A huge predator with wicked rows of teeth,
designed to kill and tear flesh from bone…
For thousands of years we feared them.
They could have hunted us more effectively,
but we weren’t preferred menu entree.
From mariners in ancient times,
to luckless WWII sailors in the Pacific,
It seemed like humans were a favorite
snack of sharks, especially great whites!
Then along comes someone like Ocean Ramsey,
who starts to swim in the water alongside tiger sharks.
She deduced from experience how to approach,
present herself as an equal predator, arm extended out,
vertically positioned. And indeed it worked.
When the creature got too close, she just pressed its head
away to the side, or down, and off they went.
No threat, no problem on either side of the species divide.
Remarkable – a feared apex predator reduced to an
oceangoing pal, or at least a fellow vertebrate chum.
She swims around them, underneath, over their backs...
Holds the fin of a great white and cruises the currents.
The people filming while in cages underwater must feel
like last years news now. No help for it.
Another year passes, another wonder happens, I’m amazed again.
One slender blonde woman has upended and advanced inter-species
communication, and also done a lot to protect a threatened lifeform.
Will wonders never cease. I’m glad to be here to see such wonders.
