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SPECIAL REPORTS
- Tuesday 25January 2005
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They're the biggest chickens of
the ocean
And it's not the only thing
divers learn about hammerhead
sharks
By Susan Cocking, Knight-Ridder
COCOS ISLAND, Costa Rica --
Lying 30 metres deep on a rocky
tabletop sea mount, I am
surrounded by scores of
scalloped hammerhead sharks.
Lazily, the sharks -- some up to
three metres long -- circle the
pinnacle, occasionally tilting
an outrigger-mounted eye down to
glance at me.
Resting motionless on the rock
about 1.5 m from me is a small
whitetip reef shark. We, too,
exchange glances, and I notice
that this four-footer bears a
substantial bite wound in its
flank. The wound has begun to
heal over but it is deep enough
that I can see distinctly the
dental impression of whatever
bit it. These were some very big
teeth.
"Yeah, you better lay low," the
whitetip's war-weary look seems
to say.
I look up again to see a
hammerhead about three metres
above me and I expel a somewhat
anxious breath into my
regulator. A cloud of bubbles
floats up toward the circling
animal.
If a shark could somehow look
alarmed, this hammerhead does.
It shakes its head, flicks its
massive tail and quickly
disappears into the gloom. I had
scared it off simply by
breathing.
"Big and powerful sharks but
they're the biggest chicken in
the ocean," says Toby Meinken,
dive instructor on the Undersea
Hunter.
And that wasn't the only thing I
was to learn about sharks during
a week of diving at Cocos
Island.
This atoll, located 530 km
southwest of Costa Rica, is
widely considered to be "Shark
Central." Uninhabited except for
a handful of park rangers, Cocos
sticks up above the ocean's
surface -- steep, starkly green
with dense vegetation and lined
with waterfalls. Because it is
located out in the middle of
nowhere, it acts as a sort of
truck-stop for marine creatures,
especially sharks.
Numerous documentaries have been
shot here, including the popular
IMAX feature, Island of the
Sharks. One of Cocos' more
scenic falls was featured in
Jurassic Park. Scientists,
filmmakers and recreational
divers salivate to visit the
pristine waters around the
island. Only two operators --
Undersea Hunter and Aggressor --
bring visitors here. Commercial
fishing is banned out to 20 km.
This leaves the sharks --
besides the hammerhead and
whitetip, there are silky,
Galapagos, dusky, silvertip,
blacktip and whale -- in
relative peace to relax, get
their gills and hides cleaned of
parasites and war wounds by
barberfish and king angelfish
and to gird themselves for
hunting and mating.
With such a manana attitude, the
majority of sharks tend to pay
scant attention to divers. We
humans are just part of the
scenery as everyday life plays
out on the reefs and surrounding
Cocos.
Fear Factor this is not. Some of
the sharks' antics are comically
inept.
The whitetips, ubiquitous in
daylight as they loll around
resting, become frenzied hunters
at night.
Illuminated by our dive lights,
a school of about 50 whitetips
dashed frantically around a six-metre-deep
reef poking their heads down
into holes and caverns in a vain
attempt to chow down on
barberfish and surgeonfish.
Several got stuck. Most went
hungry. They tended to ignore
slow-moving, open-water targets
and wait until a jack had chased
a fish into a cave before going
after it. Watching them, I
wondered why the species hadn't
gone extinct.
Still, you have to pay attention
when diving at Cocos.
"The silkies are fearless about
divers," said Undersea Hunter
captain Nelson Diaz. "When they
are feeding, they get
aggressive. ."
None of our group of 10
experienced anything remotely
hazardous during our weeklong,
three-per-day shark dives at
Cocos. It was just fun and
interesting to watch wild
animals going about their
business
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