A bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) swimming in the Pacific Ocean shutterstock/Leonardo Gonzalez
Shark, Paul de Gelder (HarperCollins) and Why Sharks Matter, David Shiffman (Johns Hopkins University Press)
BY FEBRUARY 2009, Paul de Gelder had spent thousands of hours in the water as part of his job as a diver in the Australian Navy.
Early one morning, he was conducting a counterterrorism trial, swimming solo around Sydney Harbour, when he was attacked by a 3-metre-long shark. The fish slammed into him with its jaws, pinning de Gelder’s right hand to his leg. He recalls …
