Our neighbor, the apex predator
The Old English word that shark derives from is “shurke,” meaning villain
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” — Book of Genesis, 1:26
Great white sharks didn’t get the message.
The Bible calls it “dominion.” Scientists call it “apex predator,” meaning nothing will hunt you. Animals in this category belong to an exclusive club: tigers, lions, sperm whales, killer whales (aka Orcas), golden eagles, polar bears, saltwater crocodiles. They share little in common except the most important thing of all: they are so formidable that it makes no sense to have anything to do with them unless you have a rifle.
Humans hate sharing space with other apex predators. You could say it’s bad for our self-image, you could say we don’t like it when we lose control, you could say they don’t respect our space or animals, you could say they scare the hell out of us.
The problem is that unlike all other apex predators, we aren’t content with a defined domain. We want to be wherever we want to be, land to sea to sky, equatorial jungle to polar ice cap to ocean surf. We don’t acknowledge natural pyramids that have existed for millennia, each with its own apex. We level the playingfield, or obliterate it, with technology.
Our fear and fascination with apex great whites is as deep as our civilization. The Old English word that shark derives from is “shurke,” meaning villain. The French word for shark is “requin,” with the same root as “requiem,” a mass for the dead. Aristotle in 330 BC recorded his belief that given the structure of a shark’s mouth, set back with no chin, they must have to turn upside down to bite – Aristotle got a lot right, but not this.
I remember writing about sharks for Martha’s Vineyard Magazine almost 30 years ago, the Vineyard being a sharkier place than the Cape long before the “Jaws” movie, though that has changed some. Back then the only story I could find of a real-life shark bite there occurred in 1989, when someone casting from the beach hooked a brown shark, a friend tried to grab it by the tail to get rid of it, and the shark bit the guy on the calf.
I’d call that a self-inflicted wound.
I also documented a few stats that were solid then, maybe still close:
· One million sharks are killed by humans for every person bitten.
· There had been only nine verified deaths by shark bite north of Cape Hatteras since 1865, four by one animal at one time.
Of course now we have suffered a death in our own waters, and several injuries.
Jacques Cousteau had an intriguing global observation about shark attitudes:
“The real ‘man-eaters’ are always ‘somewhere else.’ In Europe, the waters of Senegal, West Africa, are thought to be dangerous. But in Dakar, you will be told to avoid the Red Sea and Djibouti. Djibouti prides itself on never having had a single accident, but people there will tell you that Madagascar is infested with sharks, thirsting for blood. And on the island of Madagascar, if you are on the west coast, the sharks are dangerous on the east coast, and vice versa.”
None of this is to say the threat isn’t real. While great whites have always been around, their local seal-chasing numbers now are much higher and they have killed or bitten people, more likely by mistaken identity but maybe on purpose; the motive doesn’t matter if you’re the victim. We now have phone apps to keep us posted on locations; the ancient fear has been channeled in modern ways, beaches evacuated at the ping of a transponder. And if all this saves a life, good.
But I find myself wondering if there isn’t some better collective consciousness, some other way to relate to the presence of these apex predators in our waters – or it is their waters? Or can it be both?
History suggests not. Then again, we aren’t mounting full-scale attacks on them, shark derbies are no longer politically correct, and the only public official who has raised the idea of killing them off was a county commissioner who got elected for one term even though he served time in federal prison for threatening to kill President George H.W. Bush (the elder) as well as Ted Kennedy. At least the approach seems consistent.
So I end this in an unsatisfying place, unable to suggest a creative alternative to what we’re doing. Maybe that’s not so bad, though I dearly wish people could have the same blithe, full-on joyous relationship to sea and surf that I had growing up.
Funny, after this past year I feel the same way about walking into a restaurant, jamming the stage at a concert, hugging an old friend.
That makes me wonder: Could a virus qualify as an apex predator?
NEXT: A NEW PLAYER ENTERS THE CAPE COD SEA CAMPS SCENE.
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