Emperors of the Deep

I met Mark the Shark in his office, which is located on the banks of Biscayne Bay, directly across from downtown Miami. Dangling from the ceiling were scores of shark jaws, turned white with age and filled with multiple rows of enormous jagged teeth. Jaws more than a couple of feet wide meant those sharks must have been 20 feet long, if not more.

Quartiano is a muscular, powerfully built man with blond hair and blue eyes. In a past life, he could have been a Viking raider, or in a more recent one, a WWE wrestler. He considers his boat the best office in the world. We talked about his business and, as he describes it, his role as the “last shark hunter on the planet.” He told me, “Some charter guys don’t even want to go shark fishing anymore because there’s just so many restrictions on these fish. Doesn’t even pay when they get the fuel and they got their boat and they can’t catch a fish and keep it. It doesn’t make any sense for some of these guys.”

Quartiano views his job as being to catch the largest fish in the ocean for clients who come from all over the world.

“We take out every kind of person,” he said. “Right now, we’re taking out a lot of kids. The new generation is fascinated with sharks. And we can let them go or tag them, and it’s an experience these kids will never forget.” He added, “Then other clients are the trophy hunters who yearn to catch a big shark—a hammerhead, a big tiger, or a big thresher shark. Something big.”

Due to the Gulf Stream, the Miami area is a highly productive fishing ground, which means it’s also a rich territory for sharks. The Gulf Stream, a warm water current, originates in the Caribbean and travels all the way to Europe, distributing the warmth from the equator to the northern reaches of the planet. The Gulf Stream creates the mild, wet winter for Europe, and without it, continental winters would be much colder. The Gulf Stream also acts like a giant highway for fish traveling from the Caribbean up to the Gulf of Maine. Some species of Caribbean fish, like triggerfish and mahi-mahi, inadvertently get sucked into the current and end up off the coast of Massachusetts and New York, falling victim to the Atlantic’s icy waters in winter. In addition to the Gulf Stream, Miami possesses some of the best reefs in the world, which are situated only a mile or two from shore. The twin presence of large reefs and the Gulf Stream attracts big game fish. This cornucopia of trophy fish like sharks brings in fishermen from all over the country.

When I asked him about his reputation, he shook his head. “Mainly, a lot of people think that I’m just going out there and killing everything that swims, and [that’s not the] case at all. I mean, we catch and tag so many fish all year long. Nobody wants to hear that part.”

Clients make the ultimate decision about the fate of the shark, according to Quartiano. “They’re the ones that say, ‘Mark, I want to kill that fish. I want to put that fish and those jaws on my wall.’ A lot of groups do put pressure on me, as far as the catch and release. But again, a lot of these fish aren’t going to survive when you catch them. Unfortunately, they’re gonna die on the line. So, really, if you care about these animals, you just leave them alone.”

I asked him what has happened to the shark population over his career. “The commercial fishermen definitely have had an impact on the shark population over the last twenty years or so,” he told me. “We used to guarantee our customers a shark; otherwise, they wouldn’t pay. Now, because of all the pressure on the sharks in this area, we can’t do that.”

Quartiano doesn’t think putting pressure on recreational fishermen to cut back their fishing is going to replenish the shark population. “It’s the commercial guys that wipe out just about everything, with their indiscriminate killing of everything. The bycatch is enormous and is just tossed back into the sea. Stop or just cut down the commercial fishing on some of these big game fish and we’ll be fine.”

I did some fact checking on Mark the Shark’s statement, and while statistics are not readily available for recreational shark fishing, it can have a significant impact on fish populations and sometimes even more so than commercial fishing; in 2013, the annual landings of sharks in recreational fishing (4.5 million pounds) exceeded that of the commercial sector (3 million pounds).[15] One research paper studying the impact of recreational fishing on sharks concluded that this trophy-hunting activity presents a growing risk to shark populations.[16] In spite of this concern, as long as the killing of sharks is romanticized and celebrated, Mark the Shark will continue to have a business, and anglers around the world will continue to make sport of hunting sharks, a sanctioned pastime that kills thousands of sharks every year.

Some conservationists in California were dismayed when the record-breaking 1,323-pound mako was destroyed instead of released. Unlike great whites, makos are considered “endangered” on the IUCN’s Red List. One reason they are endangered is that makos need an extended time to reach sexual maturity. Female makos reach sexual maturity at age eighteen. By this time they have usually grown to 10 feet in length, big enough to carry shark pups over their fifteen-to-eighteen-month gestation period, after which the female gives birth to a litter of four to twenty-five offspring.

Another reason the population grows slowly is that these animals do not breed that often. Males and females converge to mate only between late summer and early fall. Female makos wait about eighteen months after giving birth to get pregnant again because the pregnancy is so stressful. Therefore, females only reproduce every two or three years. As a result of this breeding pattern and overfishing, the species has been struggling. They often end up trapped in gill nets, snatched up by longlines as bycatch, and killed in shark tournaments like the one I witnessed in Montauk, which places further pressure on the shark.

Because I wanted to understand the fascination with killing sharks for sport, I revisited a mako-only shark tournament in Montauk, the Super Bowl of shark contests. There I met a kindly gentleman I’ll call Tom, a longtime veteran of these tournaments. Tom was in his early sixties and had been a fisherman almost his whole life. He explained how the tournaments operate. Fishermen pay an entry fee to participate, usually $975 to $1,000. Participation doesn’t require qualification or technical skill, just access to a boat and some fishing tackle. Fishermen vie against one another in different categories, including species and size: largest shark overall, the largest mako, the largest thresher, and so on through the water’s numerous shark species. The winner of each category receives a trophy and prize money, which the tournament director presents at the end of the tournament. “The fishermen aren’t just interested in catching a shark,” Tom told me. “They want to spice things up, and the way to do that is to add an extra element of fun.”

And there’s no better way to have fun than gambling, according to Tom. The night before the competition begins, fishermen gather for a celebratory dinner, typically at one of the restaurants along Montauk’s marina, where they wager on the weekend’s outcome. Rounds of drinks loosen lips, and boasting loosens the fishermen’s wallets, kicking off a betting frenzy. While different types of betting are popular at tournaments up and down the Atlantic, the preferred game here is the Calcutta auction, in which the participants auction off the boats. Whoever bids the highest for a boat then “owns” it throughout the weekend tournament. If that boat catches the largest shark, or the largest shark in a specific category, the “owner” is entitled to a portion of the prize money and the betting pool. “Someone can buy their own boat or someone else’s boat,” Tom said. The boat owners can each wager anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000. Adding up all the bets from all the boats means that the prize money can total half a million dollars or more.

With that much money at stake, the temptation to cheat is great. The participants realize that some extra help can earn them tens of thousands of dollars. One way some cheat is to add lead weights inside the fish. Another 50 pounds on the scale can tip the shark into the winner’s circle. This approach is risky because it is easy to spot, so some fishermen resort to other measures, such as adding water into the guts of the fish. Water weighs over 8 pounds per gallon, so this approach can give a dishonest team that crucial edge. Unsuspecting judges can easily miss this, but the more seasoned ones will make sure that all excess water has been drained from the shark’s body cavity. Another nefarious trick is to purchase a large shark from a commercial trawler, which are prohibited from entering the tournament but often have unwanted sharks.

The tournament has a time limit: the teams have to be back at the dock at 6 p.m. unless they radio in that they are at the inlet. The more time out, the better the odds of catching something, so some teams will radio at 6 p.m. that they are at the inlet when they are, in reality, still far at sea in the prime fishing grounds. Then they will run the engines flat out to get back within a reasonable time.

To experience the tournament firsthand—and to film it as part of a documentary I was making about shark hunting—I hitched a ride on one of the competing boats. Shortly after six in the morning, my camera crew and I arrived at the dock. It was a gorgeous June morning, the sun already bright above the horizon, and the sky had a touch of pink against the bottom of the cumulus clouds above. The boat’s captain, whom I’ll call Stan, welcomed us aboard. A happy, heavyset man in his fifties, Stan sported a neatly trimmed goatee and spoke in a gravelly voice that reminded me of Robert De Niro’s character in Raging Bull. Showing us around the boat, he fingered a cigarette and drank regularly from a blue Solo cup, which was filled with an unidentified liquor. Unsolicited, he showed me the battle wounds on his hands. “Tore up this finger with a hook,” he said. A chunk of his thumb was missing. “Took another hook here,” he noted, pointing to a jagged scar on his wrist.

Besides the occupational hazards, I asked Stan how he was feeling. “Lucky,” he said. “Better to be lucky than good. Today’s our day.”

The six members of Stan’s crew must have felt the same way. Despite the early hour, they were prepping the boat with enthusiasm, unconcerned with the cameras and the men carrying them. While I fastened a life jacket, I noticed none of his crew bothered to put one on. Sam, an older man in his late fifties, loaded Igloo coolers with ice and bluefish, which would later be used as chum for the sharks. With the weather-beaten face of a lifetime fisherman, he packed the containers like an expert, as casually and efficiently as if he were readying a backyard barbecue.

The tournament director assigned me to this crew and boat, a purpose-built, top-of-the-line charter, which, at 60 feet long with an 18-foot-wide beam, was clearly designed for luxurious fishing. The spacious cabin had leather-padded chairs and other amenities: a wet bar, plush carpeting, and a refrigerator, fully stocked. Near the stern, a wide soft sofa in the main cabin invited guests to gaze out over the ocean, eating and drinking below board, while the fishermen hunted sharks.

We embarked from Montauk Harbor and moved past the town’s iconic lighthouse. The stern sent out a wide wake behind us, and a short twenty minutes later, we were out of sight of land and in the choppy, blue waters of Long Island Sound. Close to fifty other boats jockeyed for position in the open sea. Stan cut the engine and settled the boat in one of the most productive fishing grounds in the world, where he suspected makos congregate. Because warm waters bring fish, makos track the Gulf Stream up the East Coast, from Montauk to the Gulf of Maine. The fish that live in Long Island Sound will eventually mature and migrate into the Atlantic Ocean off Montauk.

Sharks have no interest in these boats, nor the usual bait of squid or fish parts. To attract the sharks, live bait was needed to supplement the chum. Stan’s crew took out fishing rods and quickly caught two bluefish. They hauled the fish on board and tossed them into a live bait well. Sam held down the fish, while Stan jammed a fishing line through the bluefish’s heads, just above their eyes. He attached the line to a loop and threw it back in the water. The blues swished their tails to escape, but the fishing line held them. Assigned the task of making chum, Sam put the bluefish from the Igloo into an electric meat grinder. Blood and fish parts oozed out and fell into a white bucket. He emptied the bucket’s contents overboard, creating a slick of red across the blue ocean. The current took the scent out past the boat into the sea.

His task completed, Sam set down the bucket and kicked back, waiting for the sharks to show. “Now is the time to drift and dream,” he said.

As the boat bobbed in the water, I took the opportunity to talk to Stan’s twenty-five-year-old son, Barry, who grew up fishing. “I’ve been doing this pretty much my whole life,” he said, punctuating our conversation with a cigarette. “Sometimes you expect one thing to come out of the water, and something else entirely comes up. There’s always that unknown. It doesn’t get old.”

Another half hour passed, and nothing happened, then an hour. Still nothing. We were staring down sheer boredom. The crew puttered around, throwing more chum out into the water. Some men drank beers to cool off and pass the time. Sam turned on the radio, drowning out the sound of the waves lapping on the sides of the boat. As I stared out over the horizon, I wondered how long I was going to be stuck out there. Then, far beneath the waves, a mako picked up a scent and decided to veer off course and investigate. The fishing pole started to twitch, just a slight bend at the tip of the rod. The rod stopped twitching and straightened. But it started again, a little more bend in the rod each time. A shark was nibbling at the bait, testing to see if there would be any reaction and what kind of resistance it might encounter. And then the shark decided to strike. Suddenly, the line ripped out of the reel and charged down the length of the rod into the sea. The shark was making a run for it. Sam grabbed the rod and placed it in a holder in the captain’s chair at the stern of the boat. Barry hopped into the captain’s chair, strapping himself in for what proved to be a lengthy, exhausting battle. The mako shark is built for speed, and its muscles powered its tail like a modern diesel train.

Barry started reeling in the line, but every so often the fish decided to fight back and make another lunge out to sea. Barry could only watch as the line he had struggled to bring in darted back out. This process—Barry reeling in the line, the mako taking it back out—carried on for half an hour, then an hour, then two hours. Barry’s gray T-shirt was drenched with sweat, and his face showed the strain of his struggle. The strength of the shark had taken its toll on him. At that point, he stopped reeling to give his tired hands and forearms a break. Staring at the sky, he took a deep breath, then continued reeling in the line. I was standing a few feet behind him, amazed at Barry’s determination, and the shark’s. Anglers live to catch makos. “They fight hard,” Barry said. Like clockwork, the shark jumped out of the water about 20 feet in the air. The entire crew cheered, but this wasn’t a game for the mako; it was life or death for the shark. To my amazement, the shark jumped again, achieving the same height as its previous jump. I counted five total jumps, a feat that required amazing strength and will.

Realizing this standstill could continue for another couple of hours, Stan started the engines. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, “If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.” Thick black smoke poured out of the exhaust pipes at the stern of the boat. The engine noise drowned out the radio, and yard by yard, the boat backed up methodically toward the shark’s position, closing in on the kill. I couldn’t help but think they were cheating, because two hours into the fight, the mako was no match for the boat’s twin 1,200-horsepower engines.

Barry unstrapped himself and stood up next to the gunwale. He frantically reeled the line. I peered into the frothy mix of blue and white water and made out a shadow. Barry saw it, too, and strained to get the shark to the side of the boat. Stan pulled out a gaff, a large stainless-steel pole with half a harpoon on the end. He gashed the shark in the gills. Trying to drag it out of the water, he yelled, “C’mon, you sonuvabitch!” The shark was now clearly visible. It rolled over, exposing the contrast between its dorsal-side marine blue and the white of its underbelly. Just below the water’s surface, the head of the shark appeared, and with a final yank of the gaff, Stan managed to pull the mako on board. I could see a part of the baitfish sticking out of the shark’s mouth. The shark thrashed around, moving its head frantically from side to side. Its sandpaper skin scratched the floor. It sounded like a saw trying to tear apart the wood. Someone—in the melee, I couldn’t tell who—yelled, “Watch your feet!” Blood splashed over the floor of the stern. I had to turn away. I couldn’t watch the shark suffer. I stared at the opposite horizon, but I couldn’t silence the violent sounds of the shark scratching against the floorboards.

Sharks can survive for a long time out of the water, and as I discovered, it is difficult to tell when the shark has died. Anyone presuming a shark is dead runs the risk of getting bit. To protect the passengers, or perhaps to expedite the process, Barry unsheathed a knife. Though I didn’t want to, I returned my attention to the shark. Barry straddled the fish, positioning himself right behind the shark’s gills, far enough away from the shark’s mouth that it couldn’t turn and bite him. He was surprisingly calm as he bent over and entered the knife deep into the mako’s anterior, or front, end. Deeper and deeper he sank the knife until Barry felt the resistance of the spine. That’s when, to my horror, he started sawing back and forth, severing the spinal cord. Blood oozed out of the incision, and the shark twitched, its life slowly ebbing away. Barry stood back, blood smeared all over his fishing wader, and we all waited a few minutes, watching the lifeless shark remain still on the deck, until we understood it was finally, mercifully, dead.

To beat the 6 p.m. deadline, Sam brought us back to port. On our return to Montauk, I asked Stan what he thought about the shark, which remained in the stern, untouched. Shrugging, he said, “A shark is a shark. Something is better than nothing.”

The boat finally arrived at the marina, where Stan and the crew dropped off the shark. A crowd of onlookers waited near the slip, like spectators in the Roman Colosseum, to catch a glimpse of the shark’s bloody, mangled body. One of the dock hands threw a line with a loop at its end so the fishermen could slip the tail of the shark through it. Conquered, the fish could now be hauled up onto the yardarm and weighed. As the winch pulled the line and the shark went up the yardarm, the crowd murmured at the sight. “One hundred and fifty pounds,” the announcer called out to the crowd. It was a young shark, judging by its size and weight, too young to have ever bred. Because the minimum weight requirement for the tournament was 175 pounds, the shark was disqualified. It died for nothing.

My camera crew and I got off the boat. I watched Barry light another cigarette and Stan refill his blue Solo cup. Once on the dock, Stan took the mako’s carcass and cut off the tail. He drilled the mako’s tail onto the pier as a trophy. As I toured the marina, I witnessed other fishermen cut their hauls into pieces. One man chopped up a thresher shark and stuffed its decapitated head into a blue Igloo cooler. The fisherman told me he wanted to take the head home with him to carve out the jaws as a trophy. In the meantime, he draped the thresher’s tail over his shoulders, like a shawl, while his buddy snapped a picture. Other men loaded their shark heads into a 4-foot-long gray cart, which made it easier to transport these gruesome trophies to their vehicles in the marina’s parking lot.

The entire dock was a macabre Dantesque scene in which mako, blue, and thresher sharks were in various stages of dissection. Off to the side of the square waited a tractor with a large front loader. Men, whose dark slickers were wet with shark blood and viscera, filled the loader with shark parts. One man brought over a shark heart, still beating, for the crowd to see.

Some sharks were dangling from the yardarm, blood running down their bodies. Over the next hour, the announcer continued to call out the weight of each shark. Another mako was hoisted on the yardarm. It weighed 356 pounds, which drew a collective gasp from the crowd. It was a few pounds off the leading fish, though, so the captain later butchered it as a visiting family looked on.

The front loader was brimming with heads, fins, intestines, and other body parts. An operator fired up the tractor, and it crept away from the crowds into the shadows of the marina, where these shark parts were tossed into a dumpster.

People were having drinks and eating just a few yards away from the carnage. Some milled around the marina, gazing at the sharks strung up on the yardarm. Children holding on to their mothers’ hands walked in between the shark carcasses. I asked a young mother what she thought about shark tournaments. “It’s great,” she told me, “the whole family can get together.”

The young fisherman who caught the largest mako walked away with $90,000, and Tom later told me another fisherman took home $250,000.

While some humans benefit from the gambling, trophy fishing can have a negative impact on the shark population. Tournaments target the biggest and strongest sharks, and when these are lost, the event has a disproportionately large effect on a species’s ability to sustain itself or recover from overfishing and climate change. In other words, the loss of the strongest individuals hurts the gene pool of the shark population even when relatively few individuals are removed.[17]

Currently, there are approximately seventy official shark tournaments up and down the Atlantic coast, from Maine to Florida, twenty-eight of which target individual shark species. New York State allows these tournaments to take place, and thirty-seven different local businesses and multinational corporations sponsor them. Following the tournament, as I tried to wrap my head around how and why this kind of sanctioned brutality is allowed to continue, I remembered that another tournament was scheduled in Montauk four weeks later. This carnage, championed as sport, would be repeated, an ongoing but totally preventable surrealistic nightmare.

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