Well, I’ll post once I get thru the book.
When I was blue water diving at UCSB sharks were always a consideration. One of my colleagues painted MASSIVE eyespots on her fins, working on the theory that if it worked to deter predators from moths, it might work for her.
AND
she was never eaten.
It’s an awesome book – it almost reads (or sounds, in my case, since I listened to the audiobook version, but then bought the hardback later for the pictures in the middle) like a suspense novel or a thriller in some places – but I wondered if it got those poor Farallon researchers in even more trouble than she mentions in the book.
She goes into great detail in the book. I’ll spoiler it for those who haven’t read it and want to find this out later.
It wasn’t that she had been staying on the island all along, according to her – the two shark researchers you mentioned bravely rescued her from a particularly fierce storm one night and it turned out to be a good thing, because when they got up in the morning the ropes mooring her boat had snapped and the boat was long gone.
But they still got in trouble for it … and I don’t know if her version is 100% truthful. If it happened the way she (and the researchers) say it did, though, it doesn’t sound like they had much choice in how they acted.
For those who are interested, PBS’s Jonathan Bird’s Blue World will feature GWSs in its first August broadcast. Check your local listings; in NE Ohio, it’s on WVIZ Channel 25 at 7:30pm Sun. Aug. 3.
I get it in Connecticut from WGBH Boston…channel…not sure, 19 maybe.
So that’s what she said. I have to admit to being very skeptical…
[spoiler]Her story doesn’t explain why:
- USFWS punished the PRBO and Anderson and Pyle. While there are stories that circulate about hidebound government bureaucrats who would punish someone for entering a refuge during a rescue, I’ve met Joelle Buffa and some of the other Refuge staff, and that’s a pretty vile calumny on their integrity and common sense. No one else has ever been punished for that in the history of the Farallones Refuge (and there have been other shipwrecks) - although the advent of Coast Guard helicopters has reduced the number of shipwreck victims who wind up on the island.
- Why then was the Coast Guard not notified of the hazard to navigation of the abandoned sailboat? They were pissed about the fact that it wandered about as a hazard to navigation for the whole night before they were alerted to search for it.
[/spoiler]
Ah well, it wouldn’t really be a book about sharks if it didn’t have a tall sea tale in it, would it? 
I’m not sure about your first point, since it’s been so long since I read the book. As far as the second point goes:
They had no idea the sailboat was gone until the morning, when the storm was over and they woke up. It was still moored the night before, when they rescued her.
Again, I don’t know if she’s telling the truth or not, and it’s been so long since I read the book that I can’t remember everything about it (I just looked for my copy but couldn’t find it at the moment, alas), but if what I remember is accurate and her account is accurate, it didn’t seem like she or the researchers did anything really wrong. Maybe one of the people in this thread who has just finished reading the book can comment more specifically on what she wrote about the incident.
By the way, I got the sense from reading the book that she MUST have become romantically involved with one of those two shark researchers, but she didn’t mention that. Was that among the accusations?
It seems to me like it’s hard to understand why she would need rescuing if the sailboat was still moored. I’m not trying to harp on you, chorpler, so my apologies if I’m coming off as a bit abrasive, I just don’t have a high opinion of Casey’s honesty. 
No problem at all – I don’t have a dog in this fight, and it seems you’re way more familiar with the players. I’m just trying to recount what’s in the book (which I found quite engrossing – it sounds like the Farallon Islands would be the perfect setting for a horror novel).
Essentially, as best I can recall, the boat was moored in a weird way, suspended between the buoy and a canyon wall by two ropes, and as the storm got worse the up-and-down motion of the boat was getting worse, and she became convinced that the waves were going to break the ropes and set her adrift in a boat that she wasn’t comfortable piloting (because she never intended to actually sail it, just to stay on it so she’d be within the letter of the law) in a big storm that she thought might capsize the boat, so she panicked and the gallant scientist came to her rescue.
(That’s one of the reasons I think she must have become romantically involved with one of those two guys – why else would they risk so much to accomodate her? Later on, when I got the hardback book, I discovered that she is a reasonably attractive blonde woman who somewhat resembles Lisa Kudrow, which reinforced my suspicions that she and one of those scientists must have hooked up.)
ETA: And, from reading reviews on Amazon, it seems like a lot of other readers think the same thing.
Frankly, I thought that sharks attacked people simply because we’re made of meat.
I think the arguement against that is simply that we aren’t meaty enough, and that if they just ate us because we’re made of meat, they’d eat a hell of a lot more of us. Shark attacks are kind of rare in proportion to the amount of time we spend in the water.
We eat meat. Robins are made of meat. We don’t usually eat robins because it’s not worth our effort. If the robins were monitoring us as a danger to robinkind, you can imagine they’d come up with interesting results:
Synopsis report by the Robin Human Attack Action Group**
Fatal attacks are usually by juvenile humans. Juveniles may attack either adults, young or even eggs.
Most juveniles don’t attack. Often a juvenile known to have attacked can be demonstrated never to attack again.
Sometimes, rarely, there will be a group juvenile attack, or very rarely, an attack by a lone adult. Combined adult and juvenile attacks are virtually unknown.
Sometimes adults or juveniles will chase away another predator (cat) and not attack themselves - so they aren’t attempting to take the prey item. Are they showing dominance?
Neither adults nor juveniles usually eat the corpse, although they will occassionally bury it, and there are a anecdotal instances of them cooking and consuming part or all of the corpse.
More research is indicated to attempt to determine conditions which may provoke an attack.
Some people think it’s an adaptation to effective prey handling - that the first bite is likely to make the prey bleed to death, so why worry about all that thrashing? The shark bites, lets the prey die, and then eats it.
Actually, I’ve seen a couple shark attacks where a lot of thrashing goes on, so I can’t say I really buy into that.
I think it’s more likely that the shark realizes the prey is low-fat (they’re very anti-diet ) - I don’t have any figures handy on elephant seal body fat, but their mother’s milk is about 40% fat, so that gives some impression of how much fat these prey animals have. A low-fat prey item like a human is probably not worth bothering with from the shark’s perspective, so it spits us out and doesn’t press the attack.
I’ve never imitated a moth, and I was eaten. That must prove it 
.
I’ve heard the rumor that one of the researchers had marital problems stemming from Casey’s visit in addition to the job problems. I didn’t really want to talk about it because I can’t confirm it and don’t really want to delve into this person’s private life. You may be right.