Eugenie Clark (1922 - present) http://www.sharklady.com/ Notable Achievements Known worldwide as "The Shark Lady", Clark has discovered 11 new shark species and spent half a century as a leader in marine biology and exploration. Over 35 expeditions to the Red Sea, Australia, Japan, Papua New Guiea, Solomon Islands, Malaysia, China and the Caribbean. Occupation/Field of Study: PhD., Zoology and Ichthyologist; Marine Biologist Exploration Zone: Sea: sharks, fish, oceans, conservation; Location of Activity: Asia: Thailand, Japan; Central America: Mexico; Period of Activity: 2001- current; Biography \tFor five decades Eugenie Clark has been a leader in marine biology, exploration and conservation. She has been part of more than a hundred expeditions to oceans around the world and made thousands of dives. Eugenie Clark is best known for her groundbreaking work with sharks. Her study of shark intelligence and behavior has helped dispel some of their fearsome reputation. Sharks had always intrigued her, for like most divers she had often wondered if sharks were really that dangerous, “I wasn’t afraid of them. I wished I could see them in person, out in the open.” When she finally got her chance to work with sharks, she began making some amazing discoveries. In 1958 she proved sharks were not just mindless killing machines, but that they were intelligent. In a large pool at the lab she founded in 1955, Cape Haze, later Mote Marine Laboratory on the Gulf Coast of Florida, she taught lemon sharks to hit a target, which rang a bell and released food. She discovered the sharks could discriminate between colors and shapes to hit the food target and could quickly adjust when she changed the placement of the target and food, and varied the timing of the reward food. The sharks even developed strategies to get food -- waiting for another shark to push the target and beat it to the food. In 1967 she tried the experiment again in open sea aboard Jacques Cousteau’s Calypso, off the Suakin Islands in the Red Sea. She lowered targets in the water, only one of which would give a reward. The open water sharks learned as quickly as the penned ones had. All in all, Clark has studied many of the over 370 species of known sharks. “It's hard to decide on a favorite shark because they are all so fascinating to me, but I really like whale sharks and six gill sharks. I also like the lemon shark because I learned from this species that you can train sharks and that they have a memory.” \t If sharks can remember, can they also sleep? When Clark began her research, that was a puzzling question. So, beginning in 1974, she made the first of more than 100 dives off of Isla Mujeres, Mexico, to discover if in fact the mythical ‘sleeping’ sharks existed. For one thing scientists believed that a motionless shark would die. But she found them on a dive with her daughter in a cave 60 feet deep. “We still don't know if sharks sleep. We don't know if any fish sleeps in the sense that we sleep, i.e. sleep measured by an abrupt change in brain waves. They were in a hypnotized state, which may be due to fresh water seepage. The sharks go into the caves so the remoras [grooming fish] can remove parasites which have loosened in the fresh water.” \t Asleep or awake, sharks come in all varieties and sizes. The greatest of the tribe is the huge whale shark. One of Clark’s most exhilarating undersea moments was when she rode on a whale shark, an activity she strenuously discourages today. “I was crazy. We wanted to study and photograph her. She was well over forty feet long. Once I got on her, I did not want to ever let go…The shark was cruising along steadily at three knots, and, after a while, I thought to myself, why am I still holding on to the shark, getting farther way from the boat? And I finally let go.” (Stein 1982) Despite its huge size, up to 18 meters, and 40 tons, and a mouth large enough to take in two divers and their air tanks in one gulp, whale sharks are only interested in eating the smallest of creatures, plankton and tiny fish. To study these sharks Clark often has to dive to more than 200 meters—its preferred depth – and to travel to waters off the coasts of Mexico, Thailand or Australia, where they can be found as they wander the oceans. Like other explorers, Clark bridled at the restraints on discovery posed by the human body. First the breathing helmet and then SCUBA pushed back some of the barriers, but the limits were still sharp. What lay far below could only be imagined. Then small, maneuverable submersibles became available to scientists. Clark made her first submersible dive in 1987 to begin searching for what sailors (and Jules Verne) had believed would be the ‘monsters’ waiting to be discovered deep in the sea. Since that time she has been the chief scientist in charge of more than 70 dives to depths of more than two miles, making 59 of them herself. During one dive in Suruga Bay, Japan, they indeed found and filmed a monster with which Jules Verne would have been content, the largest shark ever recorded in the deep-sea, a 23-foot Pacific “sleepwalker” shark nearly a mile down. The sub shook when the shark slammed into the bait cage. Despite the wonders of modern technology, deep-sea exploration has its perils. Once while searching for the giant elusive 6-gill shark, her craft became stuck under a ledge in the rock cliffs. She was more than 2,000 feet down. “In the sub, I was alarmed but not really afraid. I knew we had some time to spare, but I also knew we had to use our time to figure out the problem and not waste time being scared.” It was midnight, although at that depth, all time is midnight. She, her co-pilot and research assistant were cold and damp and cramped. Just when she was beginning to feel really scared the sub rode out under the ledge. She was unfazed. Her research assistant later became a priest! For most people, fear comes in the shape of sharks. Clark says she herself has never felt threatened by sharks except once on a dive off of Cousteau’s boat, the Calypso. “A shark once swam quite deliberately towards us. I braced against the coral wall and held out the stick. He bumped it with his nose and swam away. If they see something moving they will bump it to feel texture and get a possible smell. Sharks are always looking for food, like most animals. If you set up cues in the water they will mouth anything. Sharks go for unusual vibration and blood. If you annoy a shark or frighten or irritate it, or make it think you are food it will come towards you. I have swum with 200 hammerheads even a great white. But we would never see one if we did not lure them by dumping a lot of blood and guts in the water. But if the shark has been lured that way I wouldn’t go out of the cage, but others do.” She explains her success with sharks by saying, “I do have a good fundamental understanding of the behavior of many different kinds of sharks, and the different circumstances under which they can be dangerous. It gives me a more complete feeling around them than most people have.” It is in part due to her research and understanding that sharks, while still feared by many, are now appreciated for the integral role they play in the eco-systems of our planets oceans. Clark and marine enthusiasts worldwide are calling for moratoriums on shark killing to protect this increasingly endangered animal. Among many other accomplishments, Clark discovered 11 species new to science and changed our perception of a number of creatures we thought we knew. Bringing her life full circle, Clark married a friend of her youth, Henry Yoshinobu Kon, in 1997, at the Mote Marine Laboratory, which she founded nearly 50 years ago. Publications Lady With a Spear Eugenie Clark (1953) Book: Biography; The Lady and the Sharks Eugenie Clark (1969) Book: Documentary; Mating Behavior Patterns in Two Sympatric Species Eugenie Clark (1954) Article: Documentary, Research Paper/Field Report; Ahead of Their Time: A Biographical Dictionary of Risk-Taking Women Joyce Duncan (2002) Book: Biography; Shark Lady: True Adventures of Eugenie Clark Ann McGovern (1978) Book: Biography, Juvenile;