SHARK! UNPREDICTABLE KILLER OF THE SEA by Thomas Helm

We're not out of the water yet! In fact, we've got a full blown feeding frenzy on our hands, as author Thomas Helm throws in some more bloody chum with SHARK! UNPREDICTABLE KILLER OF THE SEA!

This is pre-Jaws sharking, with Helm plunging the murky depths of myth and midcentury neurosis - he tells one story of being aboard a sport fishing boat that came upon some friendly porpoises. Some he-men with him took it upon themselves to spear a curious visitor! Ultimately only one man could finish the deed, and afterwards Helm says his boasting fell on deaf ears. Elsewhere he describes the "diabolical" method of drano poisoning sharks. We haven't even gotten to post-Jaws supercharged shark mania and we can see the era's blunt, singleminded hatred of the natural world, the need to kill, maim, destroy!

Our author, Thomas Helm (1919-1993)

Helm peppers his work with plenty of salty dog tales (like his own supposed sighting of a 30 foot monster great white in the Caribbean) and sport fishing, but works hard against the anti-shark, anti-nature attitude, some of it via an appeal to the shark's place in human commerce similar to Captain Hal Scharp in Shark Safari. Helm's species guide section benefits from his drawings, putting it ahead of Captain Scharp's similar rundown.

The photo spread in the middle of the book is a fun mix of gruesome shark pics, other sea friends like octopus and porpoises, and Captain Bill Gray of the Miami Seaquarium posing with dead fish and only sometimes with a shirt.

Helm describes other killers of the deep like sawfish, swordfish, octopus, Portuguese man-of-war, stonefish, sea urchins, moray eels, and the deadly orca! Helms calls the orca the most dangerous animal in the sea and relates a tale from Zane Grey of seeing a pod of orcas slaughter porpoises until the water turned red. The humble stingray (or stingaree), meanwhile, is Helm's admitted least favorite sea killer, while manta rays are (of course) completely harmless and so undeserving of a bad reputation. The fearsome barracuda, meanwhile, gets his own chapter to himself!

Helm ends his book with a record of shark attacks in the USA, a form to report new attacks to the Smithsonian, and a brief bibliography:

Helm's acknowledgments and bibliography credit George A. Llano, who would later pen his own paperback shark attack!

Hardcover edition

Sea serpent/monster text by Helm from 1962

Shark! is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Collier Books, 1971 (original pub. 1961)

SHARKS: ATTACKS ON MAN by George A. Llano

Springtime for sharks! Erstwhile botanist, lichen expert, and shark enthusiast George Albert Llano follows up H. David Baldridge's excellent text from yesterday with his own attempt at tackling the International Shark Attack File and explicating the lethal nature of SHARKS: ATTACKS ON MAN! Like Baldridge, Llano was a researcher who analyzed shark attacks for the US Navy, trying to tease out usable info from the chaotic noise of survivor reports. His book is much more straightforward than Baldridge's however, simply going through selected cases on a geographical basis, without as many scientific digressions. He covers the same handful of California attacks that Baldridge went over, including the terrible attack on Bob Pamperin which sees him cut in half by a Great White right in front of his dive partner's horrified eyes. A vintage Sports Illustrated article from 1960 covers these same shocking California cases while name dropping Llano, and also gives us a glimpse into midcentury shark attitudes: the extinct Megalodon is called "late and unlamented" and modern sharks are slurred as stupid, brutish killers even as staff writer Thomas Lineaweaver can't help but admit their evolutionary success. We hate 'em 'cause we ain't 'em!

In the American cases Llano makes note of the samaritans who were awarded Carnegie Hero Fund medals for their attempts at rescue. Some get gold, some silver or bronze, and I wonder who exactly was in charge of determining your rank for such a thing! Llano agrees with Baldridge that eyewitnesses have a nigh impossible time identifying shark species, often giving contradictory or impossible descriptions of fish. Llano is careful like Baldridge as well: in the case of the 1916 New Jersey attacks, he presents multiple theories as to the cause of the cluster, ranging from hungry sharks deprived their usual garbage meals from international shipping routes due to WWI disruption, to ravenous sharks pumped up for human flesh from feasting on stranded WWI sailors! Sharks got us coming and going, it seems!

Our author George out and about.

Like Baldridge, Llano focuses on heavily documented Australian and South African cases, the two perfect storms of prime shark habitats that see heavy beach usage by humans. We get brief but effecting glimpses into the human dramas playing out here, with bathers, life guards, scientists, and shark hunters all playing their parts in a grand tapestry tied to our million year old friends, the sharks. In South Africa we also have the specter of racially segregated beaches, and decades later we might wonder: were Black bathers safer than whites on less frequented, less appealing beaches, or at greater risk due to lack of lookouts and official concern?

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

"Grrrrrrrr!" "Aghhhhhhh!" "Errrrrrr!"

Tucked into the backend of the photo spread is a familiar face: the sand tiger who graces the cover of Shark: The Killer of the Deep! Like Baldridge, Llano avoids gory victim shots, though that Mako at the front of the spread is surely a fearsome sight.

After all the carnage, Llano gives us some views we can use with advice on handling attacks and the aftermath. Preserve severed members if given the chance. Noted!

On a final note, these "Hi-Rise" book cases look pretty nifty, but I can't find any info on 'em on the modern web! Too bad, they'd make a great showcase for all these paperbacks.

Sharks: Attacks on Man is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Tempo Books, 1975