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 he
horrific, near-fatal shark attack on a boy off a Florida beach in
July — followed just days ago by a similar mauling in the Bahamas
— may be nothing more than blind bad luck, a case of being in the
wrong place at the wrong time, a statistical improbability.
At least, that's
how we're expected to view such shocking encounters with nature.
No one can be blamed, we're advised by "experts." A boy,
doing what boys do, simply crossed paths with a shark doing what
sharks do. Like themes are sounded whenever we read (as we do with
what seems increasing frequency) of bear attacks, mountain lions
chasing joggers, "reintroduced" wolf packs raiding ranches,
alligators menacing golfers, or coyotes snatching house pets. If
humankind is going to encroach upon nature, we're told, we have
to accept the fact that we're not always going to come out on top
in the food chain. It's just nature's way.
But more than
mere happenstance may lie behind the sudden, shocking return of
the shark. In a curious juxtaposition of trends, shark attacks last
year reached record levels in the world (79), in the U.S. (49),
and in Florida (34 documented cases) — even as scientists and government
officials are claiming that the animals are being chased toward
extinction by fishermen looking for thrill kills. And shark attacks
in the U.S. have increased dramatically since 1993 — which is when
the federal government began mandating deep cuts in the number of
sharks that could be caught for sport or profit.
Proponents
of such regulations are understandably reluctant to recognize the
possibility of cause and effect. After all, word of the shark's
imminent demise comes from no less an authority than Jaws
author Peter Benchley, who has made his name alternately vilifying
and lionizing the Great White. "I couldn't write 'Jaws' today,"
the author and "full-time ocean conservationist" recently
confessed to a magazine.
We hear it
from environmental groups, including the National Audubon Society,
Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Ocean Conservancy (formerly
the Center for Marine Conservation). We see it on the Discovery
Channel, the Nature Channel, and Animal Planet. Watch in awe as
the "perfect killing machine" devours this roped-to-the-boat
leg of lamb! the shark programs seem to say. But don't hate, or
fear, or lash out in anger at the poor, misunderstood shark: As
an "apex predator," it plays a beneficial role in the
natural world. The author of "Summer of the Shark," a
recent Time magazine cover story, churned up enough menace
and bloodlust to make it jump off the rack — yet still dutifully
regurgitated the sharks-as-victims line. "Humans are much more
dangerous to sharks, which tend to end up in soup or medicine,"
the article reminded readers, before trotting out the usual statistical
comparisons between shark attacks, lightning strikes, and Christmas-tree-light
electrocutions.
Responding
to man's alleged war on sharks — and the toll it was said to be
taking on their dominion in the deep — the federal government in
1993 began managing the U.S. commercial shark fishery. It also launched
an aggressive campaign to rebuild allegedly depleted shark stocks,
mainly by making life untenable for commercial shark fishermen.
This marked a dramatic reversal from a decade earlier, when the
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), recognizing sharks as
an underused resource, was actively encouraging Americans to enter
an industry it now seems hell-bent on shutting down.
Since 1993,
strict limits have been placed on the number of sharks that can
be taken from U.S. waters by both commercial and sport fishers.
The commercial shark-fishing season has been shortened accordingly.
Four-thousand-pound "trip limits" made it a losing business
proposition for the largest U.S. shark boats, ensuring that sharking
became a small-boat industry. Commercial shark permits issued by
the feds were cut tenfold, from around 2,000 before 1999 to around
200 today. And nearly 20 types of sharks — including Whites, some
types of Makos, and Caribbean Reef sharks — have been declared off-limits
to commercial harvest.
Also jumping
on the shark-protection bandwagon, Florida in 1992 instituted a
strict, 1 shark per person (or 2 shark per boat, maximum) bag limit
on sharks in state waters (which extend 3 miles from the beach on
the Atlantic Ocean, and nine miles from the shoreline on the Gulf
of Mexico). Gillnetting and long lining, two common techniques for
snaring sharks, were also banned. Though sharks are still caught
in state waters, these restrictions severely reduce the number taken
closest to shore. This has effectively created a sanctuary in the
area where human-animal interactions are most prone to occur, and
which at least one type of shark famous for its attacks upon humans
— the Bull Shark — is known to frequent.
All of these
tactics have resulted in a steep drop in the number of sharks caught
in U.S. coastal waters: from 17.2 million lbs. in 1989, at the apogee
of the shark fishing boom (spurred on, in large part, by the high
prices paid for shark fin soup), to 8.5 million lbs. in 1999 — or
a 49 percent cut. Translating those weights into actual numbers,
one government report indicates that shark kills fell from an estimated
350,000 fish (in 1989) to 113,100 fish (in 1999). Comparable reductions
have occurred in recreational shark fishing.
In Florida,
where the vast majority of shark fishing (and U.S. shark attacks)
occurs, more than 7.4 million lbs. of shark was hooked or netted
off the coast in 1990, according to U.S. fishery statistics. By
1999, due to government regulation, the total catch had plummeted
by more than 86 percent, to just over 1 million lbs. In recent years,
the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has pushed for even
deeper cuts, but has been blocked in court by what remains of the
commercial shark fishing industry. Sharkers question the validity
of the science behind the regulations, contending that a government
economic impact assessment grossly underestimated their financial
hit on the industry. The government's most recent shark-stock assessment
— the product of a controversial 1998 workshop which some fishers
say was hijacked by advocacy groups — is currently undergoing an
independent scientific review, as part of a court-ordered settlement
between fishing interests and the government. According to fishing
people, the review shows the government's shark-population estimates
to be based on insufficient data and flawed modeling. According
to proponents of shark rebuilding, the industry is engaged in a
stalling tactic, and must be curbed for its own long-term good.
Though ichthyophiles
understandably deny a correlation, the number of shark attacks in
U.S. and Floridian waters has risen steadily as shark-catch totals
have fallen. In 1993, when the federal government began managing
the fishery, there were 8 documented shark attacks in Florida, according
to the International Shark Attack File (whose counts are considered
credible, but err on the conservative side). Last year, there were
a record-high 34 — including one known fatality — in state waters,
representing a more than threefold (325 percent) jump in cases.
Nationally, attacks rose from 21 in 1993 to 51 last year.
In the four
years immediately preceding federal intervention, Florida averaged
10.7 documented shark attacks per year; the national average was
17. In the seven full years following institution of the shark-stock
rebuilding program, Florida has averaged 25 shark attacks per year
(a 150 percent increase since the early `90s) — the nation, 35.3.
Meanwhile,
word among fishermen working the waters off Florida this summer
is that there is no shortage of sharks; in fact, despite government
claims of scarcity, they seem to be in surplus. Some shrimp boats
are reporting mounting problems with sharks tearing up nets. One
fisheries management official in the Florida Keys says sharks are
especially prevalent this summer. And an unusually high number of
Makos have been reported in the Dry Tortugas, desert islands about
60 miles west of Key West. Several shark fishermen interviewed indicated
that sharks are plentiful: They're having no trouble catching their
4,000 lb. "trip limit" in a single night, rather than
the usual two or three.
Do statistics
and anecdotes indicate that federal policy may be leading to an
increase in attacks? "Absolutely," says Bob Spaeth, a
fish house owner from Madeira Beach, Florida, and spokesman for
Southeastern Fisheries Association, Inc., an industry group. "In
fact, we in the industry years ago predicted this was going to happen."
Other factors
could be contributing to the phenomenon, however. These include
increased human activities on the water, weather patterns and ocean
currents, and shark migratory and mating activities only vaguely
understood by scientists. Some experts say over-fishing elsewhere
in the oceans may drive sharks closer to shore. Others blame the
phenomenon on shark-feeding scuba divers, and are pushing to ban
these popular excursions.
All of the
alternative explanations have adherents in government and in the
academy — many of them "scientists" for whom the decline
of sharks, and the need to rebuild their numbers, seems to have
become unshakable dogma. George Burgess (perhaps the most widely
quoted of the shark apologists, and a key player in instituting
federal shark fishing regulations) believes the record number of
attacks is directly attributable to increases in population and
human water sports activities. But the increase in Florida shark
attacks has far outpaced the state's 23.5 percent growth rate in
the 1990s. And besides, not everyone who moves to Florida goes for
the beaches and water sports.
Burgess is
a leading critic of shark-feeding dives, arguing that they may somehow
be altering the shark's "basic behavior and respect for human
beings." But divers account for less than 20 percent of shark
attack victims — a proportion that has held steady for the last
thirty years. Increases have come largely at the expense of swimmers
and surfers closer to shore. And in the grand scheme of things,
the number of sharks likely to participate in such feedings is infinitesimally
small.
We spoke soon
after 8-year-old Jesse Arbogast was attacked by a 7-ft. Bull shark
near Pensacola, Fla. Burgess was working the media hard, to try
and damp down what he derisively called a "shark scare."
Within days, however, two more people in Florida were bitten, one
of them a surfer just miles from the site of the Arbogast incident.
Another vocal
supporter of the government's shark program is Dr. Merry Camhi of
the National Audubon Society's Living Oceans Program. Camhi served
as observer at the 1998 workshop at which the most recent stock
assessment was done. "I'm not out on the water and I'm not
collecting the data to say myself, but based on the projected numbers
from the [1998] workshop, and based on the fact that we're still
fishing under the same quotas as we were in 1997, my guess is that
the shark stocks are not recovering," says Camhi. "You're
never going to get perfect information" on shark-stock sizes,
according to Camhi, "but you must err on the side of precaution,
and err on the side of recovery."
When asked
whether state regulation might have something to do with increases
in attacks, Lee Shlessinger, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and
Wildlife Commission, was adamant in his denials. "We're in
the business of rebuilding the shark population, our job is the
protection of these animals," declared Shlessinger, obviously
appalled by the suggestion. "Sharks are over-fished. We are
killing too many sharks."
What can or
should be done for the protection of people if "rebuilding"
current shark stocks leads to a future increase in attacks? "We
have no evidence that our management of sharks has anything to do
with this," Shlessinger said of the recent attacks. "But
if our commission sees this as a problem, we'll just have to deal
with it then. Right now, we're looking at it in terms of the shark."
At least one
government scientist interviewed does question the premise and goals
of federal shark-stock rebuilding efforts, however, and knows first-hand
how politicized they've become. But he spoke on condition of anonymity,
as his views have not been well received within NMFS. Shark stocks
probably are lower now than before the 1980s shark fishing boom,
this expert says. There is little question that shark-fishing abuses,
including "finning" (in which the fin is removed and the
rest of the fish discarded), were at one time prevalent, "but
shark abundance is far, far less dire than shark advocates contend."
Many of those
embroiled in the debate are less than objective observers, according
to this insider. "Many absurd statements have been made [about
sharks], but [the scientists] are being paid to advocate particular
positions and to make inflammatory remarks."
So how did
the once-reviled shark become a cause celebre? "There was a
little niche in academia who were looking for some kind of horse
to ride, so they got onto this issue and worked it until they elevated
it in the public eye," the scientist explains. From there,
eco-politics, rather than sound science, took over. "The [National
Marine Fisheries Service] had a political problem on its hands,
so it took steps to try to limit escalation as much as it could."
To placate
potential critics, the government's internal working groups long
had included representatives from outside advocacy organizations,
says the insider. "But over the years, those outside groups
have exercised increasing influence over the scientific process
and policy outcomes." NMFS "is not a scientific organization,
but a political organization," he says. "It might look
like a science organization to the public because it has scientists
on staff. But it's not, because its administration serves at the
mercy of politicians."
When this person
began voicing doubts about the science behind shark-stock assessments
and regulations, he says he was "frozen out" of the process.
"I was not controllable, so they keep me out of it," he
says. He adds that fisheries decisions formerly made at the laboratory
level, in accord with the best available science, are now made in
Washington.
"I feel
that hard evidence is lacking that Atlantic sharks are in any serious
trouble, much less going extinct," says the scientist. Any
lack of abundance occurring along the U.S. Atlantic coast isn't
necessarily bad, he adds, "because sharks are assuredly dangerous,
particularly in coastal areas where people frequently enjoy water
sports, as recent increases in shark attacks demonstrate."
One staunch
proponent of shark decline who nonetheless seems willing to consider
a link with increasing attacks is Dr. Ellen Pikitch, director of
marine conservation programs at the Wildlife Conservation Society
(WCS). Though she stands behind the 1998 assessment that shark stocks
remain in deficit, and calls the chance that they could be in surplus
"minuscule," Pikitch at least seemed intrigued with the
data we presented. "I think people should probably take a closer
look at shark species most responsible for attacks," Pikitch
said. "It could be that with certain species they could be
rebounding near shore. It's certainly something people should look
at."
And what of
the likelihood that federal shark-stock rebuilding efforts will
lead to a further increase in shark encounters? "I think shark
attacks are unpleasant and not something we want to see increasing,
but the first step is to understand what is happening," she
said. "We shouldn't jump to conclusions, but we shouldn't behave
like ostriches either."
A more proactive
approach to the shark question is suggested by fish house owner
Bob Spaeth, who urges wider national adoption of what he calls the
shark fisher's unofficial motto. And that is?
"Eat the
shark before the shark eats you," chuckles Spaeth.
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