306 Shark and Company 



The Basking shark feeds by cruising through the sea with mouth 

 agape and scooping in a continual torrent of water which is strained 

 for lood by gill rakers. It is usually a sluggish monster. It gets its name 

 from its habit of lying on the surface, back awash and first dorsal fin 

 riding the water like a small black sail. Sometimes the tip of its tail, 

 and more rarely its snout, also break water. 



Occasionally, the Basking shark leaps from the sea, a lifting feat of 

 unimaginable strength. This leaping habit may be prompted by a mating 

 urge or by a more prosaic desire to get rid of the vast colonies of 

 parasites that infest its massive body. (The blood-sucking sea lamprey 

 {Petromyzon marinus) is known also to prey upon the Basking shark.) 



The Basking shark is looked upon as a menace in some parts of the 

 world, a boon in other places— and a mystery wherever it happens to 

 appear and disappear. It is a menace along the coast of British Columbia, 

 Canada, where schools of Basking sharks harass salmon fishermen, and 

 in Newfoundland, where fishermen's cod traps are destroyed by the great 

 sharks when they blunder into them and try to escape. 



The Basking sharks are not after the cod or the salmon; they are 

 merely competing with the commercial fishes in a search for food, for 

 Basking sharks seem to be exclusively plankton-eaters. As they swim 

 through a fishing ground, they tear up valuable nets, ruin trolling gear 

 which accidentally wraps around them— and they scare the devil out of 

 fishermen. 



The fishermen in Canada appealed to the government for aid. The 

 federal Department of Fisheries went after the Basking sharks with har- 

 poons, but the sharks would not be driven away. Next, firing squads 

 took to the sea and peppered the huge, easily approached sharks with 

 rifle bullets. The bullets had little effect. Finally, the Department of 

 Fisheries devised a new weapon— a vessel fitted with a pointed steel 

 ram honed to razor sharpness. The vessel sped into schools of Basking 

 sharks and cut them to pieces. As many as 18 were slaughtered at one 

 fish ng ground in a single day. 



Of the countless Basking sharks landed by commercial shark-hunters, 

 not one female is known to have carried an embryo. In fact, the only 

 mention of a Basking shark embryo in scientific literature came in the 

 year otherwise known for the signing of the United States Declaration 

 of Independence. The most widely accepted theory is that Basking sharks 

 are viviparous, conceive their young while basking at the surface, and 

 bring them forth in the sunless privacy of the deep— after a gestation 

 of possibly 2 years or longer. 



In Colonial times, Basking sharks were abundant in the Gulf of 

 Maine, and many were caught off the tip of Cape Cod to provide oil 

 for the lamps of the colonists. But the great sharks have long since 



