The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks (17 page)

Which was for the best, perhaps, because pissing off a shark was considered extremely bad juju. Pearl divers in the western Pacific covered themselves with tattoos intended to placate the shark gods and purchased the blessings of a “shark charmer” before entering the water. Samoans specifically worshiped the great white and hung its effigies from trees; Vietnamese fishermen referred extra politely to sharks as
Ca Ong
(Sir Fish). European sailors believed that sharks had the power to foretell disaster; when one was seen trailing a ship, it was cause for alarm. As usual, the ancient Aztecs went farther than anyone. They believed that planet Earth actually
was
a shark named Cipactli.

There are 460 known species of shark swimming around today, and they’re almost as preposterous and diverse as they were in the Carboniferous. We’ve got angel sharks that are flat, like shark bath mats; green lantern sharks the size of goldfish; reclusive Greenland sharks living under ice with their odd, mottled skin and their poisonous flesh; goblin sharks with what looks like a pink letter opener affixed to their heads; sawfish with their chainsaw noses—it’s a circus of evolutionary panache, a wild bonanza of fish. We’re scared of most of them, though many look more frightening than they really are (thresher, nurse), and it would be silly to fear the likes of a tiny houndshark, which has flat teeth and is thus referred to as a “gummy.” Much of the cultural angst centers on the four shark species that have repeatedly ingested humans: the tiger, the bull, the oceanic whitetip, and, of course, the great white.

It’s now becoming clear that white sharks are not malevolent, indiscriminate robohunters—in fact, they exhibit certain behaviors more appropriate for mammals than fish. For instance, they can discern shapes. Over the years, Scot had determined that the sharks wouldn’t attack a square decoy, nor one designed to look like a mola-mola sunfish, but when a surfboard or the ill-fated Buoyhead Bob or a seal-shaped piece of carpet were set out, these things would at least be investigated, if not, to quote Peter, “whaled on.” A great white’s vision is obviously far more developed than anybody realized—no other shark lifts its head out of the water as if to size up its surroundings. The ability to see well, on top of their hair-trigger sense for detecting the subtlest electrical impulses, enables white sharks to tweak their hunting strategies on the fly. And then there’s the image-defying aura of gentleness they give off when they’re not hunting. Everyone who has ever encountered one—except, of course, for those who’ve been attacked—mentions it with a puzzled shake of the head.

More intriguing still to the biologists was the relationship the Farallon sharks seemed to have with one another. They weren’t organized pack hunters, like orcas, but they were definitely keeping an eye on their neighbors and staying in what Scot referred to as “loose aggregations.” Thus, when an attack took place, all the sharks in the area knew about it, and they went straight to the scene. Even if there was a bit of a traffic jam at the carcass, they didn’t get worked up into a feeding frenzy. Rather, they did something more interesting. They established a firm but polite buffet line according to hierarchy: the larger the shark, the more preferred its position. Oh, there might be attempts to cut the line, with smaller sharks trying to dart in and grab a quick mouthful, but this was a chancy strategy and some of the Rat Packers had missing pieces of fins to prove it. According to the great white shark rules of the road, Sisters had the right-of-way at a kill, with Rat Packers orbiting at a respectful distance, cadging leftovers.

Admittedly, the sharks weren’t doing quadratic equations out there and no one was suggesting a snuggle, but every day at the Farallones these animals were demonstrating far more nuance and intelligence than they were supposed to have. Another thing they weren’t supposed to have is a personality. And yet one of the most intriguing discoveries of the Shark Project was that they did. There were aggressors and there were clowns; there were mellow sharks and peevish sharks and sharks that meant absolute bloody business. Scot and Peter knew this to be true firsthand, as did Ron; it wasn’t some anthropomorphic fantasy born of being whapped in the head one too many times by the gulls. I found the notion of shark character irresistible and raised the subject at every opportunity.

In an Animal Planet show about the Farallon sharks filmed in 1999, Scot admitted to the camera crew that he and Peter were emotionally involved in their study: “It’s unexpected to get on a personal level with the sharks,” he said, looking a bit sheepish. “It’s turned into more than just research. We’ve actually got a relationship with them.” Later in the same program, Scot and the South African shark researchers Chris Fallows and Rob Lawrence discussed this subject at some length. “So what do you think of this personalities-in-white-sharks thing?” Scot asked them. “Did you expect to see this? Because it kind of surprised the heck out of us.” The two South Africans agreed entirely; every shark was different. They went on to describe one of their study animals, a big Sister named Rasta, as “the sort of shark you want to just jump in and hug. It’s the greatest animal on Earth. Whenever it comes to the boat you’re just so happy, like a little kid.”

Don’t look to read an academic paper about this anytime soon, though. Scientists tend to squirm when the question of individual personalities in animals is introduced, even though anyone who owns a dog or a cat knows they can be as different as Caligula and Santa Claus, tightly wound little beasts with long lists of quirks and habits and moods. But
great white sharks
?

Or how about western gulls?

The subject of animal character came up again at dinner that night, probably because I brought it up. As the fajitas were being assembled and the wine was being poured, I asked, “So, do you think the gulls have individual personalities?” Everyone began to talk at once. As it happened, chronicling gull notoriety on Southeast Farallon made for hours of memorable dinner conversation, though perhaps not the kind of thing you’d want to discuss over squab at Le Cirque. Like the sharks, the same gulls returned here annually, and over the years some had become known for sociopathic behavior. Peter, who’d been watching the resident flock for more than twenty years, had seen it all.

There was Manson, who ate his own chicks, and Troll, who exacted a hefty penalty on anyone who passed by. The Silent Stalker was one of the few gulls that didn’t scream threats; he would sneak up stealthily and then, without warning, go for the back of a person’s head. Each gull had its preferred attack technique. The Nibbler favored a sharp bite to the Achilles tendon, while the Shitmeister would swoop low, unloading his special delivery. And then there was Spike.

In a colony where any shoebox of space was apportioned by vicious thuggery, Spike’s territory ranged across the entire front of the house, an area wide enough for half a dozen gull families. He was an auklet serial killer and a relentless PIH heavy, and when the PRBO biologists came in or out the front door they’d inevitably encounter Spike shrieking hysterically, his entire face covered in blood, surrounded by an array of little carcasses. His auklet victims were meant to feed his chicks, but he would regurgitate them whole, so that the meal the baby gulls encountered was a solid, slimy mound approximately their own size. Spike’s chicks usually didn’t make it.

Even the average gulls demonstrated the same variety of behavioral patterns you’d find in any cross section of humans. There were birds that were conscientious parents and others that seemed wholly unconcerned when their chicks went missing. There were extramarital gull affairs and bitter gull divorces, homosexual gull couplings, gull spinsters and rapists and nerds. There were, of course, countless thieves. Neuroses and insecurities were especially obvious on the concrete helipad near the coast guard house where the single gulls hung out, hoping to bag a mate. Because this was such a lousy place to breed—fully exposed, no nest materials handily available—only the lowliest misanthropes skulked around, hoping to trade up and out at the earliest chance. Peter compared it to the sidelines at a high school prom.

I’d noticed that, while all the biologists had encountered stand-out characters, they grappled with the notion of the animals as individuals. In large part this seemed like a defense mechanism. So many animals died, inevitably, that caring about them one-on-one—rather than simply noting down the numbers on their tags or the study plots in which they lived—simply hurt too much. But the alternative, adopting an attitude as dry as a six-month-old auklet carcass, made science itself seem callous.

Peter approached the issue with a sort of big-tent philosophy. “They’re animals. We’re animals,” he said. “We have opposable thumbs and a brain but as far as life on Earth goes, no one thing is better or worse than another.” He paused to pour a glass of organic merlot. “I hate the word
anthropomorphism.
It should be the other way around. Not how animals are like humans, but how humans are like animals.”

MORNING SUN WASHED ACROSS EAST LANDING. I STOOD HOLDING MY
paintbrush as Peter opened two cans of a rubbery, barnacle-resistant paint intended specifically for boat hulls. Black had been the only color in stock, and as we began slapping it onto the whaler, covering the sunnier blue that had been there before, the boat underwent a personality change. After a few strokes, Peter stood back and admired the transformation. “Now it looks more like a real workboat and less like a yuppie fishing boat,” he said with satisfaction. The word
yuppie
was Peter’s deepest insult, synonymous with every cultural wrong, aimed at those who behaved like spoiled, soft-palmed candyasses with misplaced superiority complexes. People who fit that description possessed only a fraction of the character strength of the average working Joe (or selfless biologist), Peter felt; they had their priorities all wrong and wouldn’t last a day at a place like the Farallones. It was a harsh generalization, and though I knew that Peter lived simply and had struggled with lack of means in the past, I was struck by the force of his dislike. While chasing birds he had hitchhiked through some of the most desolate places imaginable—Nicaraguan jungles, Indian slums, Samoan fruit bat colonies—but when asked to name the least likable place he’d seen in the world, he instantly pointed to an affluent California suburb: “Walnut Creek. No question.”

He lay on his back beneath the whaler, brushing the center of the hull as toxic paint dripped down onto his clothes, hair, and skin. My sunglasses were flecked with black, and I was marveling at my painting ineptitude when, out of nowhere, Peter mentioned that he intended to surf the Farallones this year. During shark season. At some point, apparently, the idea had gone from an unlikely fantasy to a full-on plan. I was shocked by the matter-of-fact way he announced it, but then I remembered a conversation I’d had with another biologist whom I’d called to check some information, a woman who was familiar with Peter’s work. She seemed amazed to hear that I actually knew him, and gave the impression that his reputation was larger than life. “He’s a wild man!” she’d said. I was beginning to understand this assessment.

“For real?” I asked. He nodded. Under certain circumstances, he’d decided, it would be safe enough to surf in Mirounga Bay. The swell would have to be just so, as would the wind, the visibility, and the tides. If these ideal conditions coincided, a tow-in approach could be attempted. “Because you don’t want to be, like,
paddling
out there,” he said. “I would jump off the shark boat, catch the wave, and hustle into shore.” I must have looked skeptical, because he immediately added, “All I want is one ride.”

“Well,” I said, slowly. “I’m not saying you
should
do it, but if you
do,
I’d really like to watch.” For the most part, I meant this rhetorically. I was well aware that, as far as outsiders went, this place was locked down tighter than Fort Knox. And I believed that policy was for the best—restricted access had saved the Farallones. If things had been more welcoming out here, there would be condos and a great white shark theme park on this island right now.

Even so, even though I knew they were necessary and in this case noble, I’d always hated rules. All too often they were stupid and floutable, and begged to be defied. While I wasn’t a complete outlaw, throughout my life I had questioned most rules I’d come up against, and ignored my share of them. I’m not saying that’s the way a person should be, but if the opportunity to sneak back onto the island presented itself, I was game. I suspected the offer wasn’t forthcoming, however, and didn’t want to push the matter.

I wanted to write the story of this place and its resident sharks, but without access this would be difficult. Ron had offered to let me accompany him when he dove here, which was promising, although day visits were no substitute for being on location. And though I happened to know that Peter disliked rules as much as I did, allowing me a closer look during shark season presented a huge throw of the dice. He’d already noted that there would be an awful lot of scrutiny this year. Stowaways would not be looked upon kindly, and he had once mentioned something about “a six-figure fine,” when a group of liquored-up boaters were caught giving themselves a sightseeing tour of Southeast Farallon. Even Scot required an annual permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. His role was that of a privileged guest, his permit revocable, and it wasn’t within his purview to tote me along for the ride. And so, while there were many things I expected to do this fall, sitting in the whaler watching Peter surf Shark Alley wasn’t one of them.

“Well, maybe you can.”

I looked at him. He appeared to be serious. “
How?
”

There was a lot he had left out of recent emails and conversations. The fight with the cage divers, it seemed, had done some damage. As the biologists tussled with Groth and his partner over attempts to tighten the regulations, certain officials voiced their resentment that the great white shark issues were dominating the agenda. At the same time, higher up the chain of command, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had begun to note the dangers involved in the Shark Project—and the potential liability. Risky-sounding great white research wasn’t part of their program; they were responsible only for the island, not for the waters around it. And so, in July, as the 2003 season logistics were being arranged, Peter had received an official letter declaring the sharks “a species that is not a management priority for the refuge.” Concerns about use of Farallon facilities and manpower to conduct research on a nonpriority species were raised. Also, the whaler could no longer be winched on and off East Landing due to new, beefed-up safety rules, meaning that Peter and Scot would have to anchor their boat offshore and row out to it whenever there was an attack (which hardly seemed like a “safer” solution, when you thought about it). Permissible dates for this year’s research had been curtailed as well, and included a window in October—potentially as long as a month—when the entire project would be suspended. During that time, several daunting heaps of junk and old diesel tanks and abandoned joists and a rubble-pile navy building or two were slated to be airlifted from the island by National Guard Chinook helicopters, supervised by U.S. Fish and Wildlife and Coast Guard crews. Though it was all part of the worthy plan to return the Farallones to the animals, the endeavor would be complicated and messy and, it was implied, sharks would be an even less welcome distraction.