Cuddling up to a 3m man-eater

I was getting all bent out of shape over sharks the other day… preying on the apex predators, bad-mouthing sharks for anyone in the o ce who might want to listen. And even some who didn’t want to listen.

“A beautiful piece of evolutionary engineering,” I conceded. But, and there’s always a but... “I gaze into a sharks eyes and all I get is chill – they’re as cold as an assassin with a nger on the trigger.”

And the smile of a second-hand car dealer. Fifteen rows of teeth in each jaw, some triangular and specially designed for shredding esh, tearing o limbs.

But it was me that got attacked and mauled by some smart, fresh-thinking young minds in the o ce. And it was me and my bad attitude to sharks that just about bled out on the o ce oor.

“Jim,” said a patronising young ‘listen to me and learn person’. “Sharks have new respectability. Yep, sharks are all good.”

And if I wanted to poke a sharp stick at a dangerous animal then perhaps it should be a box jelly sh, which kills an estimated 100 people a year; or lions that kill 200 people a year, or an African elephant, a tapeworm, a salt water crocodile or a hippo. Last year there were just nine shark related fatalities globally.

“So back o the sharks Jim.”

Daisy?

I climbed on my soap box when the media started anthropomorphising, or humanising, a three metre great white which has apparently taken up residency around Tauranga.

‘Daisy’ they’ve called it. Daisy the apex killer. Really? Daisy as in Donald Duck’s love interest works for me.

Aunt Daisy after the one-time domesticity radio star. at works for me too. She would often tell her listeners that “the sun is shining right up my back passage this morning”. And Daisy for little girls – Daisy the 90th most popular name in New Zealand last year.

A daisy is a dainty ower, and there’s nothing oral, nor feminine, about a shark with blood on its hands….or dorsal n.

Shark experts who dive o Guadalupe, have christened their sharks with hardassed, gender neutral, predator names – ‘Shredder’, ‘Bullet’, ‘Biteface’ and ‘Scarboard’. Any great white would wear those names proudly. But Daisy? Nuh! And why Tauranga Daisy? Tauranga translates to ‘resting place’ or ‘safe anchorage’. You’re making a lie of that.

ere’s a lot of briny out there – about 321,000,000 cubic miles of seas and oceans, and you with attitude, choose to come play in our backyard. It may be old fashioned thinking but I can’t trust anyone or anything that sleeps with its eyes open. And there’s a very good reason the collective noun for sharks is a ‘shiver’. I remain a “fear rather than revere” person when it comes to sharks. And that fear was forged by some grim experiences are one in 11,000,000 – but isn’t it an understandable fear none-the-less? at was 1975 Jim!

I’m also haunted by the urgent peals of the St Clair shark bell. People ed the water at rst toll. What menace, what killing machine, was lurking out there in the rollers? Cue Spielberg: “Dunn dunn, dunn dunn...”

‘Jaws’ – the ultimate suspense movie track, blamed for shaping public perception of sharks as merciless, maneating, monsters.

“ at was 1975,” I am curtly reminded by those trying to re-programme me. “And this is now. People and their attitudes to sharks have changed.” in Dunedin as a kid. One day a bloke called Les Jordan didn’t show for morning assembly at my high school. e surf lifesaver had been taken by a shark while training early morning o St Clair Beach. An entire school was left paralysed with shock and disbelief. en, next-door at St Kilda beach, another surf lifesaver called Bill Black, was snatched from his lifeline by a great white. Bill’s body was never recovered. e following year, Errol Hitt was taken by a 4.5 metre great white while spear shing o Dunedin’s Aramoana Mole. ere was more. Two years later a 16-year-old was attacked by a shark and required 50 stitches to a leg bite. And Barry Watkins recalled with horror “the huge bloody eyes” as a shark munched him and his surfboard at St Clair. Call mine an irrational fear – the odds of a shark attack

To reinforce that point, I am told about a shing net being pulled in at a family bach in the Far North years ago. ere’s a harmless shark in the catch.

An aged aunt screams for blood. “Kill that damned thing before it does damage to someone.” e idea is met with complete indi erence. How is killing a harmless shark going to help anyone or anything? It was duly released...

Common sense

During 400 million years, sharks have evolved deep inter-dependent relationships with their ecosystems. Like tigers and other top-level predators, sharks are a keystone species – lose them and it would signi cantly alter the ecosystem. So while I may not appreciate having sharks around, I can respect them. And I can share my space with ‘Daisy’. Well, I have to.

en just last week, a massive three metre bull shark was pulled from the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia, near where a 16-year-old girl was fatally mauled by a shark. ere may have been a mood for summary justice - accused and executed without full and fair trial. But the animal was released back into the wild.

Common sense is prevailing.