Choreography of sharks

They have been letting off the shark alarms in the Australian press. For the last few days I've been reading culture of fear headlines which gasp about the increased sightings of sharks in the waters just off the coast of Eastern Australia, with Harry Mitchell of the Australian Aerial Patrol in Sydney saying there has been a "clear increase" in shark sightings over the past five years. There are claims that the sharks have been lured to Sydney not by its reputation for the best seafood restaurants in the world, but by the over-heating planet's warmer waters, a claim disputed by some marine researchers.

Since the late 2006 coup in Thailand and the recent bombings there, we've had story upon story aimed at convincing us that Thailand is the most dangerous place in the world - for example the other day in breaking news we heard that a random boy accidently electrocuted himself in a Bangkok hotel. In the same vein, since last weekend's shark attack when a 21 year old girl was killed by a bull sharks in murky waters off North Stradbroke Island's Amity Point (murky waters and the name Amity would keep me out of the water), the shark space in the newspapers has been escalating.

Among the panic pieces, I read that last weekend at my old beach - Bronte Beach in Sydney - they let off the rusty shark sirens and everyone had to flee the water because someone spotted a shark, which they described as resembling a seal.

The hunt for the killer of the girl at Amity Point reads like the hunt for England's Ipswich murderer, with headlines such as that of ABC's news online: "Three sharks suspected in fatal attack". Inspector Peter Harding is quoted as saying that they are trying to find the sharks, and then, rather frankly although with a hint of uncertainty, he says: "If we found them I suppose we would try to retrieve them and to see if they could have any body parts I suppose."

There are in fact quite a few people who have theorised over the years that sharks have serial killer tendencies, such as shark expert Hugh Edwards:

"How do you explain, for instance, that prior to 1934 there were no shark attacks on Sydney beaches north of Sydney heads. But in the next two years there were five attacks, four of them fatal, between Manly Beach and South Steyne?"

It's true that Australian attacks by Great Whites, especially in South Australia, seem to run in series.

When I read a comment in the Sydney Morning Herald today that, in view of the recent influx of sharks, politicians "were united in saying something must be done about them", I had a sense of foreboding, knowing full well what threatened politicians have been capable of in Australian history. Looking back I saw the headline "yellow peril" with its consequent White Australian Policy, and then the headline red peril flashed before me - Australia's fear of an influx of attacking communists which led it to the futile war in Vietnam.

Then I remembered what could perhaps be seen as the grey peril - the mistaken fear during the 1950s and 1960s that grey nurse sharks were dangerous and so large numbers of these sharks were massacred by spear fishers making these sharks a critically endangered species today. For the record, despite their menacing appearance, these docile, raggy-toothed sharks mainly feed on what I like to feed on in Sydney: fish, stingrays, other sharks, squids, crabs and lobsters, and like me, they are not known to attack humans.

Marine biologists dispute that there is currently any increased risk from sharks. Marnie Horton, the curator of fish and sharks (I like her job title) at the marine park Seaworld said to the Sydney Morning Herald: "There's huge pressure on sharks these days. If anything you would expect that sightings would be decreasing."

There is a lot of data that there are far fewer sharks than what there was 10 or 15 years ago. Also with the demand for shark fin in the Asian market, and the increased value of this product, a lot more people are targeting sharks, particularly the larger sharks.

Peter Benchley's book Jaws, which was made into the 1975 movie of the same name, is the story of a Great White shark. It plays on the idea that sharks actually enjoy eating humans, although research shows that shark attacks on humans are more likely a case of mistaken identity - such as mistaking a human for a seal (in the same way that people mistake seals for sharks) - than an attempt at genuine dining. Humans are hardly considered to be haute cuisine. Benchley later said of his novel: "What I now know, which wasn't known when I wrote Jaws, is that there is no such thing as a rogue shark which develops a taste for human flesh."

I know that there are 180 species of sharks in Australia and of these only 10 are potentially dangerous to humans - and most of the time, as with stingrays, this if only if you go around poking about in their affairs. However, a few years ago when I went snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and someone in the snorkelling party gleefully sirened: "reef shark!" and everyone swam in her direction to spot the shark before it shied away, I swam in the opposite direction, treading above the well lit coral floor, feeling nips and tugs at my feet whenever I accidently passed over a dark, sea cellar.

Last time I visited Sydney Aquarium, after coo-ing to Tiger sharks and Lemon sharks and positively cuddly Port Jackson sharks, I made firm plans that should I ever find myself standing next to a child at an Aquarium who I could teach things, I certainly wouldn't be scaring them with shark attack anecdotes. No, instead i'd be giving them neat little facts and shark conservation kits with I love rubbing sharks' bellies badges.

But then I reflected and thought that one of the most thrilling parts of childhood was being scared - of the eery eye of a cyclone, of the possibility that the Virgin Mary may look back at you from the bathroom mirror, that the the upstairs telephone might ring when you are home alone, or of what may lie beneath the surface of the ocean.

Along the coast of New South Wales there are apparently shark nets on 551 of the beaches. However, nature Conservation Council marine networker Megan Kessler says: `an aerial patrol is much more effective than shark nets. And up to 40 per cent of sharks are actually caught on the inside of the net, so it's a common misconception that the nets physically prevent sharks from approaching the beaches. What they do is catch sharks and unfortunately, they also catch harmless sharks and other animals such as dolphins and turtles.'

When I was a child I'd heard people speak of that - that sharks are often found inside the shark net, that is, on the side of the net where we were swimming! For me that was the ultimate delicious fear. It corresponded with my childhood fear provoked by the film When a Stranger Calls where the police trace the prank calls for the young babysitter and the man who has killed the kids has been making the phonecalls from upstairs, inside the same house as her.

I watched the film Open Water last weekend, based on the true events of an American couple who went diving in January 1998 off Port Douglas in Australia. They were left behind by a tour boat when the diving operator miscounted the members of the dive party, and no one realised they were missing until two days after the dive. As their bodies were never found we can only speculate as to what went down exactly.

What I liked about the film is that although it emphasised the terrifying vastness of the sea and the little mysteries beneath its surface, unlike films with blood-hungry, unconvincing sharks like Jaws, the sharks were portrayed realistically. Although the sharks made their presence felt after the first couple of hours that the couple were stranded, it was only after twenty hours or so of the couple floating at sea, when they had become so dehydrated and weak, and in a sense they had become fixtures in the ocean, that the sharks did genuinely attack. They were now de-humanised and just part of the food chain. The film destroys the myth that all sharks have a malicious intent but keeps alive the delicious fear of potential danger.

Even better was that the film used real sharks. The sharks were choreographed by the film-makers throwing a group of them meat - this way, then that way - to get them to move through the water in whichever direction they were filming.