162 Man and Shark 



United States. Sheep, cows, pigs— and dogfish and skates— do not attack 

 living people (though both dogfish and pigs will eat corpses). So no one 

 feels queasy about eating them. As a matter of fact, the sharks which can 

 and do occasionally attack bathers are not especially good as food. The 

 notorious Great White shark, for instance, is rumored to be poisonous; 

 and so are others. 



Reports of poisonous sharks are recorded as far back as 1758 in 

 France, and to the earliest times in some Pacific islands. But the basis 

 for many of these reports is difficult to find. On Saipan, because of a 

 taboo on all black fish and most red fish, the Black-Tipped Sand shark 

 (Carcharhinus melanopterus) is not eaten; yet, on Guam, where no such 

 taboo exists, it is eaten. The Six-Gill shark (Hexanchus griseum) is sold 

 as food in California, but is eaten in Germany not so much as food but as 

 a strong purgative! Mantas (Mobula) are eaten in tropical American 

 ports, but some Pacific islanders believe that he who eats the Manta sups 

 with the Devil— and they won't touch it. 



We may look patronizingly upon such quaint superstitions, but the 

 fact is that an equally irrational prejudice is keeping shark off American 

 tables. Attempts to make Americans shark-eaters have usually gone 

 aground on the shoals of such prejudice, or have been scuttled by bad 

 timing. The U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, for instance, was readying an 

 elaborate sharks-are-good-for-you campaign in 1916. Then came the 

 New Jersey shark attacks. After the panic touched off by four killings 

 and one non-fatal attack in rapid succession, apparently no one wanted 

 to contemplate a shark on his dinner table. 



After America's entry into World War I, another campaign was 

 launched. At the request of the War Food Administration and the still 

 willing Bureau of Fisheries, the well-known fish cannery, Gorton's of 

 Gloucester, was asked to try canning dogfish. According to F. M. Bundy, 

 president of the firm, "The product looked good and apparently was 

 satisfactory until, a short while after the canning, the fish developed a 

 strong ammonia odor when the cans were opened. This resulted in more 

 being returned than were shipped. Naturally, we have steered away from 

 it since." 



Teddy Roosevelt thought that sharks tasted bully, and said so pub- 

 licly, to try to get people to eat shark meat during World War I. Roose- 

 velt called for an endorsement from one of his friends, Russell J. Coles, 

 long-time watcher and catcher of sharks in the Carolinas. Coles boasted 

 that he had sampled no less than 18 varieties of shark and ray. At Roose- 

 velt's behest. Coles replied to the inevitable question— What does shark 

 taste like?— with the following enthusiastic answer: 



"Nurse shark, fairly good for food, although tougher than most 

 species; Smooth Dogfish, one of the most delicious fish that exists; Cub 



