Sharkwater: the truth will surface

“You know the thing about a shark, he’s got lifeless eyes; black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at yer, doesn't seem to be livin’. Until he bites yer and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah, then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin’ and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin’ and the hollerin’ they all come in and rip you to pieces...”

When Quint delivered his famously chilling monologue in Jaws, few could have predicted that sharks – once the tertiary predators of the sea – were, for the first time in 400 million years, about to become prey. Demonised as the embodiment of evil, the enemy of mankind, sharks have fallen victim to fishing with impunity – a result of misplaced fear – and the ecological consequences for the human race are potentially catastrophic.

Since the dawn of modern commercial fishing, as much as 90% of the world’s shark population is believed to have been wiped out. Every year, more than 70 million sharks are killed – most of them, illegally. Having survived five major extinctions since the age of the dinosaurs, these majestic, misunderstood fish are now the most endangered creatures in our seas.

Crie de couer

Sharks are apex predators and, as such, play a pivotal role in regulating ocean ecosystems. Oceans, which cover more than seven tenths of the Earth’s surface, harbour algae; via the process of photosynthesis, algae remove vast quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere and produce most of the oxygen we breathe.

Without sharks to prey on them, the creatures that feast on algae will increase exponentially in number, potentially wiping out what is perhaps, according to climate expert Sir James Lovelock, the single most important cooling element on Earth.

Now, in an effort to reverse some of the damage done by decades of negative publicity, one young filmmaker has produced a cinematic crie de couer documenting the disastrous impact of illegal fishing on our ever-dwindling shark populations. 

Sharkwater, the debut effort of underwater photographer/marine biologist Rob Stewart, is a hauntingly artistic homage to the evolutionary excellence of sharks and a devastating critique of the ecological time-bomb that is human ignorance.

Misunderstood

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to sharks,” says Stewart. “I thought if I studied them, I’d learn about life, about balance in the ocean and about how to survive on Earth.” During the four years it took to shoot the film, he realised “the one animal we fear the most is the one we can’t live without.”

Historically, much of that fear stems from the story of the USS Indianapolis, a cruiser torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Philippines during the Second World War, and the incident immortalised in Jaws’ most memorable monologue. Most of the 1,200 crew survived the explosions and jumped overboard, but in the five days it took for help to arrive, great whites attacked the living and dragged off the dead. Only 317 sailors were picked up alive.

Branded the most deadly shark attack in history, the Indianapolis incident has left a murderous legacy. To this day, self-styled ‘shark hunters’ are responsible for killing some of the world’s largest and oldest great white sharks in the misguided belief they are saving human lives. But it is great whites, rather than humans, that are now facing extinction.

Outlaw fishermen

The facts are as follows: fewer than 100 people are bitten by sharks every year, and only five of those ‘attacks’ result in a fatality. Deaths are usually the result of blood loss: most sharks are not anatomically equipped to eat us and the majority of bites, far from being attacks, are simply an attempt to work out what we are. By comparison, crocodiles kill more people in a single year than sharks do in an entire century. Even vending machines kill more people than sharks do.

Due to the lack of international regulation, relentless attack from longlines, drift nets and bottom trawling is now a formidable foe. Scuba diving in the Galapagos Islands, Stewart and his crew surfaced to find two fishing boats trailing 60 miles of illegal long line with 16,000 baited hooks – enough to stretch from Earth to outer space – and 160 dead, or dying, sharks.

One of the greatest threats facing sharks today - and the reason longlining is employed so enthusiastically by outlaw fishermen - is shark finning, which has surged since the 1980s with the expansion of China’s economy. One pound of shark fin now fetches more than US$200 and shark fin soup, a traditional dish in parts of Asia, sells for up to US$90 a bowl. The fin from a whale shark – the world’s largest fish, a gentle toothless giant that feeds only on plankton – can fetch as much as US$10,000. In terms of profit, according to Stewart, the only thing that rivals shark fins is drug trafficking. The irony of all this is that shark fin itself is completely devoid of taste and, as such, adds nothing to the dish that bears its name.  

Eco-piracy

During filming, Stewart joined renegade environmentalist Paul Watson on missions to protect some of the world’s last remaining shark sanctuaries from illegal fishing - often at the behest of the local authorities. Nearing Cocos Island, at the invitation of the Costa Rican president, Watson’s ship encountered a vessel using long lines to hook sharks in breach of Guatemalan, Costa Rican and international law. Eventually, having fired threats as well as water cannons, Watson persuaded the outlaws to follow him to port where he intended to turn them over to officials. But as Watson stepped ashore, he was arrested on eight counts of attempted murder. The Taiwanese mafia, believed to control the shark fin industry, had apparently pulled some strings.

When I spoke with Watson, whose unorthodox methods are revered by some and reviled by others, he was at the other end of a satellite phone, chasing whaling ships in the Antarctic. “20 years of diplomacy has failed completely,” he said. “Sharks are being wiped out and trying to educate people hasn’t worked. We speak a language they (the illegal fishing industry and corrupt officials) understand – we cost them money.”

The power of one

Far from being perturbed by the might of his lawless opponents, Watson seems to relish the chance to take them on – alone, if necessary. “Social change comes not from the masses – it never has, it never will. It comes from the passionate intervention of individuals.”

And it is this passionate intervention both he and Stewart seek to galvanise in others, be it boycotting shark fin soup at exclusive restaurants (or indeed any other seafood caught in an unsustainable manner) or becoming actively involved in marine conservation. “The way humans have evolved in the past gives me some sense of comfort,” Stewart told me. “Slavery, from its centre, was a monumental task to combat, as was the fight for women’s rights, but once the public was on board, it was solved.”

Returning covertly to Costa Rica after narrowly avoiding incarceration, Stewart found the streets of Cocos full of protesters spurred into action by the publicity surrounding Watson's arrest. The people of the island wanted their sharks protected. The shark fin mafia were forced to flee.

Even Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, spent years later in life trying to repair the damage done by the book adapted for Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster. “We knew so little back then, and have learnt so much since, that I couldn't possibly write the same story today,” he said shortly before his death two years ago. “I know now that the monster I created was largely a fiction. Today, I could not portray the shark as a villain; it would have to be written as the victim. Worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors.”

The truth about Jaws: special report

By Laura Snook, MSN UK News Editor

February 27, 2008