650 RETROSPECT 



the war reports of cases in which "Shark Chaser" didn't work were heard; 

 sharks were even seen to have bitten cakes of it and swum off with black 

 clouds streaming from their gill slits. After all, "Shark Chaser" had never 

 been tested on all species of dangerous sharks under different conditions or 

 in different environments. Furthermore, it had never been 100% effective in 

 the limited tests that had been conducted, nor was it ever expected to be 

 100% effective. However, as the reports came in, the Navy took action to 

 find out the full story about sharks and "Shark Chaser." 



At that time, research on some problems in biological oceanography was 

 handled through the Ecology Section of the Human Ecology Branch in the 

 Medical Sciences Division of the Office of Naval Research, with Dr. Sidney 

 R. Galler acting as a consultant in ecology. In 1950, the Ecology Section of 

 the Human Ecology Branch was combined with the Biophysics Branch to 

 form the Biology Branch, with Dr. Galler as Program Director. 



Biology branch work consisted of four programs. The first two were 

 major programs, one on survival under extreme environmental and 

 geographic conditions with emphasis on polar regions, and the other on the 

 impact on the human body of mechanical and other stresses such as 

 vibrations and shock. The third program was on biological orientation, and 

 the fourth was the hydrobiology program, which included the problem of 

 survival at sea. One component of this dealt with protecting personnel 

 against venomous, carnivorous, and toxic organisms. This component was a 

 direct outgrowth of the Navy's experience in the western Pacific Ocean 

 during World War II, where some individuals died from eating poisonous fish, 

 some had been injured by such venomous organisms as stonefish, and some 

 had been attacked by sharks. This was the beginning, in a semiformal sense, 

 of renewed Navy interest in protecting personnel against sharks. The 

 dangerous and noxious marine organisms research program then became part 

 of the Oceanic Biology Program when it evolved from the Biology Branch 

 with the establishment of the Ocean Science and Technology Division. The 

 Oceanic Biology Program included the nonhuman-related biology from the 

 old Biology Branch. The most recent change came about when the entire 

 Ocean Science and Technology Division was transferred from the Office of 

 Naval Research headquarters outside Washington, D.C., and made part of the 

 Naval Ocean Research and Development Activity (NORDA), located at the 

 National Space Technology Laboratories in Mississippi but still a part of the 

 Office of Naval Research. 



Formal renewal of the Navy's interest in shark-related problems can 

 perhaps be traced to a conference on elasmobranchs sponsored by the 

 American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and supported by the 

 Office of Naval Research and Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. At the 

 conference, entitled "Basic Research Approaches to the Development of 

 Shark Repellents," held at Tulane University April 8 to 11, 1958, 34 

 scientists reviewed what was then known about the biology and behavior of 

 dangerous sharks. One result was the establishment of the AIBS Shark 

 Research Panel, and a second was the publication of Sharks and Survival, 

 edited by Perry Gilbert (1963). Sharks and Survival was a compendium of 



