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THE SUMMER OF SHARK "EXPERTS" Last summer, a cover article in TIME Magazine, entitled "The summer of the sharks", reported on the unprecedented number of shark attacks on humans in U.S. waters, mainly along the Florida coast. Like many other reports at the time, shark "experts" dismissed this news as just a "media frenzy". This year, along with more shark attacks, we have witnessed a Summer of the Shark Experts, with an unlikely number of seemingly knowledgable individuals continually promoting the notion that these worrying attacks are statistical misinterpretions and that nothing is wrong. Heading up this group is the International Shark Attack File (ISAF) at the University of Florida. The ISAF has a simple explanation for the increase in shark attacks. "The number of shark-human interactions occuring in any given year is directly corrolated to the amount of time humans spend in the sea. As the world population continues its upsurge and interests in aquatic recreation currently rises, we realistically should expect increases in the number of shark attacks." And the ISAF website will provide you with a diagram showing two curves proving that "unprovoked shark attacks" are increasing concurrently with the number of beachgoers. The Florida figures are solid evidence: the level of attacks from the 1950s to 2001 is almost identical: one attack for each 350,000 beachgoers. (Last year, 38 attacks for 13 million beachgoers.) There are two problems with this. First, the language used by the pro-shark activists is Orwellian and this leads to miscategorizations. Sharks do not "attack", they "bite"; attacks are either "provoked" or "unprovoked"; "unprovoked attacks" by sharks on humans are the "result of mistaken identity". You can’t blame sharks for mistaking humans for sea lions and turtles. And so it goes on. The Associated Press recently reported the "grisly discovery... by a Thai fisherman unloading his catch... of a human leg sticking of the mouth of a shark . They also found a man's right forearm in the shark's stomach." Not knowing if this attack was provoked or not, he will never even become a statistic for the ominisient ISAF. There is no scientifically accepted basis for ascribing attacks as "unprovoked". You might as well report attacks that occured during rough or calm weather, or when Great Aunt Sally was asleep on the veranda. Secondly, the victim did not stand a chance to be a statistic anyway. Check out the ISAF’s web page and you will find that last year there were just seventy-six unprovoked shark attacks worldwide, sixty-two of which were in North America. Incredulously, according to the ISAF, there were no attacks in Asia, where half of mankind resides. Could it be that sharks have not found any human they could mistake for a walrus in Asia? Meanwhile, according to the ISAF, the last fatal shark attack in India was in 1880. Every day, more than two million Indians hit the beach or shallow waters for traditional fishing with small nets, diving etc. If one applies the optimistic ISAF theory to the realities of India, that should produce an extra 2,000 attacks a year. But perhaps by chasing the same fish as the sharks, the Indian fishermen are, in a sense "provoking" the sharks, and any attacks can therefore be conveniently categorized away. By only reporting on a very small portion of what is happening in the world between people and sharks, and particularly that which fits neatly into its own theories, the ISAF is merely generating anthropomorphic propaganda that excuses sharks for attacks and blames human beings. In short, these statistics must be regarded as dubious. But what is driving all these so-called experts who tell us not to worry? Are they secretly funded by our state’s leisure and holiday industry? The answer, equally strangely, is no. Their motivation is ideological rather than commercial. The pro-shark movement has focused on three major events this year. In May, an international conference was held in Taipei, Taiwan on Sustainable Use and Conservation of Sharks (arranged by the animal rights organisation WildAid). What I witnessed, as a guest speaker, was a concerted effort to show that sharks are endangered when, with the exception of a few species, they are really numerous. This was quickly followed by a press briefing, on May 21, at the National Press Club, in Washington D.C., at which federal bureaucrats tried to convince holidaymakers not to worry about the possibility of becoming shark fodder when taking summer vacations, arguing that they were more likely to be hit on the head with a falling coconut. What wisdom! Another conference, Sharks in Perspective, held in Tampa last month pushed the same type of message. The shark experts are now gearing up to promote the special protection of sharks worldwide at the forthcoming meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). In each case, the so-called "experts" have delivered the same basic message: despite the increase in attacks, populations of sharks are not increasing, they are decreasing; humans, not sharks, are responsible for attacks, because their behaviour in the sea is inappropriate. The total lack of hard scientific information to support this position does not disturb the shark cheerleaders from disseminating their propaganda. At the Tampa meeting, on June 14, during a panel on the role of the media, TV Anchorman Bob Hite asked George Burgess, Director of ISAF, "how many people, worldwide, were killed last year by sharks?" Burgess’s answer came out quickly, forcefully, and without any hesitation: "Ten." No explanation, no clarification as to the very limited level of information available, no reference to the difference between reported and unprovoked attacks, no admission that ISAF’s statistics are biased. Normally, credible scientists will provide a margin of error, qualify their figures and explain discrepancies. But not the shark experts. Dr. Merry Camhi, Vice-Chair of the Sharks Specialist Group (SSG) of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), stated that, "One hundred million sharks are killed every year..." When I asked her to provide the scientific basis for such a statement, she answered: "We cannot prove this, but we believe it is between 30 million and 160 million, so we take an average." When I further asked where the figures of 30 million and 160 million came from, obviously embarrassed, she simply responded that those were the "beliefs" of the majority of experts... The majority of the "experts" are either former or actual officials and key players of her Group and organizations like ISAF. The basis for their estimates of shark populations is guesswork. This is science at its worst and ultimately it deprives human beings, those fishermen who provide food for humanity, of their livelihoods. But it gets worse. The propaganda of the summer of the shark experts is financed by taxpayer’s money. The Fish and Wildlife Service recently donated $200,000 to the SSG of IUCN, which will most likely be used for spreading their beliefs and propaganda. According to the National Review, the Briefing at the National Press Club cost the taxpayer $32,000. The Tampa conference was financed largely by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. All that public money spent to disseminate bogus science, which attempts to upgrade sharks and downgrade human beings. Thanks to the efforts of the "experts", sharks have now been moved to the level of a charismatic species. So it seems that it is natural for government officials, with career ambitions, to link up with these "experts" and transfer their political correctness from people to sharks. But officials do not always realize that by doing so, they also transfer rights from people to sharks, and overlook the compassion due to humans. TIME is unlikely to report on this summer of shark experts, but let’s hope that next summer brings with it some good old common sense. It is time that commercial shark fishermen were freed to pursue their livelihoods, restrained only be genuine science. Then we may see a fall in the number of shark attacks on our beaches. Eugene Lapointe is president of IWMC World Conservation Trust. He was secretary general of CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, from 1982 to 1990. |
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