Summary
Did President Woodrow Wilson declare war on sharks? How did an Australian golf course accidentally end up with a lake full of bull sharks? How do these animals survive in both freshwater and saltwater? What are my odds of getting attacked by a bull shark?
Come enjoy a couple of crazy stories, and learn all about this incredible animal on this episode of Species.
Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jI4syGbFaYQ4CIX7IROaAAaP4gvwq6iMd0WBr45Hz-E/edit?usp=sharing
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Great White Sharks get all the press, don't they? |
| 0:05.9 | They get the famous movies. |
| 0:08.0 | They get to race Michael Phelps. |
| 0:09.9 | Heck, they get the word great in their name. |
| 0:13.5 | They're more legend than animal. |
| 0:16.3 | Their status as the ocean's boogeyman in American culture dates way back to the infamous 1916 Jersey |
| 0:23.5 | shore shark attacks. Four people were killed by sharks within a span of 12 days. A human eating |
| 0:34.4 | shark was in the water. Beaches were no longer safe. Terror descended on New Jersey. |
| 0:41.3 | Men were literally throwing dynamite into rivers and creeks. President Woodrow Wilson called a |
| 0:49.9 | cabinet meeting and dispatched the coast guard to go fight the sharks. It's hard to exaggerate |
| 0:56.3 | how surreal this historical moment was. A fish literally sent a global superpower into an absolute |
| 1:04.9 | panic. The Washington Post front page headline read, U.S. War on Sharks. America had lost its mind. |
| 1:16.8 | Eventually, a smaller, juvenile, eight-foot-long Great White Shark was caught with what was |
| 1:23.3 | allegedly human flesh in their stomach. The Great White Shark species took the blame, |
| 1:29.8 | and has taken the blame for almost every shark attacks since. |
| 1:33.9 | But some experts have argued that these New Jersey shark attacks |
| 1:39.7 | weren't committed by a Great White Shark at all. |
| 1:44.1 | No coroner ever proved that the flesh was human, |
| 1:48.6 | and the fisherman who caught the shark certainly had reason to lie. He got a nice little income by |
| 1:55.9 | charging people to come and see the shark's body. The fact that he benefited doesn't mean he lied, or misled people intentionally, but his story seems a little |
| 2:05.8 | fishy. |
| 2:07.6 | The shark he caught was killed out in the ocean, whereas three of the terrible attacks happened |
... |
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