“For all their power they are amazingly fragile. Sharks are no longer the villains, they are the victims.”

–Peter Benchley, interview with “Animal Attack Files,” April 2000.

 

A jet plane zooms through the sea,

caudal fin thrusting water around the pectorals,

creating lift, stabilized by dorsal fins.

Absorbing oxygen with gills, water through skin—

an evolutionary masterpiece

over 400 million years of existence.

 

Peter later rued inventing the anti-Flipper

with jaws that hankered for human flesh.

The oceans couldn’t survive without them

he warned, after the lions of the sea

were hunted with abandon,

their numbers dropping 70 percent.

Apex killing Apex—100 million a year.

 

Fins ripped from writhing bodies,

tossed bleeding into the pelagic drink,

electroreceptors spasming,

the mortally wounded sinking,

taking hours to drown.

 

Absent these selachians,

their former cuisine runs free

to scoop up those that clean the reefs

and enable coral to grow,

and over-consume the seagrass

necessary for clean water,

carbon storage, and shelter.

 

Coral and seagrass,

the ocean’s building blocks—

the food chain, the web of life torn apart

for shark fin soup

and cheap thrills.