Malaysia: Shark saviour - Scott Cassell

Tan Cheng Li The Star 3 Jul 12;

Over-fishing of sharks is upsetting the delicate balance of species composition in the oceans and one man wants to do something about it.

WHEN a ferry sank off Batangas, the Philippines in late 2009, rescuers witnessed a gory scene: giant squids feeding on the victims. The sighting was proof that the man-sized Humboldt squids do attack humans, but it also raised one pertinent question: What were the squids doing there when they had never been sighted in the area before?

That observation reaffirms that the cephalopod, which can grow up to over 2m long, is invading many of the world’s seas.

First described in 1635 from the seas off Peru, they used to be confined to the Pacific coast of South America. In recent years, however, they have spread as far north as North America and Alaska, and across the Bering Sea to Russia. And now they’ve worked their way over to Asia.

The squid invasion has puzzled scientists for years, with some attributing the phenomenon to warming seas. Ocean activist and researcher Scott Cassell, who has studied the squids for over 15 years, however, points to another environmentally tragic cause. He says the squids got this big and this widespread, because their natural predators, sharks and tunas, have been fished out.

“They never used to be in these many places. The reason they’re there now is because of the reduction of sharks. Each female Humboldt squid reproduces some 20 million eggs and with fewer predators to keep them in check, a massive population explosion has occurred. As we remove sharks from the sea, we are getting a replacement by a different species,” says California-based Cassell, one of few researchers to have filmed the jumbo squids in their natural environment.

“The hammerhead shark, one of the squid’s primary predators, gives birth to just 20 pups on average in a litter. So you can imagine, with these statistics, how ecologically and economically devastating a continued explosion in Humboldt squid can be,” says Cassell, who was recently in Sabah for a quick survey of the reefs of Sipadan and Mabul islands, as part of the Save the Sea project by watch company Luminox (see story on page 6).

A self-described “ocean warrior”, Cassell has an unwavering commitment: the protection of the world’s oceans and their inhabitants. He heads two organisations: Sea Wolves Unlimited gathers evidence to bring poachers and polluters to justice while Undersea Voyager Project helps marine researchers, students and “citizen scientists” explore the marine realm through dives in a submersible. Documentaries of his marine exploits have aired on various TV channels, including the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, NatGeo, and BBC.

Squid invasion

The squids are not something we want to have plenty of. They are said to have caused declines in catches of food species like salmon, hake and anchovy.

“The squids are voracious eaters,” says Cassell. “They eat every species they encounter that can’t swim faster. I’ve seem them eat fish, jelly fish, coral, shrimp, even sea lions. They vacumn-up everything in their path. When they’re gone, they leave behind a desert.”

And of course, they attack humans. Cassell knows this only too well. “I have had as many as a thousand squids as big as people, swimming around me, attacking me. They have dislocated my right arm, blown out my right eardrum. The scars on my face were caused by the ring teeth of the squids.”

In contrast to the devastating nature of Humboldt squids, sharks are vital to the health of the oceans. As apex predators, they keep fish populations in balance. The disappearance of sharks will send ripples throughout the marine food chain, as seen in the population explosion of the squids.

When shark numbers drop, ecosystems can collapse, warns Cassell.

“If we eat one shark, there are 50 to 60 other animals in the reef that will die because of the imbalance. So one shark can cause the death of many thousands of animals below it. The case of the Humboldt squid population explosion and the over-fishing of sharks send a message about the sea’s fragility and the intricate inter-dependency of the global food chain.”

To illustrate this point, he says that when you eat sharks and tunas, you are responsible for grizzly bears attacking people in Alaska. Here’s why: When sharks and tunas are over-fished, other animals that they normally eat grow in numbers, such as the Humboldt squids. Wild salmon are naturally programmed to swim upriver to spawn but before they do, they stay in the brackish water of the river mouth to acclimate first. While there, however, they are gulped down by huge schools of squids.

This never happened in the past as the squids were never there before. Now, when the bears wake up from their winter hibernation, there are barely any salmon in the river. They begin to starve and start venturing into human settlements, in search of food. This has led to more encounters with humans and, hence, more attacks.

“So, people who are eating sharks are responsible for people being attacked by bears. You can’t eat a shark without affecting something else,” says Cassell, who made the link three years ago in a documentary for National Geographic.

It is estimated that some 73 million sharks are killed each year just for their fins. Approximately 97% of the blue shark population in the Catalina Channel off California has been killed over the last 20 years, the same period during which Asia has had a wonderful economic spike. The current population of hammerhead sharks along the Pacific coast of the United States is only 10% of what it was 30 years ago.

No more sharks

A sea emptied of its sharks came to light during Cassell’s shark survey last September in the waters off California. He encountered no sharks during his 11 hours underwater in the record-breaking “30-Mile Dive” from Catalina Island to San Pedro. Cassell would see 40 to 100 sharks in a single dive there less than two decades ago.

“It was the perfect time of the year and the exact location known for a high density of sharks. I should have seen hundreds but I didn’t see a single one. I felt like I was swimming through a graveyard of my friends.”

To help the environment, Cassell says we have to leave the sharks alone.

“I understand that shark fin soup has an established place in traditional Chinese cuisine but consumption levels have become unsustainable. I’m sure you don’t want to see a world or your next generation to inherit a world where the shark is extinct, and the Humboldt squid takes over.”

Signs of strain

In the waters off Pulau Mabul on the south-east coast of Sabah, the effect of shark over-fishing is already visible to Cassell. Diving there last month, he observed a proliferation of parrot fish – the biggest single schools he has ever seen. “This is not a natural population,” he asserts. “Why are there so many parrot fish here? Because they’re no sharks to eat them.”

Parrot fish may be pretty to look at but they feed on corals. So, an abundance of them means that corals are constantly being chewed up. In the past, dynamite fishing devastated much of the reefs of Mabul, and now, the feeding frenzy of large schools of parrot fish is adding to the damage. The seascape here is pretty barren save for small mounds of corals, and even these have gnaw marks on them.

“This reef is dying, and it has a lot to do with the death of the top predator,” says Cassell. He also notes that the corals were covered in dirt. “That’s not normal. A lot of these corals have been wounded, so their polyps aren’t strong enough to shove off the dirt. If you go to the Bahamas, you don’t see this. The corals clean themselves like how a cat does.”

Over at the island of Sipadan, he gladly notes that sharks still roam the reef but he counts only six of them during one dive – white tip, reef and silky sharks. “There should have been 10 times more in such a reef. The population of sharks here is painfully low. Someone is still actively wiping them out a few kilometres out. In healthy reefs which I have dived in the Caribbean, Bahamas, Africa, Atlantic ... they all have more sharks than here.”

His trip to Sabah was also to explore the possibility of a shark survey, similar to last year’s 30-Mile Dive project. In that mission, he swam in the Catalina Channel at depths of between 6m and 10m for some 11 hours, using a computer-controlled mixed-gas rebreather.

He is keen to study the sharks of Sabah, as there is potential over-fishing of the hammerhead shark, one of the Humboldt squid’s primary predator.

“Sabah is one of Asia’s last strongholds of the hammerhead shark and we need them to ensure that a similar Humboldt squid population explosion does not happen in Asian waters and threaten the livelihood of Asia’s fisheries. Sharks are a lot more valuable alive than dead.

“You have a beautiful ecosystem ... why not build up the ecotourism industry? Draw the tourist dollars by protecting your sharks. They are needed to ensure your oceans’ ecosystems stay healthy and beautiful and to keep away the Humboldt Squid from the types of fish you love to eat.”

Hunting the hunters

Diving since 1977, Cassell, 50, has chalked up over 14,000 hours underwater. His fascination with the ocean was triggered by the movie 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea when he was six.

“As I watched the giant squid attack the submarine Nautilus, I knew then and there that my life would involve the ocean, submersibles, and the giant squid!”

By the age of 15, he had become a commercial diver-welder and soon thereafter, a US Coast Guard-rated submersible pilot-captain. This paved the way to a career as a counter-terrorism combat diver in the US Army and eventually, “ocean warrior” as he puts it.

The turning point towards ocean activism came 15 years ago. Try as hard as he might, Cassell could not film the rarest fish in the world, the Mexican totoaba – not alive anyway, as he could never see one unless it was dead in a poacher’s net. Also in the nets were dead dolphins, extremely rare vaquita porpoises, sea lions and sharks.

“The poachers were killing everything around and no one seemed to care. So I went to work filming poachers killing rare, endangered and protected species and anonymously delivered it to the government and legal bodies.”

Having spent 20 years in the military, three of those in combat, Cassell has had some tragic experiences and these have influenced his crusade to save the seas.

“I’ve seen adults using machetes to kill children, innocent women being gunned down in the street, explosions going off and killing innocent people walking by. When I see innocent people die, I get pissed off. I hate a bully. I feel the same way when I see people killing sharks, sea turtles and dolphins. I see bad people behaving badly, killing things that are needed to keep the ocean in balance. That’s why I hunt poachers.”

His gentle demeanour and boyish good looks belie the tough guy underneath – one trained in anti-terrorism skills that he uses in the hunt for poachers. In a typical operation, his partner would drop him off in the open ocean in the dark. Cassell then quietly swims ashore to the poachers’ camp and hides in the bushes – sometimes for as long as two days, without eating or drinking. He then films the poachers breaking the law.

“I’ve done this, like, 20 times. I’ve come back with 300 ant bites and each one of them infected. I always come back wounded, I always come back sick. But I’ll never stop. I’d do it again. That’s how much I love sharks, that’s how much I love sea turtles, that’s how much I love the sea.”

He often sneaks out into the sea at night to cut nets and traps to release trapped animals, or to drag nets ashore and burn them. As he has no power of arrest, he can only gather evidence, which he passes on to the authorities. To date, he has helped put 11 poachers in prison and another 14 are facing prosecution. These are cases in Mexico, Central and South America, and Alaska.

“That’s all the money I have for. I’d go all over the world to do this but I’m only one person,” he says, dejectedly.

To safeguard himself, he cannot reveal much about these cases but he discloses that in one, he filmed poachers catching sea turtles in the Sea of Cortez off Mexico. They killed over 400 sea turtles in four weeks.

“Some 30,000 turtles are killed every year and sent to China just from the waters off the Baja Peninsula (in Mexico). The odds aren’t good for the sea turtle, which is why I make these people afraid to go to sleep at night, as they’ll never know if I’m out there looking at them.”

In the hunt for poachers, he has been shot at, has had a boat-hook lodge in his chest, and has been almost run over by a boat.

“Yes. I can die doing this. However, I will never stop. As long as I live I will be able to look anyone in the eye and tell them I have done the most I could with my resources as long as I could without fail. A warrior never gives up.”

Undoing Jaws

One poacher whom Cassell wows to track down is the one who killed Spots, a great white shark found off Baja which he had filmed for various documentaries. The 5m-long and 1,570kg fish was found washed ashore dead and minus her fins in April.

“For 20 years, I looked forward to seeing her swim by in majestic beauty. I would scratch her, ride on her back. I would play with this magnificent fish because not once has she made an aggressive move towards me. Millions of people have seen her on TV. Not only was she my friend, she was a magnificent ambassador for the sea, showing that great whites have a gentle side, have individual personalities and show more intelligence than we ever knew they possessed,” says Cassell, who still tears up when he talks about it.

Now, he is terrified that the same thing would happen to Emma, a 450kg tiger shark in the Bahamas, with whom he plays catch with, with an old licence plate. Cassell’s interaction with Spots and Emma serves to dispel the fearsome reputation of sharks, thanks to the ferocious image given to the creatures in movies like Jaws.

“Sharks are not man-eaters. Yes, there have been attacks on surfers by great white sharks but it is more often than not a case of mistaken identity, as surfing boards look like their natural prey, seals and sea lions. If people who eat shark fin soup saw me rolling Emma upside down and patting her belly, they wouldn’t want to kill her. Worldwide, approximately 10 people a year are killed by sharks, but three sharks are killed every second by humans.”

While some purists disagree with the handling of wild animals, Cassell thinks otherwise.

“I never pursue an animal. I let the animal come to me. I spend time with it so that the animal becomes curious about me, and we end up touching each other. It is important that people see human animal interaction, so that they will want to save the animal.”

What worries Cassell now are the changes taking place in the chemistry of the ocean.

“Studies show that over 70% of the planet’s oxygen is generated from the ocean. Plankton are at the greatest risk of ocean acidification, and it is the plankton that creates that oxygen. Plankton die-off is like a nightmare. I wake up in the middle of the night and I can’t sleep for hours because I’m thinking about how I can help.

“I’ve seen the ocean change colour and this happens because pollution and carbon dioxide in the water allow certain things to grow and certain things to die. It’s like the ocean is feeling a fever and getting sick. If you were ill right now, I’d do anything to make you better. It’s the same with the ocean for me. But she’s huge, and millions of people are inflicting damage.”

He says dives made in many regions of the US Pacific coast as part of the Underwater Voyager Programme have found the ocean to be full of microscopic plastic dust, and very likely all species of fish are either exposed to or possibly have even ingested these toxins.

“The sea is a living organism that gives all of mankind life. It is a creature and we’re wounding her badly. This place needs love and attention.”

It’s about our survival

But some things give him hope, like the e-mail he received from a teenager in Beijing, who, after learning about the 30-Mile Dive project, started an anti-shark fin soup campaign.

Also, the Underwater Voyager Programme has discovered a new species of protist (unicellular microscopic organisms) and submerged ancient forests in an alpine lake.

What’s more, almost every child he spoke to during the organisation’s outreach programme wants to be an explorer or scientist to help save the oceans. “It gives me great hope for the future ... if we can just keep the oceans alive long enough for the new generation of scientists to develop.”

Cassell shuns red meat and fish, and eats only chicken and vegetables. To protect everything in the sea, he says we can start by not netting sharks.

“We should seriously think about fishing all of the oceans. People who are killing sharks, people who are eating sharks, are in the chain of responsibility for what is destroying the ocean. Sharks keep reefs safe. Without sharks, reefs decay, Humboldt squids take over, complete ecosystem break down will occur, and in the ensuing chain reaction, who knows what the effect will be on humankind. But evidence from scientists is saying that it will cause the extinction of most life on the planet. It really is connected that closely.”

This warrior has dedicated his life to saving the oceans, and he says that is because “the oceans need to survive if we hope to.”

For more on Scott Cassell, go to underseavoyagerproject.org.