Promising News For The Sharks of Cocos Island

Scientists published an interesting study on March 24, 2020, documenting the first evidence of the critically endangered Scalloped Hammerhead shark transiting between Cocos Island National Park and Las Gemelas Seamount. This has the potential for good news for vulnerable species in the area, as the evidence of a corridor between two ecological hotspots provides a much easier platform for expanded protection.

Cocos is a tiny island 340 miles off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica with an impressive roster of ecological credentials (alongside a slice of pirate lore): National Park, UNESCO World Heritage Site, and designated Ramsar Wetland of International Importance.  Sharks love a good current, and Cocos is the first point of contact with a major one - the Northern Equatorial counter-current. The island is one of the last remaining places to see Hammerheads in populations large enough to school.  Galapagos, Silky and Whitetip Reef sharks also have a strong presence here, as does the occasional Tiger.

Forty miles over, discoveries are still being made. A deep seamount rises from the floor of 7,500, peaking at a depth of 600 feet and surrounded by a chasm of deep ocean. In 2009, scientists and world-renowned photographer Brian Skerry launched an expedition, conducting 22 submersible dives to the top of Las Gemelas seamount, where they discovered one of the highest concentrations of fish in the tropics worldwide - an estimated 7.8 tonnes of fish per hectare.

Cocos has been protected since 1978, Las Gemelas received protection in 2011, but the Hammerheads are getting nailed by shark fisherman as soon as they venture outside the protection zone, and sometimes even inside of it via longlining. The area is very difficult to patrol as it is so far away from any major landmass, and besides 1 Ranger and perhaps a couple disheveled university students researching in the jungle, the island is uninhabited.

The shark in the most recent study published in March 2020 was found to have made repeated traverses of the corridor between 2015 and 2016. It will be interesting as more is discovered about this connection, and how widespread the activity is. With evidence of a transitory corridor between the two locations, hopefully this important habitat will receive increased protection and continue to be explored.

The Little Village That Did

Five years ago, I came across an article about 15 families on the east coast of the Baja Peninsula:

In 1995, the small fishing village of Cabo Pulmo was struggling to survive. Their waters were completely overfished, and the coral reef which brought in a small but increasing number of tourists each year was being heavily damaged by boats. With conditions deteriorating more each year, the village petitioned the government to create a marine preserve surrounding the reef, which at 20,000 years old is the oldest coral reef on the west coast of North America.   On June 6th 1995, the President of Mexico declared a 27.46 square mile area surrounding Cabo Pulmo as a National Marine Park.

The next ten years were a struggle, as this decision required a complete reversal for the community from fishing to conservation. Their courage paid off, as in 2011 marine biologists surveyed a nearly unprecedented 463% increase in fish biomass (number of species in a given area), with a return of some species which had not been seen since the 1980’s. In 14 years of protection, every group of fish had returned, including sharks, rays, whales, turtles and dolphin - all of whom rely on the reef for habitat, food, and breeding. While the park is a strict no-take zone, fisherman quickly benefited from increased yields just outside park borders.

Cabo Pulmo has been heralded as a conservation success story and has since been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2005) and Hope Spot, in addition to National Park. It is a thriving eco-tourism destination, attracting visitors from around the world to dive and snorkel in a once-again thriving marine ecosystem. Dives within the park are incredibly well managed, with no more than 6 divers on a site at a time, and popular sites on a rotation with a rest period. The reef is blaringly noisy, an indication of good health which in turn attracts species from over a mile away. CP is a seasonal aggregation area for bull sharks, and while I wouldn’t recommend a moonlight swim they are incredible to dive with, congregating around one of two natural wrecks. It’s a location where anything can show up - whale sharks, dolphin, turtles, even Orca; and is well known for it’s incredibly large schools of fish and abundant diversity.

The above image is of a school of big-eye jack Trevally, the largest formation of fish I have seen throughout my diving career. Tens of thousands of fish, so thick you couldn’t see 3 feet into a slowly-swirling tornado that extended from the surface down to over seventy feet of depth. We were in the final stages of ascending from a dive when I saw the flashes from the baitball, and while shooting was limited to the surface, it meant more light, and for as long as they were willing to stay.

When I look at this image, it is a reminder that the experience existed solely due to the residents who had hope for their seas, and the vision and courage to enact conservation.

In the middle of a hunt: the story of Running Deep

Deep wall diving is a blissful soup of emotions - excitement, wonder, great visuals, and peppered with a touch of vulnerability just to keep things interesting.

Roca Partida is a partially submerged volcano is in the middle of open ocean, a 20 hour sail from the nearest landmass of Cabo San Lucas. The first arrival here typically brings some puzzled looks, as from the surface, one of the “Top 5 Dives In The World” presents itself as a 300 square meter island no taller than 114 feet, completely covered in bird crap. Underwater, it’s an upside down conical shape that bottoms out around 6,000 feet. It’s an amazing feeling to look down a sheer wall like that, and daydream about what it would be like to explore just a little further down.

The site is unique due to strong currents in all directions: including up and down, and convergences creating vortexes. These currents, along with cold temperatures and ample prey, result in in a location that is a mecca for sharks. A typical dive here will see 5 or more species of shark all together, and in numbers large enough to school. If that weren’t exciting enough, it’s fairly common to have a Humpback or Whale shark simply materialize out of nowhere. For such little real estate, it is non-stop action.

But this dive was strange. We were over twenty minutes in and it was eerily….empty. Pretty reef fish, cleaners, and the resident little white tip reef sharks doing business as usual, but that was it. It was like walking into a what is supposed to be the raging party of the year, but the only people there are a couple of your kid sister’s friends and a bowl of stale Cheetos.

Where did everyone go? More time passed, and at this point we were exchanging looks - do we just venture out into the Blue? Wait? We decided to do one more side of the wall and then head to the Blue if there was nothing.

As soon as we turned the corner everything changed. A school of baitfish in the hundreds was in a frenzy, changing directions just below. It was a wall of fish. We were at our depth limit of 114 feet, so we couldn’t see what was chasing them, only that it was big, fast, and we had just stumbled onto a hunt! Every second was a new direction, flashes of silver, the school breaking and then regrouping, frenetically trying to escape.

The image from this dive, “Running Deep” has has received some exposure via exhibitions and photographic awards, but I usually do not have an opportunity to tell the story behind it, which feels so in contrast to such a quiet scene. It is one of my favorite images from my series on oceanic Hope Spots.

Editing other shots later, I accidentally overexposed an image to find 10 sharks in a single frame.

So What'cha Want?

In 2018 I was doing some research for an upcoming talk, and stumbled across an article where Great White shark tour operators in Australia were using music to attract sharks. Sound pumped via a suspended underwater speaker yielded some pretty interesting results - it attracted the White sharks just as well as chum, elicited a more natural behavior, and resulted in better photographs for guests.

Sharks are especially responsive to low-frequency, pulsing sounds affectionately referred to as the “Yummy Hum”, as it is the sound given off by struggling / dying fish. As the operators experimented with different sounds, they discovered the White sharks not only had a preference in genre (Metal / Rock), but the reactions were the strongest with the Australian rock band AC/DC, and even more specifically with the songs “Back In Black”, and “You Shook Me All Night Long”.

Sharks have incredible sensory systems which would be affected by sound, including hearing, Ampullae of Lorenzini to detect electrical impulses from the speaker, and the lateral line which would detect sound waves in the water. While any sound would activate these senses, clearly there was a specific attribute with AC/DC which was particularly attractive.

I thought it would be interesting to try this with the white sharks cousin - the mako, so bought an underwater sound system and flew down to see my friends at Cabo Shark Dive. We didn’t know how the sharks would react and kept it to a small crew: Jacob: boat owner / marine biologist / shark expert / photographer; Miguel: expert shark handler / photographer; the Captain, and myself. We set out several miles offshore to the Continental Shelf, which plunges down past 6,000 feet, lowered the speaker over the side of the boat to a 30ft depth, put my laptop on a loop of 6 AC/DC tracks and one “refresher” song to keep us all sane, hit play, and waited.

You know how Krispy Kreme vents out the smell of warm, delicious, freshly-baked doughnuts to attract customers? Chumming for sharks is kind of the same: you chuck an absolutely vile mixture of fish guts, water, and blood over the side of the boat, and let the open ocean currents disperse the smell (gross - but now you don’t want a doughnut anymore either). In a good current, a typical TOA (time of arrival) is 45-60 minutes.

We have a highly technical system which serves as a “doorbell” to alert us to when a shark has arrived…some rope; a large and as revolting-as-possible looking fish head; and a small marker buoy. Attach the buoy and fish to the end of the rope, toss overboard, and when that little marker buoy swiftly disappears below the surface, you have a shark.

The idea was to try and bounce the sound off of the underwater canyon. Sound travels further and faster in water, so unlike chum, we had the potential to attract animals from a much wider sphere - but would they come?

Three hours passed…of pure abject boredom staring at a little marker buoy bobbing at the surface in the middle of the open ocean, but finally the doorbell rang, and our first guest had arrived. It was a mature Blue shark - these guys are typically between 6-8 feet and if you’ve ever seen “The Muppets”, look remarkably like a blue version of Beaker. They’re fast, agile, and usually pretty inquisitive.

As soon as I got into the water I was blown away by the speaker - the sound was loud and unbelievably CRISP! The shark was definitely curious - making several close passes. Within a few more minutes we had another Blue show up, and then another one….until we were surrounded by five blue sharks, all of us bobbing around in the middle of the open ocean listening to rock music. It was a bit surreal.

I was a bit disappointed to not have Makos, likely due to the number of more dominant Blue sharks (we did have one Mako lurking who didn’t want to join the party), but We were in the water with an above average number of sharks, for an above average length of time for the time of season, and it appeared that the music was working as an attractant!

Over the course of the next several hours, I began to notice that while the sharks showed curiosity towards the speaker, the “refresher track” would elicit a more pronounced response by the sharks - instead of a swim by or lingering, whenever the song played a shark would venture much closer to the speaker, literally “nuzzling” the output with it’s snout.

So what did the Blue sharks “prefer”?

this is the track.

Inner Space: The magic of blue water diving

At the end of every dive we would venture into what is known as “The Blue”.

You slip away from the reef, and let the currents take you out into open ocean.  You are quickly over 6,000 feet of depth, miles from any nearest land source, and in eighty feet of water.  It is a form of sensory deprivation, surrounded by three hundred and sixty degrees of monotone, rich, empty blue.  All of your senses are diluted because of submersion, you are weightless, and very exposed.

It is a very vulnerable feeling. 

But this is where magic happens, as although you can’t see them, the wildlife several miles beyond your scope know that you are here, and are on their way.

Sharks in numbers which won’t be a sight in five years, dolphins playfully teasing your clumsiness, a 40 foot whale shark passing through, or a solitary turtle cruising past - all are on the biggest highway on the planet.  What makes these encounters so incredibly special, is that it is always the animals who have decided to spend their time to investigate you.  They may be timid or bold, but they are here because they are curious. Sometimes they stay for a only a moment, sometimes for twenty minutes or longer. You never know what the gift will be, or how long it will stay, but always in the blue it is a gift.  

In some ways this is very passive, as all you can do is remain still and wait, staring into an empty void of blue. You manage your expectations by continuously scanning above, below, and around you for a shadow, a glimmer - anything that breaks up the featureless horizon, just waiting to receive whatever comes your way. There is absolutely no action which can be taken which will alter an outcome; you have to let go of all control.

In reality, blue water diving is anything but passive.  You have to be willing to expose yourself to the epitome of the ocean - vast expanse - there is no reef, wall, or ocean floor for visual reference or an appearance of security.. This is the unknown - and anything can come your way here.  There is nothing to be afraid of, as that’s not how the ocean works, only a thirsty anticipation of the possibilities. The work is to remain present for long periods of time in nothingness, and manage expectations of an outcome.

The absolute best dives I have ever done in my career have always been in The Blue.  The encounters are the unicorn kind, where they are so magical that you will remember every detail like a movie for the rest of your lifetime.  

For me, the magic of the blue is a metaphor In the benefit of allowing yourself to be vulnerable and exposed. Much of the magic in life happens just outside of comfort zones.