PERSPECTIVE 5 



could be cited but these suffice to belie the statement that "above all, 

 the shark is unpredictable." 



SHARKS AS EXPERIMENTAL ANIMALS 



Sharks have long been used as laboratory animals (Gilbert 1969), and the 

 great majority of physicians in the United States were introduced to ver- 

 tebrate anatomy by dissecting a spiny dogfish, Squalus acanthias. This 

 same shark has also been used extensively as an experimental animal in 

 biomedical and physiological research for it is relatively small, can be 

 worked on without being anesthetized, and is readily available at seaside 

 laboratories at certain seasons of the year. 



But is a shark really healthy after capture on hook and line and confine- 

 ment in a pen or live car without feeding for days or even weeks? This 

 question prompted one of my graduate students, Fred Martini at Cornell 

 University, to study in s.me detail the metabolic changes that occur in 

 Squalus acanthias as a result of capture and confinement. The results of 

 his study, presented in another section of this volume, must give pause 

 to those who use the species as an experimental animal, assuming they 

 are working with a healthy shark. This raises a challenging question. How 

 does one capture and maintain a shark in a healthy state for use as an 

 experimental animal? Unfortunately, adequate experimental facilities for 

 the study of sharks are few in number and expensive to maintain. Two 

 of the finest are located at the Lerner Marine Laboratory (LML), Bimini, 

 Bahamas (Figs. 3, 4), and the Mote Marine Laboratory (MML), Sarasota, 

 Fla. (Figs. 5, 6). The LML is closed and the MML may soon have to 

 abandon its experimental shark pools unless more funding for the facility 

 is forthcoming. Such facilities at LML and MML have enabled investiga- 

 tors to study the behavior and response patterns of sharks under more 

 controlled conditions than are possible in the open sea. This research com- 

 plements that made in the natural environment. Both approaches are 

 essential to an adequate understanding of shark behavior. 



Open-sea studies are at best difficult, and relatively few scientists have 

 left the confines of their laboratories to study sharks in their natural 

 environment. Greater emphasis, however, should be placed on this ap- 

 proach because behavioral studies of sharks in the open sea promise rich 

 rewards to trained observers who venture from their laboratory benches 

 (Zahuranec 1975). The role sharks play in the ecology of coral reefs, or 

 the behavior of certain sharks that appear to stake out territories and de- 

 fend them from intruders are challenging subjects for investigation. 



SHARKS AS A HAZARD 



Patently, people are not the favorite food of sharks, for the number of 

 attacks per year in the entire world is certainly less than 100, no more 

 than 30% of which are fatal (Gilbert 1968b, Baldridge 1974). This figure 



