SHARK TALE
Cal Flyn investigates the jaw dropping underworld of the basking shark, Britain’s largest fish and a regular visitor to the waters off Scotland’s west coast
Cal Flynn investigates the big friendly giants that are basking sharks
August’s long summer days are among the best for spotting basking sharks, Britain’s biggest fish and a regular visitor to the temperate waters off the west coast of Scotland. And there’s no better place to do so than the channel between Coll and Tiree, the ‘sunshine isles’ of the inner Hebrides.
Here the rain clouds sweep by overhead thanks to the islands’ low elevation, earning them more hours of sun each year than anywhere else in Scotland. Basking sharks are easily recognisable, thanks to their two steelgrey fins.
Triangular and up to three feet in length, their fins stab from their back and tail through the water’s surface. They might be frightening to look at, growing to more than ten metres in length, but these gentle giants eat only plankton.
The basking shark is, as Norman MacCaig once wrote, ‘a room-sized monster with a matchbox brain’. Thanks to their vegetarian diet and passive method of feeding – swinging their mouths open wide like a door and filtering the plankton from the water – their brains are far less developed than their tactical, blood-thirsty cousins. Indeed, the mass of nerve endings relating to their sense of smell is larger than their actual brains.
Ibiza-based photographer Matias Alexandro took a series of fantastic images of basking sharks off the coast of Coll during a trip with local guides,
Basking Shark Scotland. ‘I’m fascinated by sharks in general,’ he told me. ‘So when I learned that this is the best place in Europe to see basking sharks, I booked a trip straight away.’
On his first day on the boat, Matias was lucky. ‘It only took 20 minutes to see our first shark,’ he says. It was alone and on the move, so they opted not to bother it but 15 minutes later they spotted a group of five feeding.
‘I jumped in and swam slowly towards it,’ he says. ‘The water was so clear – the dots you can see in the photos are plankton, and I could see them with the naked eye.’ These ‘blooms’ of plankton are pinkish-red in colour, and Scotland’s waters are some of the most planktonrich in the world thanks to a combination of oceanic and climatic factors.
The sharks are not aggressive, nor are they scared of humans. It’s unclear how aware they are of what is going on around them in the water, but swimmers and kayakers are advised to give them space so as to reduce the risk of injuring or harassing them. All the same, it was difficult to avoid them, says Matias.
‘One appeared on my left, then another on my right, then left, then right… one passed right next to me and touched me on the shoulder. The whole experience was amazing.’ Its skin felt rough, he said, like a cat’s tongue.
Basking Shark Scotland run the programme through August and September from their base in Coll, starting from £190 for a one-day tour. From late September there is also a chance to join their research expedition as they study the sharks’ southerly migration – and you may well witness the discovery of something new. Surprisingly little is known about these fascinating creatures.
Until relatively recently, it was thought that they hibernated at the bottom of the sea, only for a satellite tracking study to reveal that some were spending their winters as far away as the Caribbean, while others remained in Scottish waters.
Spotting those twin fins is a real thrill. Once, while travelling on the ferry to Barra, I saw a school of 12 adults – their dorsal fins travelling straight and unwavering onward, snaking from side to side behind, enormous and unmistakeable.
The captain was so excited he made an announcement over the loudspeaker ordering all aboard to go to the deck to watch them. I’ve never forgotten it. And for Matias, it’s an experience he can’t wait to repeat. He’ll be back as soon as he can, he says.
If you’re extremely lucky you might spot one breaching. They can clear the water completely, despite their weight and slow passage through the water normally. It’s another aspect of their behaviour that is not fully understood, although it’s suspected it may be to rid themselves of
“
Until relatively recently it was thought that they hibernated at the bottom of the sea
parasites like lampreys, the leeches of the sea. A jawless, eel-shaped fish, it latches onto larger fish with a tooth-lined mouth and sucks their blood.
Basking sharks have also, on rare occasions, been spotted rolling and rubbing themselves on rocks, which may serve the same function.
Basking sharks were once extremely common in British waters in summer, but their numbers were badly impacted by an industry that harvested them for their liver oil after the Second World War.
Gavin Maxwell, best known as the author of Ring of Bright Water, was among them. He ran a harpooning operation with Tex Geddes from the island of Soay,
Clockwise from top left: The west coast of Scotland is one of the best places in Europe to spot basking sharks; a Basking Shark Scotland tour boat; the basking shark is recognisable by its two fins; Karsten Heinrich (photographer); Arinagour on the Isle of Coll. Centre: Basking shark fin with Tiree in the background. off Skye. They recorded their experiences in two fascinating books, Maxwell’s Harpoon at a Venture and Geddes’s Hebridean Sharker.
The accounts of their early bloodstained efforts read like a modernday Moby Dick, each coming close to death – and madness it seems – in their elemental quest to land their first shark. Though neither man can help but admire the sharks for their strength and beauty. Maxwell recalls the sight of them ‘layer upon layer, huge grey shapes like a herd of submerged elephants, the furthest down dim and indistinct in the sea’s dusk’.
They soon refined their methods, and within two years caught so many that they found themselves with 16 tonnes of rotting shark flesh on their hands. Nor were Maxwell and Geddes alone. In the 40 years
that followed, shark fisheries in Scotland, Ireland and Norway slaughtered more than 77,000 and the population nosedived.
Now the basking shark is classed as a ‘vulnerable’ species and is protected by law. Their numbers are thought to be rebounding – but slowly, as in everything to do with this languorous species.
Conservation efforts continue, so if you do spot sharks this summer, consider contributing to the Shark Trust’s photo-ID database to help track and estimate the population (www.sharktrust.org).
It is hard not to wish these massive, peaceful creatures well and to wonder – as MacCaig did on unexpectedly stubbing his oar upon a basking shark while rowing in the Minch in 1967 – who the real monsters are. These gaping-mouthed beasts of the deep? Or us, and our harpoons?
That very question, said MacCaig ‘made me grow pale / For twenty seconds while, sail after sail, / The tall fin slid away and then the tail.’
I hope you get a chance to see a shark for yourself at such close quarters. If you do, make sure to ask yourself the same question.