Just in time for one of the busiest beach weekends of the summer in the United States (to say nothing of Shark Week), we've had a spat of shark attacks on the eastern seaboard. Seven shark attacks have occurred off the coast of North Carolina in three weeks, some of them in very shallow water. An eight-foot hammerhead has been seen cruising off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland, one of the most popular resort towns in the mid-Atlantic. A Florida fisherman was yanked bodily from his kayak by a shark he hooked (though you could certainly argue that that was on him).
We have a complicated relationship with sharks (to say nothing of other potentially dangerous animals) in our culture. On one hand we have the folks to love to sensationalize them, hence their roles in books and movies and TV shows. Plenty of people fear them - a kill order is out for a 4 meter shark that attacked and severely injured a bodyboarder off the coast of Australia. Other people try to downplay the danger sharks, crocodiles, bears, and other big predators pose, pointing out the accurate statistics that attacks are very rare.
That's true. But they do happen. And with more people crowding into what once was solely the domain of animals, they happen more often.
Instead of either alternatively sensationalizing or glossing over the danger that certain animals pose towards people, I would love to see more zoos and aquariums address it practically and realistically. The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore features an exhibit, Polar Bear Watch, that describes how residents of Churchill, Manitoba, co-exist with the big white bears that roam their streets. A nice idea - but maybe they could take a page from the Naples Zoo in Florida and instead focus on how the residents of Maryland could better coexist with the American black bears which are becoming more common in the western and central parts of the state, from how to discourage bears in your yard by securing your trash and putting food sources away, to how to behave if you suddenly encounter a bear.
Pretty much every zoo in the southern US has a pool full of big ol' gators - how about making these displays a teachable exhibit of human-alligator conflict? Like sharks, alligators are often attracted to fishing piers by fisherman cleaning their catches and tossing scraps to the waiting gators - a behavior which teaches alligators (and sharks) to hang around expecting food. Or rattlesnakes - maybe teach people that if they fear having rattlesnakes in their yards, there is a solution besides killing snakes (which is equally likely to get you bitten) - learn to make your yard less attractive as snake habitat.
As mountain lions begin their slow but steady march to the east, reclaiming lands that have been cat-less for decades, it would be good for human residents to learn how to coexist peaceful with their new neighbors. Similarly, coyotes are cropping up across the east, filling in the gap left by wolves. They've trotted past the White House and popped up in Central Park, spreading concern wherever they go.
Focusing on the dangers that animals can pose to people can be unpopular in some circles. To some zookeepers, it would seem to be its own form of sensationalizing, putting too much focus on the relatively few times that attacks do occur, too little on the more frequent cases where humans imperil animals. I get what they're saying. I do know, however, that - as evidenced by the aforementioned shark in Australia - when an animal does kill or harm a person, it leads to retaliatory measures against the animals, and not just the "perpetrators" (to say nothing of possibly sparing any human victims the damage that they'd suffer).
In terms of improving human attitudes towards the big predators in our own backyards, a little prevention is much better than a draconian cure.
If you're not a zookeeper or aquarist and actually DO get holidays like the Fourth of July off, don't let all this put you off. It's still safe to go into the water... probably.
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