The Sharks— Part Tivo 345 



Many sharks of this type, identified as Carcharias menisorrah ( Mueller and Henle, 

 1841 ) are caught in the Persian Gulf. It is possibly the same species that enters the 

 Ahvaz and Tigris Rivers, and penetrates as far as the city of Baghdad. 



Courtesy, Einar Munksgaard from 

 Danish Scientific Investigations in Iran, 1944 



That British soldier, who survived, was one of 27 men, women, and 

 children attacked in the Karun River near Ahwaz from 1941 to 1949, 

 a period during which authentic records on shark attacks were kept by 

 Allied military authorities. About half of the attacks were fatal, and most 

 began as had the attack on the ambulance driver— a lunge at the ankles 

 in very shallow water, close to shore. 



The Karun River, like the storied Euphrates and Tigris, empties 

 into the northern end of the Persian Gulf, which is more sheltered from 

 the open sea than Long Island Sound. A truly pelagic shark would have 

 to travel from the Arabian Sea, up the Gulf of Oman, into the Persian 

 Gulf, then across the Persian Gulf and up the mouth of the Karun— just 

 to begin its journey to Ahwaz! Yet the appearance of ferocious sharks in 

 the Karun is far from extraordinary, and similarly savage sharks are 

 found in both the Euphrates and the Tigris. In Baghdad, some 350 miles 

 from the sea, sharks are so well known that they have entered into leg- 

 ends; the sharks come to Baghdad, it is said, to feast upon the city's 

 melons. In Khorramshahr, below Ahwaz on the Karun, the story goes 

 that the sharks linger under the date-palms to eat the dates falling from 

 the trees! 



They also attack people— and this is no legend. In a report on fishes 

 of the Persian Gulf, H. Blegvad, a Danish marine biologist, said: 



Every year several people, especially children, fall victims to these sharks. 

 I think the big sharks do not find the same abundance of food in the rivers as 

 in the sea; this may explain that they are more voracious in the fresh water than 

 in the sea, where the pearl divers do not fear the sharks. 



Man-killing sharks are also known in Australian rivers. 



On November 27th, 1921, Herbert Jack was wading out to his dinghy 

 moored about 10 yards from a bank of the Bulimba Reach of the Bris- 

 bane River, in Brisbane. He carried his 8-year-old son, George, on his 



