Dramatic Shark Photos ‘Net Worldwide Interest

Anyone for a swim?

Not since the movie “Jaws” has a great white shark created such a splash. Except the 15-footer you see blasting out of the South Atlantic is the real thing--as real as the poor seal trapped in its pearly whites.

So is the 10-footer going airborne during a separate attack, and by capturing both of these rare events on film, Chris Fallows of Cape Town, South Africa, has given the world a fish story it can really sink its teeth into.

The story has gotten completely out of hand, as fish stories often do, thanks not to the click of a camera but to the clicking of mice. Fallows’ images, presumably taken from his Internet gallery, have been passed around via e-mail and in Southern California, if not elsewhere, they have generated a groundswell of misinformation, disbelief, commentary and conjecture.

Six of the images, incorrectly presumed to be one sequence instead of two, were plopped into my server from the desktop of Fred Benko, captain of the Condor out of Santa Barbara. Benko didn’t have any details and was merely forwarding images he had received from Gregory Helms, program manager for the Channel Islands Center for Marine Conservation.

Helms sent them with a somewhat alarming and, it turns out, erroneous title: “Predator Control in the Channel Islands.”

“The resolution is not enough to see exactly what animal is becoming lunch,” Helms said, “but I would guess a mammal, since the white shark is attacking from below.”

Helms received the photos from a colleague in San Francisco, who had received them from a couple who had received them from their daughter . . . and somewhere along the way the impression was given that the daughter had shot the sequence in the Santa Barbara Channel.

Trying to verify, first, that the sequence was genuine, I forwarded it to Peter Pyle, a renowned researcher who has studied white shark behavior extensively at the Farallon Islands off San Francisco.

Pyle had doubts about the six images: three on a top row showing a shark blasting half out of the water at an angle, with something in its mouth; and three on a bottom row showing a shark impersonating a tarpon, airborne and twisting, also with something in its mouth.

“What is shown in the top row is plausible,” Pyle e-mailed back. “I’ve seen it before at the Farallones.

“I have never seen what is shown in the bottom row. White sharks are like whales when they breach. They go up and tip over. They are not like dolphins as this sequence depicts.

” . . . Scot [Anderson, a fellow researcher] and I have been trying to get shots like this for 12 years at the Farallones without success, for whatever that’s worth. Thanks for sharing the images.”

By then, Helms had expressed doubts as to the location of the photo shoot.

“Stand by,” he cautioned. “It looks like the origin of this photo is in question. I may have spoken too soon in relating word that it’s a Channel Islands photo. It is common to get shots like this, apparently, in South Africa, where they tow frozen cows and other nonsense to cause white shark antics. Will keep you advised.”

Seeking greater wisdom, I turned to John McCosker, a prominent white shark expert who has traveled the world studying Carcharodon carcharias. McCosker, senior scientist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, responded at first by saying, “You write a book about sharks and everyone assumes you know something.”

It turned out, however, that he did know something about these photos. Or at least he thought he did. A fellow scientist had e-mailed the images to him earlier this year and claimed they were taken by John Stevens, a marine biologist in Tasmania.

“I don’t recognize the kind of poodle that the shark is playing with, but I suspect that it was a photo opportunity created by floating a pinniped [seal or sea lion] carcass at the surface in South Australian waters,” McCosker reasoned.

“During the three trips that I spent off South Australia, I saw white sharks partially leave the water when they attacked large prey, but I never saw such an athletic performance as these photos demonstrate. I have also seen them breach here off Northern California, but only rarely.

“Aerial behavior is not common for white sharks, but is well within the range of attack behaviors of adult Carcharodon. In that they are so large, white sharks feed by stalking their marine mammal prey [be it surfer or seal] and then rushing upward and taking one massive immobilizing bite out of the victim.

“Such a ‘mugging’ behavior is required in that the sharks are neither fast enough nor maneuverable enough to swim down a marine mammal prey item that sees them coming--it is a popular misconception that white sharks are so fast and/or strong that they can capture any prey that they desire.

“After delivering the first immobilizing bite, which often lifts its victim out of the water [human attack victims have described this flight], the white shark then releases its victim [a strategy that Tim Tricas and I published in 1984 and entitled the ‘bite and spit’], waits for it to [bleed to death], and then consumes it at leisure.

“This seems to account for the survival of human victims that don’t die as a result of the bite [most don’t] and benefits the shark in that it doesn’t attempt to consume a struggling pinniped that is fighting for its life.

“The ‘bite and spit,’ in one form or another, is accepted by most but not all shark biologists--some assume that humans don’t taste good, but those found in white shark stomachs [would] disagree.”

Stevens eventually returned an e-mail from Tasmania and said he had not taken the photos, adding, “They have been doing the rounds via e-mail here for about six weeks now, and most people seem to have seen them.

“They are from South Africa where some of the eco-tourist operators have found that by towing decoy seals, they can get the sharks to jump for the camera. So, the seal in its mouth is a decoy.”

Lo and behold, Stevens had pinpointed the proper continent and finally, with the help of Times researcher Vicki Gallay, the man with the camera was located.

Fallows, 28, on Thursday said there were several reasons he was able to get such remarkable photographs. One of them was luck. But most notably, it was time on the water. Fallows said he spends about 120 days in the False Bay and Dyer Island areas off South Africa, which is slowly becoming known for its “flying sharks.”

Others have witnessed this phenomenon but capturing it on film is something few, if any, have been able to do.

The larger shark shown breaching at an angle was photographed in June. It had gone after a juvenile Cape fur seal Fallows said was returning to Seal Island through an area called the ring of peril, where white sharks hunt.

“The seal was a juvenile so it was inexperienced,” Fallows explained. “This animal was alone and basically running a suicide path, so we were just tracking alongside it, without disturbing it, and just focusing on the little seal and waiting for something to happen.”

The shark going airborne was photographed in May. It had gone after a decoy being towed slowly behind a boat, in hopes of prompting an attack.

2 Both sets of photos--they and others can be viewed at https://www.apexpredators.com.--have turned Fallows into a celebrity of sorts in Cape Town.

“For a long while, everywhere I went it was all people were talking about,” he said.

The photos, protected by copyright laws, were published in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and now the United States, and this has given Fallows not only more fame but enough money to keep his fuel tank full for a long time.

“It keeps me out there,” he acknowledged. “But I’m not in this for the money. It’s a privilege to be out there. The white shark is the most famous animal on earth, certainly the most well-known predator. To capture images that rank among the best ever of this animal is a very, very satisfying feeling.

“But what a lot of people don’t understand is that to actually be out there and witness this event happening leaves one . . . very humbled and feeling very privileged. It’s one of the amazing adrenaline rushes you can have and it’s an unbelievable natural high.”