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Life

Two new books about sharks reveal how and why we should conserve them

Paul de Gelder's Shark and David Shiffman's Why Sharks Matter aim to turn the all-too-common public panic about the predator into interest in their conservation

By Elle Hunt

7 September 2022

aerial view of a Bull Shark (Carcharhinus leucas). reefs of the Sea of Cortez, Pacific ocean. Cabo Pulmo, Baja California Sur, Mexico. The world's aquarium.; Shutterstock ID 623521508; purchase_order: 10 Sept 2022 issue; job: Photo; client: NS; other:

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 …

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