{"id":2175175,"date":"2024-05-06T06:00:53","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T05:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2175175"},"modified":"2024-05-04T08:12:11","modified_gmt":"2024-05-04T07:12:11","slug":"im-happy-were-not-killing-them-any-more-irelands-last-basking-shark-hunter-on-the-return-of-the-giants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/im-happy-were-not-killing-them-any-more-irelands-last-basking-shark-hunter-on-the-return-of-the-giants\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m happy we\u2019re not killing them any more\u2019: Ireland\u2019s last basking shark hunter on the return of the giants"},"content":{"rendered":"
The ambush was simple. A spotter on a hill would scan the sea and when he saw the big black fins approach, he would shout down to the boatmen. They would ready their nets and quickly row out to the kill zone.<\/p>\n
When a shark got tangled in the mesh, Brian McNeill would wait a minute or two while it struggled, then steady himself and raise his harpoon. This was the crucial moment. The creature would be diving and thrashing, desperate to escape. If the blade hit the gills blood would spurt, clouding the water. The trick was to hit a small spot between the vertebrae.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very hard to get him exactly in the vertebrae,\u201d McNeill recalls. \u201cHe\u2019d be spinning and diving all the time. If you happened to get the spear in that inch and a half, that was him. His eyes would roll back in his head and he wouldn\u2019t move again.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so another basking shark would die off Achill, a County Mayo island on Ireland\u2019s Atlantic coast that was a gathering point \u2013 and then a graveyard \u2013 for a mysterious, majestic species.<\/p>\nBrian McNeill at Keem Bay. The former chef left London for the remote Irish island and turned to fishing for sharks. Photograph: Patrick Bolger\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The slaughter in Keem Bay began in the 1950s when islanders discovered there was money in the livers and fins of the plankton-eating visitors, which arrived in spring and left in summer.<\/p>\n
Crews in currachs, traditional wooden boats, greeted them with nets and harpoons. Some seasons more than 1,500 carcasses littered the island\u2019s beaches and jetties.<\/p>\n
Over the years the visitors became fewer and the catch dwindled to a few hundred, then a few dozen and by the 1980s just a handful every season.<\/p>\n
In 1984 only five were caught, after which hunting was abandoned. McNeill was part of the crew that caught the last shark. After that, sightings became very rare.<\/p>\n
Whatever sharks were left, they seemed to forsake Achill. \u201cThe sharks disappeared,\u201d says McNeill.<\/p>\n
Now aged 76, he is one of the last living connections to the hunting era \u2013 and a witness to an unexpected coda: the sharks are back.<\/p>\n
The crazy part is that the fishery used to be the biggest, yet it seems to be where they have recovered most \nAlex McInturf<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Sightings of Cetorhinus maximus, the world\u2019s second-biggest fish after whale sharks, have proliferated in Achill and other parts of the coastline of Ireland and Britain in recent years.<\/p>\n
The phenomenon has intrigued and delighted researchers, given that the species is classed internationally as endangered and facing a high risk of extinction, according to the Irish government.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s astounding,\u201d says Alex McInturf, a coordinator for the Irish Basking Shark Group, an international team of scientists. While sightings in New Zealand and the north-west US have declined, they have surged in Ireland and Scotland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are one of the only locations where you can see basking sharks regularly and in large numbers,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crazy part is that the fishery in Ireland used to be the biggest in the world yet Ireland seems to be the place where they have recovered the most. You would have expected the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\nIslanders corner their prey and kill it with a gaff and a handmade spear. Photograph: H Magee\/Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Despite their size \u2013 up to 10 metres long \u2013 the sharks are hard to count and track, says McInturf, a postdoctoral fellow at Oregon State University\u2019s Big Fish Lab and a visiting researcher at Queen\u2019s University Belfast.<\/p>\n
In some seasons, dozens are spotted; in other years its hundreds, she says. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what\u2019s driving those variations, we\u2019re trying to figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n
One theory concerns connectivity between Irish and Scottish waters. Sharks have been filmed circling each other in tight formations, prompting speculation of courtship rituals.<\/p>\n
In 2022 Ireland extended legal protection by making it an offence to hunt, injure or wilfully interfere with basking sharks\u2019 breeding or resting places, a move long sought by campaigners. The UK has similar legislation.<\/p>\n
McNeil blames the visitors\u2019 long absence on offshore salmon trawlers inadvertently snagging the sharks in drift nets, a practice that was made illegal in 2007.<\/p>\n
Whatever has brought the creatures back, McNeill shares the delight of islanders and tourists, who flock to beaches to savour the spectacle. \u201cI\u2019m happy they\u2019ve made a comeback,\u201d he says. He does not, however, regret hunting them.<\/p>\nTourists now flock to Keem Bay to spot sharks on calm days. A ban on trawlers using drift nets, as well as the end of the hunting, has helped numbers recover. Photograph: Poadium Solutions\/Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Originally from County Monaghan, McNeill worked as a chef in London before moving with his wife to Achill in 1971. \u201cI just got tired of the tube and the crowds.\u201d<\/p>\n
He joined a four-strong team on a currach that fished salmon and sharks. \u201cThey were such enormous fish and they were really quiet until they went into the net.\u201d Sometimes they escaped the trap. \u201cIf they were big and strong they could bust through the net, no problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
He estimates he killed up to 300, using harpoons they made from a car chassis, but admits he felt some sympathy for them. \u201cThey were doing no harm to anybody,\u201d he says.<\/p>\nA basking shark scooping up plankton. The mouth of the world\u2019s second-biggest fish can be up to 1.5 metres wide. Photograph: Charles Hood\/Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
But he had no compunction during a hunt, when a boat risked being overturned by the huge fish. \u201cYou\u2019re only thinking about getting rid of the danger as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was happy that they were dead so we were out of harm\u2019s way,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was self-preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Livers were turned into oil and the fins sold as delicacies to countries in Asia, yielding income that let fishers and their families on the borderline of poverty stay on Achill rather than emigrate, says McNeill. \u201cEverybody had money and it was a good life.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looks forward to calm, sunny days, ideal conditions for shark-spotting from his home in Dooagh village, which overlooks another bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s lovely to see them. I\u2019m just happy that we\u2019re not killing them any more.\u201d<\/p>\n