More Shadows Attack 43 



sharks that have been described for years as "harmless." Nurse sharks 

 are known to be responsible for several other attacks, especially on skin- 

 divers. A similar, reputedly inoffensive shark, the Wobbegong of 

 Australia, lost its benign reputation after biting off the foot of a fisher- 

 man who apparently stepped on it. Admittedly, these "attacks" are noth- 

 ing of the sort in actuality, any more than is the lashing strike of a dis- 

 turbed sting ray. They are classified as "provoked attacks." 



Sharks do not attack when the water temperature is below 65 or 

 10 degrees: The fatal attack on Barry Wilson off Pacific Grove, California, 

 occurred in water whose temperature was 55°. On May 7th, 1959, a Great 

 White mauled 18-year-old Albert Kogler while he was swimming about 

 50 yards off Bakers Beach, near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. 

 Kogler's left arm was nearly ripped off. His courageous companion, 

 Shirley O'Neill, also 18, swam to his side and tugged him to shore, where, 

 90 minutes later, he died. Within three hours after the attack, the tem- 

 perature of the water was taken at the attack site. It was 55°. 



Another device that is used in attempting to explain shark attacks 

 is '"''The List.'" This sets down exactly how many species of sharks are 

 dangerous. Sometimes ''The Lisf has 8 names, sometimes 13. A cur- 

 rently favorite number, used by the list-makers who are playing it safe, 

 is 28.' 



The reader will not find ''The Lisf in this book. For one reason, no 

 one knows how many species of sharks there are, let alone how many 

 species are "dangerous." For another, many species are so similar that 

 even an ichthyologist cannot distinguish between them unless he has 

 one stretched out dead in his laboratory and can count the teeth, measure 

 the distance between dorsal fins, and ponder other anatomical quid- 

 dities. Few swimmers, seeing a shark lurking in the water, will be able 

 to identify it correctly. Of the numerous attacks studied by scientists, 

 only 5 per cent have yielded enough information on which to base an 

 identification of the attacker. So "The Lisf is invariably drawn up on 

 the basis of inadequate information. 



"In general, good advice about sharks seems to be not to trust any 

 of them," a Florida ichthyologist says, and good advice it is. The Inter- 

 national Oceanographic Foundation's assessment is: "All sharks are po- 

 tentially dangerous. Some sharks, shorter than 4 feet, are not so danger- 

 ous as the longer and larger ones, but one should beware of any shark, 

 just to make sure." 



Concerned over the lack of dependable information on shark behavior 

 and the scarcity of facts about shark attacks, scientists from 34 nations 

 met at Tulane University in New Orleans in April of 1958. The con- 

 ference, sponsored by the American Institute of Biological Sciences, led 



