Predators I Have Known by Alan Dean Foster Page A

where there was little or no live coral, we settled down and waited for the show to begin.
    When dumped over the side of the Tiata , the frozen-solid contents of the chum barrel made a much bigger splash than I expected. Recognizing the by-now familiar sound, the sharks instantly homed in on the slowly descending and rapidly defrosting cylindrical mass and began to tear it to pieces. The faster it thawed in the eighty-three-degree water, the more swiftly it was consumed. Not every shark attacked the sinking glob simultaneously. They were excited and somewhat agitated, but methodical in their assault. There was no panic among them, no fighting, and certainly no “feeding frenzy.”
    After a while, two things became clear to those of us looking on: The sharks were in no great hurry to feed or had already consumed a share of the spoils, and they were quite comfortable with our proximity. Perhaps more so than several of us with them. During the briefing, we had been told (warned?) that having become acclimated to the presence of divers, they might approach us more closely than was customary for their species. Also that they might be just as likely to eat their fill and then swim off into the blue.
    We were not told, however, just how close they might come.
    Having a brawny eight-foot shark pass within arm’s reach of you is one thing when you are in a protective cage and the shark is outside. The feeling is utterly different when there are no bars separating you from one of Nature’s most perfect predators. The shark’s eye looks at you, you look back at the shark. It is not an intelligent eye like that of a mammal or a cephalopod. It is not cold and unfeeling so much as it is alien, otherworldly. You realize as you meet its gaze that there is something going on behind that eye, but whatever it is will remain forever beyond your ken. Above all, there is an overriding sense of awareness of your presence. You are being speculated upon. You are being sized up. To a shark, you can be one of two things: a threat, or food. Above all, you realize that this is not a movie, the shark is not an actor or a computer-generated image or an animatronic puppet being propelled by a motor and directed by offscreen handlers, and you are not at home sitting on your couch munching popcorn while watching the Discovery Channel.
    A shark can strike as fast as a snake. This is a fact better understood in the abstract than in reality.
    So beautiful, so graceful. The idea of killing such a magnificent animal just for its fins while leaving the rest to rot and die is one any sentient mind should not be capable of accepting, though all-too many humans do. My wife and I have cats and dogs. I once had a boa constrictor. Occasionally, a cat or dog will nip a visitor. The snake never did.
    What about a shark? And not just any shark, but a serious shark like the silvertip?
    I looked around. Visibility on the isolated reef verged on unlimited. As is my preference at such times, I was off a little ways by myself. No one was watching me. That was hardly surprising, with eight silvertips circulating steadily among us. Movement in the water made me look to my left. One was coming straight toward me. Several had already done so, passing as close to where I was crouching as college friends in a crowded bar. Swimming slowly and without concern, its tail moving back and forth like a metronome to propel it through the water, the silvertip passed directly over my head. Its white belly gleamed like buffed fiberglass.
    There are moments in our lives when we do something we have often thought about doing but never really expected to do. When such an occasion actually arrives, the time for acting on impulse usually lasts little more than a second or two. Spend time in judicious contemplation of the action itself and in a wink the opportunity is gone, usually forever.
    Extending myself slightly, I reached up and let my bare fingertips trail along the silvertip’s underside.