Once again, it is Shark Week, and the Discovery Channel brings a frightening lineup of shark infested programs for predator thirsty viewers.

According to Discovery Channel, Shark Week 2009 “is taking viewers into the deadliest waters to meet the most dangerous sharks and learn the why’s and how’s behind some of the most memorable shark attacks. Specialists and Discovery stars alike are diving in!”

Why do we love sharks so much? Because they are fearless, incredibly strong predators against which we are still practically defenseless, maybe. Or because they are simply too powerful, and scary, to resist!

A popular myth is that sharks are immune to disease and Cancer; however, this remains to be proven. Sharks may get cancer. There are both diseases and parasites that affect sharks. The evidence that sharks are at least resistant to cancer and disease is mostly anecdotal and there have been few, if any, scientific or statistical studies that have shown sharks to have heightened immunity to disease.

The Shark

The largest fish and the most feared by man.  Sharks live in every ocean.  The shark has no natural predator other than the killer whale.  The physiology of the shark is beyond any other hunter, with eight amazing sensory organs and jaws so powerful, it remains unrivaled in the animal kingdom.  The tenacity of their will to live is extremely impressive.  Gaffed, harpooned, shot, torn open, they are still able to move swiftly and rip apart their victims.  The evolution of the shark is amazing, considering they have remained unchanged for over 350 million years.

Sharks and rays are amazing creatures. They inspire many emotions among divers, fishermen, movie watchers, aquarium visitors, surfers, and anyone else who has the chance to interact with them. The emotions that they conjure up in us include  awe, fear, delight, repulsion, excitement, curiosity and terror but the one thing that sharks rarely inspire is boredom or indifference. Why they engender such strong feelings among us varies from a primordial fear of large predators to a respect for their incredible abilities and a deep appreciation of their power and grace. What ever reason you have for your interest in sharks and for visiting Elasmodiver, I hope you enjoy all the shark pictures and information that is contained here and that you take away and pass on a renewed desire to help these incredible creatures survive in an increasingly hostile environment.

Shark Attacks

The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey between July 1 and July 12, 1916, in which four people were killed and one injured. Since 1916, scholars have debated which shark species was responsible and the number of animals involved, with the great white shark and the bull shark most frequently being blamed. The attacks occurred during a deadly summer heat wave and polio epidemic in the northeastern United States that drove thousands of people to the seaside resorts of the Jersey Shore. Shark attacks on the Atlantic Coast of the United States outside the semitropical states of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas were rare, but scholars believe that the increased presence of sharks and humans in the water led to the attacks in 1916.

Local and national reaction to the attacks involved a wave of panic that led to shark hunts aimed at eradicating the population of “man-eating” sharks and protecting the economies of New Jersey’s seaside communities. Resort towns enclosed their public beaches with steel nets to protect swimmers. Scientific knowledge about sharks before 1916 was based on conjecture and speculation. The attacks forced ichthyologists to reassess common beliefs about the abilities of sharks and the nature of shark attacks.

The Jersey Shore attacks immediately entered into American popular culture, where sharks became caricatures in editorial cartoons representing danger. The attacks inspired Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws (1974), an account of a great white shark that torments the fictional coastal community of Amity Island. Jaws was made into an influential film in 1975 by Steven Spielberg. The attacks became the subject of documentaries for the History Channel, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic Channel.

A WOMAN swimmer was attacked and killed by a great white shark, described by rescue services as bigger than their search helicopter, off the Cape Peninsula in South Africa Nov 2004 in full view of onlookers on the shore.

It was the third shark attack in that year alone. All local beaches were closed immediately.

“All that was left was a little red bathing cap,” said Paul Bennet, commodore of the False Bay Yacht Club, who saw the attack from his shoreline home. He said that he had been about to leave his balcony to take a shower when he saw a lot of churning in the water. He went outside and saw the shark attacking what at first he thought was a Cape fur seal.

More than a dozen people onshore saw the attack. Tim Atkins was high on a mountainside shark-spotting for a local fishing boat cruising in False Bay. “I suddenly saw a shark coming at great speed towards where the woman was swimming alone about 60 metres from the rocks,” Mr Atkins said. “The shark hardly slowed down. It just hit her and the water was full of blood. The shark turned and headed out to sea. I think it had the woman in its jaws.”

The great white, which once was hunted relentlessly, is now protected in South African waters. There is controversy about whether the shark, the top predator in sub-tropical seas, is increasing in numbers, growing to a greater size and becoming bolder in its attacks on human beings.

Surviving Shark Attacks

Recognize the behavior
If you’re diving and see a shark, stay calm. Most of the time, they’re just curious and will go away. But like all animals, sharks have body language and will express when they’re uncomfortable. “They drop their pectoral fins down low,” Burgess says. “They’ll sort of hunch their back. They’ll swim erratically in a zigzag motion or sometimes they’ll make dives into the bottom where they rub their belly on the bottom in what’s called misdirected behavior. So if you see a shark swimming erratically, hunching its back, dropping its fins, yawning, those are all indications that the shark is unhappy at some level.”

Get out of there
It seems obvious, but Burgess says that some people don’t take the situation seriously and stay in the water. “If a shark is indicating interest, making passes at you, acting aggressively, the first thing to do is get the hell out of there,” he says. Swim quickly but smoothly, and keep your eyes on the shark the whole time. Back up against a rock piling to reduce the angles a shark can attack from; if you’re in open water, position yourself so you’re back-to-back with your dive partner, and gradually rise to the surface.

Be aggressive
If you find yourself under attack, Burgess says, be as aggressive as possible. Playing dead won’t work. “Sharks, like all predators, respect size and power,” he says. A shark’s nose is a sensitive area, and it won’t be expecting you to hit it; so punch its nose, hard. The animal will veer off, and hopefully give you a few more minutes to get out of the water. But it won’t stay away. “Sharks are persistent,” Burgess says. “The bop on the nose only goes so far. And if they do come back, go for sensitive areas on their head. The eyes and the gills are areas that are vulnerable.” Basically, Burgess says, the key is to demonstrate that you won’t go without a fight. And once you’re out, do whatever you can to get out of the water as quickly as possible.