182 Man and Shark 



fine Irish cattle. The sharks' tremendous hides have defied efforts to make 

 them into leather. Even the sharks' teeth, minute and very unter- 

 rifying, are commercially worthless. 



American attempts to cash in on the goliath Basking shark have often 

 shown a spectacular flair. In 1924, two men began harpooning Baskers 

 for sport in Monterey Bay, California. Eventually they discovered that 

 the big sharks could be turned into money. Meal made from the carcasses 

 was used in livestock feed and dog biscuits, and a spiritual descendant 

 of the old frontier snake-oil salesmen bottled and sold "Sun Shark Liver 

 Oil" as "Nature's Own Tonic." The industry all but died out around 1938. 



After World War II, a new generation of California sharkers attacked 

 the Basking sharks with a combined air-sea-land operation, using war 

 surplus equipment. A shark-spotting aircraft patrolled the California 

 coast around Monterey. When the pilot saw a school of sharks hving up 

 to their name by basking on the surface, he began circling the sharks and 

 radioed a crew standing by in an amphibious "Duck" vehicle parked 

 on the beach. The Duck raced along the beach until it came opposite 

 to the circling plane. Then it plunged into the surf and headed for the 

 sharks, which were usually a quarter to a half mile offshore. 



As the Duck neared the school, a shark was selected and the sea- 

 going truck bore down on it. The harpooner, in a "pulpit" rigged to a 

 bowsprit, leaned down over the shark and plunged his 65-pound weapon 

 into it. Attached to the harpoon were several hundred feet of %-inch 

 manila rope. The heavy rope smoked as it ran out, pulled by tons of 

 writhing energy plunging toward the bottom. Usually, 500 feet of rope 

 ran out before the shark seemed to be tiring. A sealed oil drum was often 

 tied to the line at about the 250-foot mark. This drum was intended to 

 act as a drag on the fish, but frequently it was towed so deep below 

 the surface that the pressure caused it to collapse. 



If and when the shark was finally subdued and pulled to the surface, 

 it was shot with a 30/30 rifle. Only a shot through an eye or between 

 the eyes could possibly kill a Basking shark, so it sometimes took hours 

 to administer the coup de grace. After the shark was killed, it was tied 

 to a buoy, and the Duck returned to shore to await another radio message 

 from the plane. Meanwhile, another man of the group phoned processing 

 plants until he found a customer. When a shark was sold, the Duck 

 would return to the buoy, untie the shark and tow it to shore, where 

 a winch hauled it up a ramp and into a truck. 



One hundred sharks were killed in one year at one beach by the 

 shark commandos, and one champion harpooner killed 7 in a single 

 day— with the same harpoon. The sharkers got 7 to 9 cents a pound for 

 the sharks' livers, which weighed from 700 to 2,000 pounds. Nothing 

 was paid for the carcasses, though the processing plants sometimes con- 

 verted them into meal for chicken feed. One of the plants that handled 



