Dr. John Morrisey.
WESTFIELD – Dr. John Morrisey thinks sharks have a bad reputation, but they’re just misunderstood.
Morrisey spoke Oct. 23 at Westfield State University on “The Truth About Sharks” in recognition of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Week. Morrisey talked about why the ocean’s most terrifying creatures may be simply misunderstood.
Morrisey is the chair of the Department of Biology and Environmental Science at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. He has been a certified diver since 1981 and has held a soft spot for sharks since he was young.
“Their influence on community structure in most of the ocean cannot be overstated,” he said.
Morrisey began his lecture by talking about the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week,” and how such shows feed misconceptions about the species as a whole.
“I’m here to stick up for sharks and try to persuade you to fall in love with them,” said Morrisey.
He first noted that sharks represent a massively diverse range of animals that can be anything from the infamous Great White Shark to some species as small as six inches long.
“Some sharks have a ridiculously long tail. Some sharks have a ridiculously long nose. Some sharks have ridiculously large eyes. Some sharks have a mouth larger than mine. Some sharks have extremely sexy eyebrows. Some sharks fly more than they swim. Some sharks walk more than they fly,” said Morrisey.
Morrisey also took the opportunity to dispel the myth of sharks being able to smell blood in the water from miles away. He said that people tend to misunderstand what a shark’s powerful sensory system is capable of.
A shark cannot smell a particle of blood that is miles away, as the blood is not physically making contact with the shark’s nose. Rather, sharks can smell things at such low concentrations that by the time that single drop of blood in the water reaches their nose after traveling a mile, they can detect it and begin the hunt. For comparison, a human nose can detect particles at concentrations as low as one part per million. A shark can detect much smaller amounts.
Morrisey spoke about raising Cat Sharks, a small species of bottom-feeding shark that does not pose a danger to people. He noted that they are born in am “egg-like” external embryo, but that the embryo can be taken away and the developing shark will still be fine, as it also has a sort of external umbilical cord attached to it.
The lecture turned to the topic of Shark Fin Soup and how dangerous it is to make it. The soup is an expensive delicacy in some countries that has been described as nearly tasteless. Fisherman catch the sharks and remove the fins of the shark before throwing it back in the water to slowly die.
Morrisey said that the practice has been responsible for a large amount of shark deaths globally. This practice, combined with the lack of maternal care in sharks, makes it difficult to replace the rapidly decreasing shark population in the world.
Towards the end of the lecture, Morrisey talked about shark attacks, and took shots at the “maneater” label some sharks have received since the movie Jaws was released in 1975. By his data, there have only been 3,103 recorded shark attacks on humans since the data was first recorded in the year 1580.
Most, if not all of these attacks, Morrisey said, were not because the shark was hungry. Most of the time, people survive shark attacks with relatively minimal damage outside the bite. He said that if the sharks were truly hungry, the attack victim would not make it, as the sharks would bite more violently.
Instead, he said, sharks tend to attack only if they feel threatened or scared.
He noted that shark attacks may not be as prevalent as has been indicated in the news lately. A graph was displayed that showed a correlation between the rise of cell phone cameras and drone cameras and the rise of reports of shark sightings.
