Sand tiger shark 



flesh — keeps the sharks circling and 

 in camera range. A fair interpretation 

 requires an acknowledgment of context, 

 Lovin says. 



"I do not think we should portray 

 sharks like circus animals," he says. 



Though natural feeding frenzies 

 certainly occur among wild fish of all 

 ilks, sharks can mind their manners 

 when the occasion demands. The proof 

 came in a recent candid video of great 

 white sharks feeding on a seal 27 miles 

 off the coast of San Francisco, as 

 reported in a 1995 article in BBC 

 Wildlife. The unstaged scene was 

 captured on film by a pole-mounted 

 camera dipped below the surface. 



"... The hidden world below the 

 bloody slicks and wheeling gulls was 



full of silent activity," writes Ian 

 Fergusson. "Congregating far below 

 the surface melee, four, five or more 

 adult white sharks circled, awaiting 

 any opportunity to collect scraps." 



Filmmaker Paul Atkins says in 

 the article: "The actual feeding 

 process was so controlled, almost 

 gentle. There was no feeding frenzy, 

 just very slow, deliberate motion and 

 responses to other sharks." 



This is certainly not the image 

 that the great white — the model for 

 the blockbuster "Jaws" — conjures 

 up for most people. But that tale of 

 a killer shark with a vendetta was 

 unadulterated fiction. After all, few 

 moviegoers would pay to watch the 

 ocean's top predators behaving like 



they're sharing tea and biscuits with 

 the queen. 



Lovin admits that he didn't see 

 the 1975 thriller until a decade after 

 its release. "I can see why people, 

 having seen that film, stayed out of 

 the water," he says. Now, with the 

 memory of "Jaws" and much of the 

 hysteria it spawned put squarely to 

 rest, a lot of divers are disappointed 

 if they don 't see sharks. Trips to 

 Australia to photograph great whites 

 command up to $10,000, not including 

 air travel, Lovin says. 



"All over the world there are 

 places where sharks can be fed to a 

 certain degree just so divers can see 

 them," he says. "Sharks are a real 

 tourist attraction now." 



6 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1996 



