Sharks The Animal Answer Guide

170

Chapter 9

Shark Problems

(from a human’s

viewpoint)

Are some sharks pests?

Ask anglers in the Puget Sound region of Washington State, in coastal

British Columbia, and in many other places along the U.S. Pacific Coast,

and they will tell you that Spiny Dogfish are a real nuisance. If you troll

a herring while fishing for salmon, or bottomfish with bait for rockfish or

Lingcod, you are much more likely to catch a dogfish than a salmon or ling.

Getting the dogfish off your hook or out of a landing net without being

nailed by its long, sharp, venomous spines can be a tricky business. Nurse

Sharks are similarly viewed as something of a nuisance in some parts of the

Caribbean because of their bait-stealing habits as well as because of their

tendency to destroy fish traps while trying to get at the reef fish inside.

Anglers in many other places consider sharks a nuisance because a fish

struggling on a fishing line is like ringing a dinner bell for nearby sharks.

In some places, it’s almost impossible to land a tuna or a billfish without

having it attacked and often eaten (except for the head) by a shark. (Read

Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea for a fascinating account.) Long

tooth marks on shark-decapitated tuna indicate that the shark swallows the

tuna whole from behind, then slips back and bites down just behind the

gills, eating the fleshy body and leaving behind the bony head for the frus-

trated angler.

Can there be too many sharks in an area?

Some people feel that any number of large sharks in a place where peo-

ple swim is too many. But given the millions of people that swim in the

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