" was only a film. Because of our jaws, 
sharks are headed to the day when the only place we will see them is in 
the movies.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/02/15/endangered_predator/
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