Why sharks are guilty until proven innocent

Two sharks captured in Egyptian waters after attacks on swimmers are being dissected for human remains. What if they didn’t do it?

IT SOUNDS LIKE a heartbeat, and its simple two-note pattern has been described as one of the most inspired musical scores in cinematic history. This week there were echoes of John Williams's award-winning composition for Jaws, Steven Spielberg's 1975 epic, when four tourists were attacked by sharks in Egypt.

Three Russians and a Ukrainian were injured in incidents at the Sharm el-Sheikh holiday and diving resort on the Red Sea. In one of the attacks, which occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday, an elderly woman was reported to have lost her hand. Another woman sustained severe leg and back injuries. The victims were said to have been snorkelling near coral reefs.

All four were treated in hospital, and beaches were closed for 48 hours. On Thursday the Egyptian environment ministry said that two suspect sharks had been caught, a mako and an oceanic whitetip. The sharks were taken to the Ras Mohammed Conservation Centre, to be “dissected to check for human remains”.

The response to the attacks could have come from the book by Peter Benchley on which Spielberg based his film. The fictional tourist town of Amity initially didn’t want to close its beaches when a young woman and a boy were attacked by a great white, but Sam Quint, the shark hunter played in the film by Robert Shaw, eventually got his way.

Were Quint to have been hired for Sharm el-Sheikh, he would have had to check tagging information to be sure he was pursuing the right fish. In Australia there have been questions about the speed with which “guilty” sharks are caught after an incident.

Inevitably, Sharm el-Sheikh’s casualty list this week may have extended to two innocent fish that became easy scapegoats for a resort worried about its international image.

The International Shark Attack File, a list of all incidents reported since the mid 1500s, reports nine attacks in Egypt in the past 180 years; one of those, in 2004, was fatal. The file, which is administered by the American Elasmobranch Society (an association of professionals who study sharks, rays and skates) and Florida Museum of Natural History, and dates back to 1828, shows that, in the US, the chance of drowning off a beach or dying in other beach-related incidents, such as the collapse of a sand hole, is one in two million. This compares with one in 11.5 million for death after a shark attack and one in 264.1 million for death during a shark attack.

Emmet Jackson of the Irish Elasmobranch Group explains that people are more likely to die from a bee sting than from a shark attack but that sharks lack the positive image of elephants and even tigers. Of the 400 kinds of shark, only 30 species are known to have attacked humans; most did not cause serious injury, and such incidents are very rare.

There have been no such attacks in Irish waters, which may be home to a high proportion of the world’s basking sharks – the second-largest fish in the sea, which were once hunted here for the oil in their livers. Dr Edward Farrell of the Marine Institute, who is an expert on smooth-hound sharks, told a recent conference in Galway that our shark population reflects the enormous diversity of Irish waters, with at least 28 species of shark and about 18 species of ray and skate.

Last June, when a French snorkeller was attacked by an oceanic whitetip on Saint John’s reef in the southern Red Sea, shoddy diving practices were blamed. These included attracting sharks by throwing solid bait or pouring chum, a mash of fish oil and blood, into the water.

This sort of activity aims to attract sharks such as oceanic whitetips, which tend to stay out in the ocean. But scientists say it conditions the fish to regard boats and humans as synonymous with food. Sharks tend to react only if they feel threatened or disturbed; the advice for divers is to stay in a group and, if necessary, hit an overeager shark on the snout.

There are plenty of reasons for sharks to be aggressive, as they are under severe pressure from being fished for their fins, being hauled out of the water as by-catches or having their habitats destroyed.

Sonja Fordham, president of Shark Advocates International, welcomes steps taken by the European Commission to limit shark fishing. It proposes to set the total allowable catch of deep-sea sharks at zero in forthcoming annual EU fish talks, but a small percentage of by-catch will be permitted.

A written declaration circulating in the European Parliament requires that sharks be landed with their fins attached; it has the support of 253 MEPs, including two-thirds of Irish representatives.

Separately, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas has adopted recommendations to protect vulnerable short-fin mako, oceanic whitetip and hammerhead sharks.

“Overall, there are more of us than them, and mitigation measures to reduce interactions between marine users and sharks, other than killing suspected attack culprits, would be a more positive outcome,” says Emmet Jackson.