Sharks!

"Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..." has to be one of the most famous taglines in movie history, slicing like a dorsal fin through the surface of our collective cultural consciousness, instantly recognisable even by those (like me) who never saw 'Jaws 2' - from which it derives - or any of the other three horror films in the franchise starring man-eating  sharks!  But then I don't swim, and have never thought it particularly safe to go in the water in the first place, at least not beyond waist height in some quiet corner of the sun-kissed Mediterranean. 

'Jaws' certainly did much to give sharks a worse reputation than they already had, and the obvious question that sprang to mind when I saw this week's blog theme was: is it a reputation that is deserved? I took a bit of a dive into the topic and was surprised by what I found.

 

Sharks have a cartilaginous rather than a bony skeleton (which is why there are no fossil remains to be found) and are of the order of fish known as chondrichthyans. They have five to seven gills on either side of the head and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Being dominant in their domain, they have not been required to evolve much from Shark Mark I, though there is great variety to be found.

In fact there are over 500 species of shark swimming around the world's oceans (which, remember, gives them access to 70 per cent of the planet, while land-based life is limited to the other 30 per cent). They have been around for over 400 million years, which means they pre-date (and have obviously outlived) the age of the dinosaurs, presumably because of the protective nature of their watery environment.

It is sad to reflect, therefore, that 143 of the 500 species which have existed so happily for all those millions of years are now classified as endangered thanks largely to the malign impact of mankind on the planet in the last 200 years. That's quite a shocker. One could quite understand if some sharks did have it in for human beings!

So what about all the scare-mongering over shark attacks on people? In reality, although they are apex predators, i.e. top of the ocean food chain, and cold-blooded killing machines of the seas, there have been  a mere 2,785 confirmed reports of unprovoked attacks by sharks around the world since 1958, when official recording of such incidents began. That averages out at 45 a year, less than one per week. Furthermore, the number of fatalities per year is in single figures, in other words little higher than zero in statistical terms; one might almost call that a drop in the ocean, unless you happened to be one of the handful of victims.

On top of that, a mere dozen out of 500 species of shark are truly considered dangerous and of those, only 3 types have even clocked up double-digit death tolls since records began in 1958. They are the Great White, Tiger and Bull. It is true that the number of attacks per year is increasing and the reason for that is thought to be the directly related to an increase in the number of people who go swimming  in coastal waters (e.g. around the USA and Australia) that sharks have traditionally regarded as their own. As in so many other areas, we are the invasive problem.

Leaping fresh from the imaginarium, this week's new poem, again dashed off in haste at the end of another less than successful away day.

In Vinegar Shallows

We'd burst late upon the scene

in sharp sharkskin suits

with cold avaricious eyes

and calculating machines.

In terms of the planetary clock

evening was already under way.

Sun swung low over still waters

as we swaggered down to the shore,

liked all that we saw

and proceeded to royally

fuck everything over

without a care for consequence.

The last few basking sharks

circling in vinegar shallows

clearly knew the chips were down,

the game was up. You could tell

as they meandered mournfully

there would be poaching tonight.

I was going to post a link to the cult 'Baby Shark Song', but thought better of it.

Thanks for reading. Stay dry! S ;-)