Eye of the tiger. How to look into the eyes of a tiger shark and stay alive

"The shark is right, that's a fact,

And to think that it is

a stupid and ruthless predator -

Trivial and flat!

It's just that in the shark world there are different values ​​of life!"

Anacondaz, "The shark doesn't care"

I, in full diving gear, am standing on board a traditional Maldivian dhoni boat converted into a dive boat. My heart is pounding wildly, trying to escape from my chest.

I have been dreaming about what is about to happen since I was nine years old. Almost a month before my arrival, I studied materials on how to properly behave with a shark. About ten minutes ago, Irina and Nikita, my dive guides and experienced shark divers, gave me a comprehensive briefing on behavior underwater. Now I just need to enter the water with my BCD deflated, swim to the reef, and then proceed to the sandy plateau where the tigers gather for a snack.

I jump. Looking down already in flight, I see a huge striped silhouette slowly moving in the water right below me.

You know the expression "jumping a shark"? It's an American idiom meaning that a certain media has exhausted itself and is now generating forced, idiotic stories. It came from some TV series where the hero, in fact, jumped over a shark on water skis. Well, now "The Crazy Naturalist" has officially made this jump. More precisely, not over, but right on.

Another expression that comes to mind while I'm flying is "life flashed before my eyes." Fortunately, the fish is deeper than I thought. We are not touching, and it basically does not pay any attention to me. The shark dissolves into the blue abyss below. However, while we swim to the reef, its comrades begin to approach us, squinting with curious black eyes. We gather in a defensive formation, back to back - like a herd of buffalo at the sight of a lion.

By the way. If you think you can imagine how huge a tiger shark is, but have never been in the water with one, then you have no idea how huge a tiger shark is.

Finally, we find ourselves at a sandy plateau. The depth here is "ridiculous" - no more than ten meters. I, as if on a seat in an amphitheater, sit down on the dead corals at the edge of the "clearing". A couple of "tigers" with their retinue - giant caranx, triggerfish and other large fish - are already circling around us. Nikita swims to the center of the plateau and releases air from the regulator. Seeing bubbles on the surface, a boat approaches him and throws a huge tuna head into the water. Nikita hides it under the stones and returns to the edge of the arena.

The show begins.

The tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) is familiar even to those who are not keen on marine life. This large (up to 5.5 m in length and over 900 kg in weight) fish lives in all tropical and subtropical waters of the world (although it is not often found everywhere). Tiger sharks are top predators, and they also have one of the most diverse diets among sharks in general. They can eat fish, cephalopods, marine mammals such as dolphins and dugongs, sea snakes, other sharks (including representatives of their own species) ... Human garbage is also often found in their stomachs - up to car license plates and an iron cannonball. It is worth mentioning their love for sea turtles separately. In places where these reptiles are often found, up to 20.8% of the contents of the stomachs of tiger sharks consists of their remains. Sharks' unique teeth, serrated and curved to the side, are capable of cutting through turtle shells like a can opener through the lid of a can of tomato-stuffed gobies.

Turtles, however, are not completely defenseless either, even though they were not trained by Master Splinter as children. Usually, when attacked, they turn their backs and circle. This is how shark teeth slip off the convex shell when trying to bite.

The tiger shark is also considered one of the most dangerous for humans. Indeed, it has a wide range and often enters ports and shallow reefs, which creates the potential for encounters with humans. In addition, it ranks second in the world after the great white in terms of the number of unprovoked attacks. All this creates a reputation for it as a “stupid,” “dangerous,” and “ruthless” predator. Here, however, it is worth noting two things right away. Firstly, “unprovoked attacks” do not refer to cases where nothing on the part of a person could attract the shark, but to cases where a person did not interact with the shark directly. For example, if a shark attacked an underwater hunter who shot a fish, the attack is classified as provoked. But if a shark attacked a swimming swimmer, this is in any case an unprovoked attack. But this does not mean that nothing in human behavior could trigger the hunting instinct of a predator (more on this later).
Secondly, on average, 70 shark attacks occur worldwide per year (not from one, but from all species of sharks!), not every one of which ends fatally. For comparison, about 100,000,000 sharks die at the hands of people per year (this is not a typo). They are mainly killed for the sake of fin soup, and also as a consequence of bycatch. A recent study showed that of the 536 shark species studied in the study, 35.9% are endangered. And for many species, we simply do not have enough data on the population size.
The same, by the way, applies to rays - only 41% of the 611 species studied have a protected status.

In Fuvahmulah, the relationship between people and sharks goes back a long way. It's all about the developed fishing industry. Local fishermen catch tuna and other large pelagic fish using only their hands, fishing line and hooks. In the past, when they came to the port, they dumped fish cutting waste into the water. Tiger sharks came to the port for the smell of blood.

By the way, about this. Probably everyone has heard that sharks are attracted to blood. And this is true, but there is a nuance: first of all, they are attracted to the blood of fish, squid and other creatures that regularly get into the predators' teeth. Sharks are able to distinguish who is bleeding by smell, and human blood hardly has any effect on them.

So, about the island. Tigers hanging out right in the murky waters of the port significantly increased the chances of fishermen losing a leg or an arm. However, divers soon appeared on the island. Dive centers began to collect waste from fishermen, put it in giant freezers and use it as needed to attract sharks. Now the tigers are fed only at the Tiger Point dive site. It is located relatively close to the port, but outside of it.

In the end, everyone came out on top. Divers can watch sharks, and the island can earn income. Tigers no longer come to the port, and the Maldivian government has protected all sharks from being caught for fins (and basically any killing). Here, they imprison and fine big money for this, since a live shark is much more expensive than a dead one.

And these places are incredibly important for preserving the shark population. After all, most of the tigers that come to the island are females. And often not just sexually mature, but pregnant. Where exactly they give birth is unknown - no one in the world really knows how tiger sharks give birth. Most likely, they give birth at great depths (like, for example, whale sharks).

But locals and tourists in the Maldives periodically meet "tiger cubs", so most likely the maternity hospital is located somewhere here. According to divers and scientists, about 300 tigers regularly appear on Fuamula!

At the same time, the feeding behavior of tigers is not particularly disturbed by feeding. Tuna heads contain almost no meat (but they contain calcium in the bones, brain and eyes - a healthy snack, just like shark PP). This is proven by the fact that they do not hang around there all the time, but appear in other places near the island. Once, already on a reef dive far from Tiger Point, I turned away from the reef to look into the "blue", and saw a huge shark approaching Nikita from behind. Honestly, it's surprising that the azure water didn't turn brown at that moment.

So how is safety ensured during diving? Is a bigger boat often needed? Or do shark divers have to take harpoons with them? No and no. The only thing that helps Irina, Petr and Nikita conduct dives is common sense and a thorough knowledge of shark behavior.

What are the rules of behavior on a shark dive? Here they are:

Never separate from the group.
An animal that lags behind "its own" is sick or weak, since it cannot keep up with the rest of the pack. This is a reason to try to attack.

Always maintain eye contact with the shark closest to you.
Like many predators, sharks prefer to attack prey that does not see them. If the prey has already noticed you, then catching it will be difficult - if you catch it at all. And this is a waste of energy that a wild animal cannot afford. So it is very important not to let the sharks out of your sight under any circumstances and to make it clear in every possible way that you see them. Divers stand back to back on purpose to prevent tigers from sneaking up from behind. Hares use a similar method to avoid being attacked by a fox.

No splashes or splashes. No shiny jewelry. No chaotic movements.
All of these things can trigger the hunting instinct of sharks. The splash and sudden movements make a person look like a wounded or frightened animal (see point 1), and the glitter resembles the scales of fish - the shark's natural prey.

If a shark is rushing at you, lean to the side.
Because of the square snout of tigers, they have a blind spot in front of their head. So, if the shark swims without turning, there is a chance that it simply does not see you. Leaning to the side, you fall into the animal's field of vision. Often they turn away very comically - like a person who was walking, looking at his phone, and almost crashed into a pole.

Do not try to touch the shark. Like any wild animal, it can get scared from touching and decide to attack in response. Once I almost got hit by a decent "bream" with a shark tail - the bait was slightly scattered around the area by the current, and the sharks got carried away, coming too close. I had to move to another "observation platform", and everything became calm again.
If a shark approaches you in "blue", stand upright.
No creature in the ocean swims like that, so the shark will know that you are not ordinary prey, but something new, and probably dangerous.

When on the surface, do not remove the mask and do not forget to look down.
No comments are needed.

If you are not a diver, but a swimmer - I can advise more or less the same. Plus - always swim in a mask, do not swim deep (for example, do not swim along the reef slopes, where sharks come to hunt), and also do not swim in muddy water, early in the morning and late in the evening.

Besides, as I already said, tigers respond very well to the "sign language" of guides. Some, however, are overly curious or impudent, and ignore warnings. Such individuals have to be redirected by touching them (you can see this on Irina's Instagram). All the ladies who came to the dive site when I was there behaved well. But I still can't keep silent about one "terrible" incident at Tiger Point. One day, when we came to the plateau, an electric ray was feeding on a sandy area. Having noticed us, it decided to run away. And since "electricians" are naturally short-sighted, it crashed into Peter, who was distracted by the shark, got scared and lightly zapped him with electricity. Neither Peter nor the ray were hurt!

Once you get used to being around tigers, you start not just admiring their beauty, but also noticing details of their behavior. For example, sometimes we saw two sharks line up parallel to each other and start swimming next to each other, after which one goes off to the side. As Nikita explained to me, this is a "showdown." This is how sharks figure out which of them is longer - and therefore, who has more rights to food in the event of a conflict. Like most animals, sharks usually establish hierarchy using purely ritual methods - no one wants to waste energy on a potentially deadly fight. Somehow it doesn't fit with the image of a dumb killing machine, does it?

In conclusion, I want to say that after diving with sharks, Fuamula appears in my dreams.

I dream of reefs, healthy and full of life - not least thanks to sharks. After all, research shows that if you remove them from the reefs, they will soon come to an end. Smaller predatory fish, such as groupers, increase in number and begin to eat the herbivores uncontrollably. The reduction in herbivore populations, in turn, leads to the reef being taken over by algae. Corals are often unable to compete with the plants, and soon the vibrant reef turns into a desert overgrown with mud.

A recent experiment also showed that sharks are critical to seagrass "meadows". They influence the feeding patterns of herbivores (e.g. dugongs), preventing "overgrazing" - after all, herbivores disturbed by sharks spend less time feeding, and more often eat younger grass. In this way, they do not destroy mature bushes, which are critical for plant reproduction.

Both reefs and meadows are the most productive ecosystems in the oceans, without which both their inhabitants and humanity would suffer.

I dream of sharks themselves - graceful, covered with delightfully beautiful stripes. I dream of their eyes - not "lifeless" and "creepy", but alive, curious and even cute. I dream of magnificent tails, skin that looks like it's made of silk, and sharp teeth, hidden in their mouths for the time being.

And I often remember amazing people. Those who weren't afraid of "terrible monsters" and were able to see in them not only beauty, but also personalities, characters. Those who become guides for others into the world of these incredible predators. Those thanks to whom my childhood dream came true. And I am immensely grateful to them for all this.

Be sure to subscribe to Nikita, Irina and Petr's social networks. I would like to especially mention Nikita - after all, he, like me, is a biologist and is involved in popularization. His social networks are the best source of up-to-date information about sharks on the Russian-language Internet. And if possible, come to Fuamula yourself to look into the eyes of a tiger in person. After all, as we know,

"It's the eye of the tiger,

It's the thrill of the fight

Rising up to the challenge of our rival!

And the last known survivor

Stalks his prey in the night

And he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger!"