First Assignment for Shark Conservation Diver Class

Several people have already signed up for the Shark Conservation Diver certification course next February and March and I am betting that all 16 spaces will be filled in the next couple of weeks.  That said, if you are already in the class or anticipating enrolling soon, I wanted to give your first class assignment.  

Aldo Leopold was the father of Wildlife Biology.  He was the first professor of wildlife biology at the University of Wisconsin and is generally regarded as the cornerstone of environmental ethics in the wold to this day. He died in April, 1948, at 62 years old while fighting a prairie fire on his neighbors land in southern Wisconsin.  Only a few weeks later his now monumental book "A Sand County Almanac" was published.  Unfortunately Leopold never saw it in print.

Leopold's eloquent way of describing complex biological principles was one of the things that guided me for most of my 31 year career as a wildlife biologist.

The book begins with his recounting of the annual cycle of the earth from January through December.  He describes the awakening of the earth in spring and the pulse of spring migration, the growth of summer and the senescence of fall and early winter.  He then has a series of environmental essays designed to not only make you think but to also appreciate what you have around you.

Two of those essays have had a profound impact on me and I want you to read one of them for the Shark class.  I want you to read the whole book but pay particular attention to his essay "Thinking Like a Mountain."  In it Leopold describes the day, with great glee, that he and some comrades shot and killed a female wolf in the mountains of southwestern New Mexico.  His words "We reached the old wolf in time to see a fierce green fire dying in her eyes" have haunted me ever since I first read this book.  The essay goes on to describe how people think that the best thing that could ever happen to an ecosystem is to remove the apex predators.

However as Leopold points out, when the apex predators are gone from an ecosystem, that ecosystem is quickly imperiled and frequently collapses.  Our class is about sharks not wolves, but in the ocean sharks are the apex predator.  Too many people want to eliminate them for foolish, ill-informed reasons and they do so without thinking of the consequences of what their demise might do to the rest of the ecosystem.  Granted sharks aren't wolves and wolves aren't sharks but the ecological principle is the same.

So, if you have an extra $10 sitting around burning a hole in your wallet go to Amazon.com or some other source and order a copy of A Sand County Almanac then read it from cover to cover.  Pay particular attention to Thinking Like a Mountain because I promise we will discuss that same concept in the shark class.  The book should look like the copy I have uploaded in this post (that was the original paperback cover - there are newer ones out there).  

I hope you enjoy the book and I hope it has the same impact on you that it still has on me nearly 50 years after I first read it.  And when we are 100 feet below the surface next March looking at Tiger Sharks and Lemon's, try thinking like a mountain while you put all the puzzle pieces together.