Shark! The great white fight and the creature from the deep
Did a diver really punch his way out of those jaws? And how deadly is the monster found in Japan?

By Cole Moreton
Published: 28 January 2007
Everything went black suddenly, without warning, terrifying the diver and confusing him. Where did the seabed go? What was this blinding "dark cave" and the dreadful unseen power crushing him "like a vice"?

Eric Nerhus was caught in the mouth and jaws of a great white shark, the most fearsome predator in the sea. His head, a shoulder and an arm were fully inside the shark's mouth and 3,000 teeth were biting down on his body. "It started to shake me," said the experienced 41-year-old diver after the attack, which looked certain to end in his death. "I thought, 'Oh no, I know what happens when they shake you. That's when they cut off the biggest piece of meat they can.'"

Beyond hope, he just fought back. "I put my left hand down, all the way down the throat... and I felt down to the eye socket and I poked my fingers into the eye socket and the shark reacted. It opened its mouth a bit and I wriggled out."

In the struggle, his diving goggles were smashed into his face, breaking his nose. "It was still trying to bite me," said Mr Nerhus, who had been using a chisel to prise abalone shellfish from rocks 30ft down in the sea off southern Australia. He used the blade to stab the shark in the eye, several times. "I've never felt fear like it," said Mr Nerhus, who knew he was still in serious trouble.

His oxygen tube was gone and he guessed he had been trapped in the shark's mouth without air for a couple of minutes. Somehow, though, he was still alive and conscious. The lead-lined vest worn to keep his body from floating had saved him from being bitten in two. The mighty jaws had been unable to break through the lead, but there was still a bleeding circle of tooth marks from the top of his right shoulder to under his left armpit.

A great white shark can smell one tiny drop of blood in 100 litres of seawater and traces its prey by following the electricity that every animal discharges when it moves. Lungs bursting, half-blinded by the loss of his goggles, Mr Nerhus saw the blurred shape of the 13ft shark coming back for more, then felt it swim in ever tighter circles around his legs. "The big, round, black eye, five inches wide, was staring straight into my face without one hint of fear."

Why should it be afraid? The diver was in the shark's world, and at its mercy. For some reason it did not finish him off straight away. Despite the terror in his brain and the cloud of blood spreading around him, Mr Nerhus found the oxygen tube and put it back in his mouth. He knew he could only surface slowly or be struck with agonising bends. Meanwhile, the shark was circling. "I'm sure it would have bitten my legs off," he said - but just in time he broke the surface and was hauled aboard his boat by his shocked teenage son Mark.

"He always said the best thing to do [in the event of a shark attack] was poke it in the eye," said his friend James Hinkley, chief of Eden Water Police, who saw him return to shore. The journey back from remote Cape Howe had taken an hour. Incredibly, the hyped-up attack survivor jumped off the boat on his own and started to walk up a ramp, still bleeding, calling, "Hey Jimmy, it's OK mate, I'm fine."

After surgery on multiple lacerations, Mr Nerhus is recovering in Wollongong Hospital. Even as his story was being digested around the world last week, a fearsome sight was emerging from the deep off the coast of Japan. Hideous looking, with dead eyes and teeth like razor-sharp coral, the frilled shark usually lives 3,000ft down in the dark, where the pressure would crush a man's lungs.

Few people have ever seen one alive. When a fisherman looked down into shallow waters to the south of Tokyo he found himself staring at an awesome creature that sways like a giant sea serpent and inspires thoughts of sea monsters, leviathans and mythical dragons. Experts from Awashima Marine Park caught it and moved it to a seawater pool, where they filmed it like a visiting alien. The images, one of which you can see on this page, were astonishing. "Moving pictures of a live specimen are extremely rare," a spokesman said. "We think it may have come to the surface because it was sick."

The Japanese shark died within hours of being caught, but was not mourned in the way a rare ape or big cat would have been. Sharks send a shiver down the spine, even when they are safely confined to a tank. Adults and children alike instinctively go quiet in an aquarium shark room. These are ancient predators: the frilled shark has changed so little since the dinosaurs that even the experts call it a "living fossil". But however daunting its looks, the frilled shark eats fish and crustaceans. It does not eat people.

Neither does the great white, very often. There were only seven unprovoked attacks on humans by white sharks anywhere in the world in 2006. None was fatal. So why do we see the great white as the demon king of the seas?

"All of us have grown up seeing sharks in an evil role," says Ali Hood, director of conservation for the British charity the Shark Trust. Jaws is to blame, along with sensational stories like that of Mr Nerhus - and human instinct, too.

"People do have an innate fear of larger predators," says Ms Hood. "The same could be said of bears or wolves, but the difference is that man has managed to control them. Sharks live in a realm that's unnatural to us. We cannot see into it."

How many of us who thrilled at the sight of the Japanese monster knew, for example, that the same frilled sharks swim deep in the seas off western Ireland and northern Scotland? The mystery surrounding sharks feeds our fear, says Ms Hood, and "our fears exaggerate the danger".

The great white that attacked Mr Nerhus was only doing what came naturally: biting or mouthing is the only way its senses could tell if the diver was food or not. It decided not, believes Ms Hood. "If a white shark wanted that person as a food source then it sure as **** would have had him."

The number of shark attacks on humans is growing, as the world gets more crowded and more people look to have fun in the water. But it is the sharks that should be terrified of us, maintain conservationists. Even the great white is classified as a vulnerable species, threatened by the harm that pollution and over- fishing are doing to its food chain. Increasing numbers are being killed deliberately. Tuna fishermen see them as a threat to their harvest, while hunters want teeth and jaws for collectors (a full set can fetch ?10,000) or fins to make the soup that is very popular in East Asia. Ms Hood admits that sharks find it hard to win friends, but closes the argument with a shocking comparison. "The number of sharks lost to fishing and the shark-fin trade every year is 73 million," she says. "The number of people killed by sharks every year averages less than 10."

Great whites are protected by law, but that does not stop the hunters. Whale sharks, the largest fish in the world, used to be slaughtered by fishermen in the state of Gujarat, in India, in defiance of the law (and for 80,000 rupees - ?1,000 - a time). They only stopped killing breeding sharks when the guru Morari Bapu walked into the sea and blessed one entangled in a net. "I reasoned with the fishermen by comparing the whale shark with a daughter who comes home to give birth," said the guru last week. "Instead of death, we should give them respect."

Respect. Eric Nerhus has that in spades for the great white now, as he proved when staggering up the jetty in Eden just after the attack. Nobody should try to kill the great white in revenge, he urged his horrified mates. "It's not the shark's fault," said the mutilated diver, still losing blood. "It thought I was a seal."

There are more than 450 species of shark, divided into eight classifications

Angelshark (One of the Squatiformes)

Flat body, wide, wing-like fins. Buries itself in bed of warm southern oceans. Grows to 6ft.

Common sawshark (Pristiophoriformes)

Long snout. Eats fish. Frequently found (but harmless) near bed of warm or tropical seas.

Spiny dogfish (Squaliformes)

Less than 3ft with mild poisons on spines. Schools number thousands, in temperate or subarctic waters.

Bull shark (Carcharhiniformes)

Eats anything, including birds, dolphins. Attacks humans in tropical shallows and some rivers.

Basking shark (Lamniformes)

Up to 30ft, can weigh four tons. Bristle gills filter food from water. Likes temperate seas.

Broadnose sevengill (Hexanchiformes)

Rarely seen, aggressive. South Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Ocean. Eats fish, seals and scavenged meat.

Nurse shark (Orectolobiformes)

Wide head with whiskers. Up to 12ft. Slow. Lives on bottom of shallows. Eats shrimp, crabs and fish.

Port Jackson shark (Heterodontiformes)

Lives in shallow waters and caves off southern Australia. Flat teeth crush oysters and crabs.

Frilled shark

Long, thin shark up to 6ft with trailing tail fin. Six gills on each side covered by frills of skin. Harmless to humans (eats fish and crustaceans) and hardly ever seen, as it usually lives at a depth of 3,000ft. Rare sighting last week in Japan, but frilled sharks also live off Scotland and Ireland.

Whale shark

The largest fish of all, growing up to 45ft and weighing up to 15 tons. Sieves plankton in its gills. Swims alone in warm seas around the equator. Does not harm humans. Is hunted by them, despite the law.

Great white shark

Fast swimmer, shaped like a torpedo, with a crescent tail and a dorsal fin, visible when it is close to the surface. Has 3,000 razor-sharp teeth. The largest ever seen was 22ft long. Eats fish, rays, sea lions, seals and turtles, and any animals floating in the water. Half of all reported shark attacks on humans are by great whites - but nowhere near as many attacks as people might think.