Anti-Shark Warfare 127 



observed Dr. Llano, the Air Force research specialist who made the pre- 

 viously mentioned exhaustive studv^ of wartime survival at sea. 



After the war, the product was marketed commercially, without great 

 success, by the Shark Chaser Chemical Company of San Pedro, Cali- 

 fornia. Two of the authors made extensive efforts to gather information 

 about the repellent's effectiveness, both for protecting swimmers and for 

 protecting fishermen's nets against sharks. Their efforts were notable for 

 their failure to gather any credible evidence whatsoever as to the efficacy 

 of the product. 



The Presto Dyechem Company of Yonkers, New York, now manu- 

 factures Shark Chaser for the armed services. In 1961, this company, 

 which said it manufactures the product under exclusive license, an- 

 nounced that the repellent had been released for civilian use. (The an- 

 nouncement failed to note the previous public sale of the repellent by the 

 California firm, or the fact that it had long been sold by dealers in sur- 

 plus property who had acquired repellent packets from government 

 stocks.) The company, in 1961, began advertising Shark Chaser in pack- 

 ets for skin-divers, and Shark Chaser in liquid or packet form to protect 

 commercial fishermen's nets from sharks. 



Shark Chaser was also sold to protect beaches. In the summer of 1961, 

 Maurice J. Fleischman, city manager of Long Beach, Long Island, an- 

 nounced that the beaches of his town were going to be "sharkproofed." 

 The sharkproofing would be done in this way: when a shark was sighted, 

 or when the Coast Guard notified lifeguards, in some way, that sharks 

 were in the vicinity, the lifeguards would tow 720-foot lines, to which 

 canisters of repellent were attached, into the surf, and anchor them be- 

 yond the bathing area. They would, as quickly as they could, string the 

 lines along 2,400 feet of the town's beaches. The repellent would diffuse 

 in the water, and the swimmers would be protected from sharks; or at 

 least that was the hope. "Visitors to Long Beach this summer may be 

 assured they will be protected from the perils of shark attack," the city 

 manager stated. He did not speculate on the possibility that the repellent 

 line might actually fence sharks within the bathing area. 



Soon after Long Beach announced its sharkproofing plan, Howard B. 

 Reiffel, the president of Presto Dyechem, appeared in New Jersey to 

 explain the workings of the repellent to 1 3 New Jersey sea resort offi- 

 cials, some of whom, only a year before, had been pondering the erec- 

 tion of bubble fences along their beaches. Reiffel estimated that a dozen 

 canisters of Shark Chaser strung from a line parallel to shore could pro- 

 tect about 200 feet of beach for about 9 hours. 



The product being sold commercially as Shark Chaser is identical 

 with the repellent issued to U.S. servicemen who fly over, or who may 

 have to abandon ship in, shark-menaced waters. Packets of it are also 

 attached to the life jackets of astronauts. 



