The Shark Chronicles: A scientist tracks the consummate predator by John Musick and Beverly McMillan, Times Books, $26, ISBN 0805070931 Reviewed by Michael Cross
IN A Jaws movie, Jack Musick would meet a grisly end halfway through reel three. He鈥檚 the wild-haired boffin who slides down the great white鈥檚 gullet exclaiming that this magnificent creature should be cherished not killed. In real life, if The Shark Chronicles (written with Beverly McMillan) is any guide, the shark scientist鈥檚 lot is less predictable though hardly less dramatic. The book, written in the first person singular, is a collection of colourful sketches of shark science in glamorous and sometimes perilous places. The result is a snapshot of what we know about these maligned predators and a plea for their preservation.
This would be a great book to leave within reach of a teenager planning to give up 鈥渂oring鈥� science. There are no pictures, but plenty of colour in the words: 鈥淎t the time, the shotgun seemed an ideal tool for dispatching the shark, but as I took aim and fired the skiff lurched sharply鈥︹�� Like most fishermen, Musick enjoys a yarn.
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But the real stars are the sharks themselves (the word comes from the Mayan xoc). Sharks are fascinating. They range from the 20-metre whale shark down to the tiny cookiecutter that takes circular bites out of its prey. The 5-metre megamouth was discovered as recently as 1976. There鈥檚 the thresher, which stuns its prey with its tail, and the warm-blooded salmon shark. The frilled shark holds the world record for duration of pregnancy 鈥� three years.
Oh yes, and that Jaws business. Musick concedes that sharks eat people, but that鈥檚 just a consequence of a recent ecological revolution 鈥� recreational bathing 鈥� for which neither sharks nor humans were prepared. The good news is that, weight for weight, wild sharks eat less and less often than other carnivorous fish. Since 1580, around 2200 attacks on humans have been confirmed. That鈥檚 just 5 per cent of the number of Americans injured by toilets in the year 1996.
It鈥檚 true that there鈥檚 a feeding frenzy going on, but humans are the feeders, most disgracefully for patent medicines and shark鈥檚 fin soup. Sharks are slow breeders, more like elephants or turtles than fish, and we鈥檙e wiping them out.
That makes Musick angry. Movie-makers, beware.