58 Shark Against Man 



in Australia. Three amateur fishermen were in a 16-foot dinghy off 

 Seaholme, Victoria. For one of the fishermen, Doug Miller, it had not 

 been a pleasant day. A violent attack of seasickness had left him a 

 wretched man. Miller had collapsed in the bottom of the boat, wondering 

 why he had ever taken up the miserable pastime of fishing, when . . . 

 but let him tell it: 



"One minute I was lying there, wishing I was dead. I felt terrible. 

 Suddenly, I heard a scream and a yell and an eight-and-a-half-foot Gray 

 Nurse landed fair on top of me. For a second, I didn't know what it was. 

 Then I knew and nearly blacked out. I fought to get to my feet, and 

 as soon as I did I was knocked down by its tail. Three times I stood up 

 and three times I landed back on the bottom of the boat. I felt like 

 going overboard, but I couldn't leave the other two." 



After making the most rapid recovery from seasickness ever recorded, 

 Miller sprang to the aid of the other two fishermen, and together they 

 finally vanquished the shark by beating it over the head with the boat's 

 tiller. 



To dive from a boat at sea or even in harbor is possibly to invite 

 shark attack, and similarly a possible danger is the sport of being towed 

 in the water by a moving ship. When a man is being towed he may look, 

 to a shark at least, Uke a fish. In 1959 alone, the SRP reported 12 unpro- 

 voked "contacts," including boats, life-rafts— and water-skiers. Twelve 

 similar incidents were reported in 1960. Sharks attacked four boats in 

 1961, according to a SRP report issued in June, 1962. In one case, the 

 report said, "a dinghy with two occupants was used as a toy by a school 

 of sharks which swirled it around and around." 



"Our data reveal," the SRP also says, "that it is dangerous to dive 

 off piers, boats and ships at anchor in shark-infested bays and lagoons, 

 for we have several records of divers who were attacked under such 

 circumstances the moment they entered the water." 



The Shark Research Panel's report on shark attacks in 1961 says that 

 sharks made 30 unprovoked attacks on humans during 1961, injuring 

 31 persons, 6 of them fatally. The attacks listed were in waters off both 

 coasts of the United States, off Hawaii and other Pacific islands, Bermuda, 

 Australia, South and East Africa, the Philippines, in the Mediterranean 

 Sea and the Persian Gulf, and 150 miles up the Limpopo River in East 

 Africa. Though the attacks span a large part of the world, none is listed 

 from South or Central America, the East Indies, or other coasts of 

 Southeast Asia. Dangerous sharks are known to be plentiful in these 

 areas, and attacks are known to occur, but most of the sharks' deeds go 

 unrecorded. 



