For Shiffman, our incapacity to conceptualize relative threat is each an ecological and aesthetic tragedy, undermining conservation efforts whereas stopping us from exulting within the glory of sharks — with their dermal denticles, their complete lack of bones and their potential to listen to an injured fish from a mile away. The syllogism he implies is reassuring: Solely idiots are afraid of sharks; you aren’t an fool; subsequently you aren’t afraid of sharks.
The plain speak stands in distinction to a best-selling e book from 2005, Susan Casey’s “The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks.” That one is engineered for goose bumps. When two researchers in Casey’s e book hop on a ship to watch shark exercise, it isn’t lengthy earlier than “the dorsal fin of delusion and nightmare rose from under and got here tunneling towards them like a German U-boat, creating a large wake.” The e book’s title performs on our fears too, with a bit of sunshine misdirection; the “satan’s enamel” refers to not sharks however to the craggy Farallon Islands in California the place they cluster.
The dominant shark iconography of my youth (18 miles from the Farallon Islands, by the way) took the type of a bumper sticker from a close-by surf store. The sticker was in every single place. It seemed like a no-smoking signal, with a pink circle bisected by a slash — however as a substitute of a cigarette, the circle contained a picture of a shark. Like several respectable piece of lore, this was not what it gave the impression to be. The concept of banning sharks the way in which you’d ban cigarettes or double parking was a cosmic joke. The surfers who bore the sticker had been on the identical web page: Disguising your self as prey and paddling right into a shark habitat was equal to signing a launch of legal responsibility waiver.
I go to Marconi much less usually now, however extra from inaptitude than worry. The author and naturalist Henry Beston described the realm in 1928: “The peninsula stands farther out to sea than another portion of the Atlantic coast of america; it’s the outermost of outer shores.” Beston, who retreated to the dunes after his experiences in World Warfare I, likened the sound of an incoming tide to “the fury of battle.” The sandbars alongside the coast shift on what looks as if an hourly foundation, leading to waves that repel makes an attempt at coercion. Calculating the coordinates the place swell, wind, present and tide harmonize requires a granular data that’s reserved, correctly, for locals.
An app referred to as Sharktivity tracks sightings within the space, with the thought to “cut back encounters and promote security.” At any time when a white shark sighting is confirmed close to a public seashore, app customers obtain a pink alert. A number of the tagged sharks have been named. (Agnes, Huge Papi, Turbo, Sean.) Often I monitor the app to see the place the gang is convening, although Sharktivity warns that “THE ONLY WAY TO COMPLETELY RULE OUT A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH A SHARK IS TO STAY ON SHORE.”
From Shiffman’s e book I’ve discovered that dying by Carcharodon carcharias and pals is way much less probably than most shark media would have us imagine. The haunting powers of the bar graph at Marconi have diminished. However perhaps it’s because dying by shark not strikes me because the worst solution to perish, in contrast with the options. Many occasions since studying “Why Sharks Matter,” I’ve performed out the state of affairs in my head. Floating in salty bliss, I sense an aberrant shift in water molecules. Alongside comes a statistically anomalous nice white. Presumably it’s Agnes. I’m hit, I am going into shock and I bleed out beneath an unlimited and uncaring sky, dying precisely as I lived: unsuspecting and engulfed.
