Close Encounters With the Gray Reef Shark
Photographs and text by Bill Curtsinger
"I had been to Bikini Lagoon in the early 1990s to photograph sunken warships. They were the unmanned targets of atomic bomb tests conducted here by the United States shortly after the end of World War II. Prepared for a wasteland, I had found reefs swirling with life. The marine systems, once bombarded by radiation, had been flushed by time and tides. And with fishermen absent for 50 years, Bikini’s waters had returned to a rare, undisturbed condition.
"Gray reef sharks seemed to materialize wherever I looked. Here was an ace of predators, cruising with slow flicks of a black-tipped tail…Not a ceaseless wanderer like many sharks, the gray reef shark establishes its home along a coral reef. It is a medium-size shark, growing to six feet or more. It is also one of the most aggressive."
NGM 1995/01