296 Shark and Company 



In the first known Sand shark attack on a bather in the United States, 

 a skin-diver was grabbed by a Sand shark in Long Island Sound in 

 July of 1961. The victim, Bruno Junker, said that he was diving off 

 Hart Island, near the western end of the Sound, when a 4-foot Sand 

 shark seized one of his legs just below the knee. Junker managed to 

 pry open the shark's jaws, cutting his hands on the creature's teeth. 

 Junker, a skin-diver of 10 years' experience, positively identified the 

 attacker as a Sand shark, a species he was familiar with— and a species 

 he, like nearly everyone else, had assumed to be harmless. 



Innumerable Sand sharks swarm off the United States Atlantic Coast 

 during the summer months. From Delaware Bay to Cape Cod, they are 

 among the most abundant summer sharks. They disappear from the 

 seaboard as soon as the water temperature falls below about 67 °F. Curi- 

 ously, there is no increase in their numbers along the Carolina or Florida 

 coasts in the winter. The year-round Sand shark residents of the east 

 coast of Florida apparently do not migrate. The Sand sharks which do 

 appear off the Delaware to New England coast in the warm months 

 retreat to some unknown wintering ground. 



Sand sharks feed on smaller fish, raiding schools of flatfish, bluefish, 

 or menhaden in a veritable orgy of feasting. The indefatigable Carolina 

 shark-watcher, Russell J. Coles, after seeing Sand sharks in action off 

 Cape Lookout, North Carolina, reported: 



This shark works in a more systematic way in securing its food than any 

 shark of which I know. On one occasion, I saw a school of a hundred or more 

 surround a school of bluefish and force them into a solid mass in shallow water, 

 and then, at the same instant, the entire school of sharks dashed in on the blue- 

 fish. On another occasion, with a large school of bluefish in my net, a school 

 of these sharks attacked it from all sides and ate or liberated the school of blue- 

 fish, practically ruining the net. 



Because many of the Sand sharks that are caught in Atlantic coastal 

 waters in the summer are young, they are often only 3 or 4 feet long. 

 This phenomenon, along with a tendency on the part of fishermen to 

 call any small shark a Sand shark, has beclouded the facts about what a 

 Sand shark really is and how big it really grows. They are known to 

 reach at least 10 feet. (In South Africa, Smith identifies the Gray Nurse 

 as Carcharias taiinis and says it attains 15 feet in length, but Atlantic 

 Coast specimens of Carcharias taiiriis have never been recorded larger 

 than 10 feet, five inches.) 



Fishermen frequently land Sand sharks, which are not very chal- 

 lenging game fish, incidentally. But one man's Sand shark is not another's. 

 Small Dogfish, Dusky sharks, and Brown sharks, all of which are rela- 

 tively common in waters frequented by the Sand shark, are often er- 



