IN DEFENCE OF SHARKS
Allen helps clear up confusion
Will Allen was prepared for the backlash: A 26-year-old man, boogie-boarding on the surf, was killed in a shark attack off Cape Cod last Saturday.
It marked the first Cape Cod shark fatality in the last 62 years. No matter, hysteria reached epic proportions in the media and among the public. Beaches were closed. And once again that Peter Benchley quote surfaced: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water …”
Allen, co-owner of Montreal’s popular Burgundy Lion and Bishop & Bagg pubs, is a shark advocate and a longtime deepsea diver. Along with many others, he has an explanation for the shark attack: a case of mistaken identity, induced by climate change.
“The only reason the great whites are there is because the seal population is there, and the reason the seals are there is that they are moving up, because the waters there have become so much warmer,” says Allen, 38, at the Burgundy Lion. “The surfer on the board in murky waters must have looked a lot like a seal to the shark, but in this unfortunate case it was not what it was going for.
“Sharks are completely misunderstood. They have been vilified by movies like Jaws. But even Benchley, who wrote the Jaws book, later regretted it, because he caused this whole culture of people to be afraid of them.”
Allen is also an ocean photographer and cinematographer who has spent the last two decades swimming with and capturing spectacular images of hundreds of sharks many leagues under many seas, without ever sustaining any injuries. And he hasn’t been in a cage, either.
“I’ve been face to face with great whites, tiger sharks, bull sharks and oceanics and have never had an issue.”
Allen shot footage for the staggering documentary Sharkwater Extinction, directed by his close friend Rob Stewart, who died due to a breathing-equipment malfunction before the film was completed. The documentary, a sequel to Stewart’s award-winning Sharkwater, will be making its Quebec première on Oct. 4 at the Festival du nouveau cinéma — which will be paying homage to the late director.
Allen is hopeful that the public will understand that recent, sporadic shark attacks are the result of mistaken identity. The message behind Sharkwater Extinction, which had its world première at the Toronto International Film Festival, is that millions and millions of sharks a year are being killed to satisfy the whims of those around the world, but particularly in China and Taiwan, who view shark-fin soup as a delicacy. It’s not unlike the plight of elephants and rhinoceroses, whose numbers are fast diminishing as a result of being slaughtered for their tusks and horns.
“What’s particularly horrifying is that so many millions of sharks are finned by fishers around the world and then tossed back into the ocean to die,” says Allen, who shot footage for the doc in Florida, Panama and Costa Rica. There is much government hypocrisy on this front. While some 90 countries may have banned the finning of sharks, many have no laws against the importation of fins.
“Ironically, after Sharkwater came out, a lot of laws and policies around the world were changed to protect sharks from finning. But there were all these loopholes whereby they could still get away with it.
“Sources say that the rate of destruction of sharks is between 100 and 200 million a year. It’s impossible to have a real number, because there is no way to check the black market and all the secret finning taking place on ships.”
Allen was born far from the ocean, in Cowansville, to a farming family whose roots go back six generations. Despite his ownership involvement with the Burgundy Lion and Bishop & Bagg, he is hardly a party boy, far more preferring the still of the ocean and swimming with fishies to the din of urban nightlife and some of the two-legged critters flitting about it.
“Unfortunately, what too many people don’t realize is the huge importance of sharks in the ecological scheme of things in our oceans,” says Allen, who maintains residences in Montreal and Knowlton.
“What Stewart and so many others really wanted to emphasize is just how important the shark populations are. Without the sharks in the oceans, the oceans fall apart. When you take one of these players out of the situation, it sets off a whole nasty chain of events.”
Stewart, only 37 at the time of his death, had planned to do another documentary on sharks. Now Allen, along with others who worked with Stewart, wish to continue with his mission.
“I don’t think anyone can really take over from what (Stewart) did, but there are a bunch of us from Team Sharkwater who want to keep his legacy going and not slow the momentum down.”
Unfortunately, what too many people don’t realize is the huge importance of sharks in the ecological scheme of things in our oceans.