Sharks Have Personalities

That nictating membrane that goes over their eyes before an attack is so cool

We call this one Slashfin. This was probably done by a boat propeller. Photo credit for both of these pics goes to Maarten Jozef Billen, the photographer for White Shark Projects 

            Again, yesterday I didn’t make a blog post since there wasn’t much news to share. Yesterday and today have both been no sea days because of the really intense conditions out on the water. I heard that there were six-meter swells today, which is absolutely crazy. We don’t usually go out if the swells are bigger than about three meters. This morning Karla came over to the volunteer house and gave us a quick overview on the shark data- how to collect it out on the boat and file it back at the house, on the volunteer computer. It was raining this morning, so Karla said that she’d call us when it stopped so we could go down to the harbor and meet with Jan, one of the crew members, so he could go over a boat induction with us. At about noon, after the rain stopped, Jan came up to the house, and the six volunteers followed him down to the harbor and up into the boat. The boat induction lasted about half an hour, with Jan going over everything from the anchor, names of parts of the boat, how to steer the boat and control the engines, radios, and other things. We all had a pretty good understanding of the boat already having spent quite a bit of time on it, but going over it with Jan was nice because it gave a sense of purpose to the no sea day. He also went over the safety procedures of the boat, including the flares that were kept on the boat to get attention for help if an emergency on the boat was to happen. He said that it was regulation for those to get replaced every year, so on the coast of South Africa every New Years Eve, the boats in the area all shoot off their flares as if they were fireworks, then get new ones to have on the boat. After going over pretty much everything about the boat, Jan came back to the volunteer house with us and hung out for a while.

            Since the last two days have been no sea days, Karla promised us that, unless the weather suddenly got really bad, which doesn’t look likely, all the volunteers will get to go out on the boat at least once tomorrow. We know that there are two trips to sea planned, but we haven’t heard yet how many spots are available per trip. Karla said it was likely that we’d all go out on the first trip. As with most sea days, there’s a six o’clock start in the garage tomorrow morning to start packing up the wetsuits and everything. Getting up early here actually doesn’t feel so hard, probably because I’m always really happy and excited about getting out on the water and seeing the sharks.

            When talking about data collection with Karla this morning, it reminded us all of something really interesting about the great white sharks that we see- they’re all individual, and they’re all different. I’d heard researchers say that they believe white sharks have individual personalities, and in working with them through this project I really believe that as well. Sometimes we’ll see a shark swim around the boat one time, then decide it’s not interested and swim off. At the same time, we’ll see sharks stay around the boat for an hour or more, charging and playing with the bait, watching the divers in the cage, and swimming all around the boat. Some sharks have markings that easily distinguish them, so much so that we’ve given them specific names. For example, one shark has two big slashes down its dorsal fin (we’re pretty sure it’s from a boat propeller), so we call her Slashfin. Another shark has a big chunk taken out of one side of her mouth, so we call her Scarface. Another shark has a disfigured pectoral fin that’s a lot smaller than the other one, so we call him Nemo. There are even a few sharks that don’t have that many special physical characteristics but have very distinct behavior that makes it easy to identify them. For example, there’s a big female in the area that we call Rasta that really likes to lift her head out of the water and look around. She’ll often roll on her side, with one eye out of the water, and swim around the boat watching us. Sometimes, she’ll actually just lift her entire head up and out to look around. That behavior is called spy hopping, and while it’s fairly common among whales and dolphins, last I heard great white sharks are the only fish that are known to do it.

            Well, tomorrow morning it’s back out on the boat for the white shark projects volunteers, and I’ll probably bring my camera along. Hopefully I can get some more good shots. This post’s food for thought: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”- Mahatma Gandhi