Gone Shark Mad
By Larry O'Hanlon

Isle of Man, British Islands, 8/16/00 — Shifting from leg to leg as ocean swells rock the Jasmine, Ken Watterson catches up on office work. He listens on his cell phone while keeping an eye on the water for shark fins. It’s a great day for sighting basking sharks, but so far none have surfaced.

Watterson's lean, lanky build, sunburned face and graying hair could mark him as a local fisherman, like his father. But he's not. He’s the basking shark fellow, say the islanders, the guy who takes folks out and shows them those giant sharks.

It all happened by accident, in a way. Watterson’s childhood fascination with baskers simply stuck with him. When, as a young man, he looked up what was known about basking sharks, he got a big surprise: Almost no research had been done on the beasts. Certainly someone would get around to it, he thought, and he went off to college in England.

Twelve years later, in 1979, the pull of his native isle led Watterson to return home and take a job at a local hospital. The lure of basking sharks drew him back onto the water, and he did a second search of the scientific literature to see what had been learned about baskers in the years he had been away. He got a shock.

"There was not any more known than before," he says, still puzzled by what he sees as a lack of scientific interest. The easily approached, plankton-eating sharks were being fished for their livers and fins (for shark-fin soup), but no one knew much about them.

In 1982, using a 14-foot boat of his father’s, Watterson began to spend his free time off the southwest coast of the island searching for the baskers, measuring and observing them as they plowed through the plankton-rich summer waters. Using his scientific training from college and medical work, he began to gather data.

A friend eventually asked him to give a talk to locals about what he had learned. That’s when things began to change.

When 150 people crammed into the hall, it was clear that Watterson wasn’t the only local who had an interest in sharks. Growing community support for his research enabled him to buy some basic gear. Donations form local schoolchildren paid for his first tagging effort. To this day, radio calls from fishermen, coast guards and ferries help him locate baskers.

"It’s a whole community project," he says. "The whole island has gone shark mad."

Since then, the work and the interest worldwide have continued to increase. It’s now hardly possible for Watterson to cover all the ground (or water) he must to keep his research funded, keep the public aware and have some time, now and then, for his wife and two daughters.

So here he is on the boat, eyes on the water and cell phone to his ear — the basking shark fellow.

Tomorrow: Seeing Is Believing

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