Richard G. Fernicola

Compared with Close to Shore, Dr. Richard Fernicola’s Twelve Days of Terror is less well written; it could benefit from some serious editing. In particular Fernicola bounces around too much, with asides about the history of shark attacks, the First World War, and the weather in the summer of 1916 (all of these have some relevance but they could benefit from more organized presentation). On the other hand, Fernicola started his research in the 1980s, when there were still witnesses to the attacks around, so there’s some first-person intimacy; and Fernicola is an MD and therefore has more insight into the nature of the victim’s wounds. (There are some rather ugly drawings of the victims, showing the missing pieces). Fernicola does address some of the controversy about the attacks in a logical manner:

1) Was the same shark responsible for all the attacks? (Yes)
2) Was this the juvenile great white shark caught by the fishermen Schleisser and Murphy in Raritan Bay? (Yes, although he considers and dismisses the idea that the human remains discovered in that shark came from someone other than one of the four victims; he expresses considerable annoyance that the American Museum of Natural History didn’t save the human remains so they could be subjected to modern medical forensics.)
3) Was this a “rogue” shark, i.e. one that had been driven by some environmental condition or conditions to attack humans instead of its “normal” prey? (Not really decided)

Fernicola spends considerable time on this last (“rogue shark”) idea. There’s a lot of discussion about shark feeding habits, water temperature preferences, and the ocean conditions in July 1916. (He goes a little overboard, I think, in implying that the attacks were some sort of German secret weapon deployed by the merchant U-boat Deutschland). It does seem like a mystery; there had been no recorded fatal shark attacks in the entire history of North America, then four (and one near fatal) in twelve days. However, my take is that the null hypothesis is not refuted; there’s not enough reason to believe that attacks weren’t just bad luck.

Fernicola’s book is a harder read than Capuzzo’s; it’s less well organized but more thorough. There are many contemporary photographs in the plate section, the drawings of victims mentioned above, and a bibliography (although many of the books mentioned are “popular” works). Worth reading.… (más)

Well written and exhaustively researched, Richard Fernicola presents a compelling account of the unique series of shark attacks occurring over a 12 day period in 1916 New Jersey. Two fatalities occurred on the Jersey shore, but most remarkably, three victims were attacked in a small tidal creek miles inland from the ocean. The author provides an excellent overview of the state of knowledge, or lack thereof, of sharks at the time, as well as the remarkable national coverage which was generated. Included are fascinating photographs, newspaper articles, etc., which provide a complete picture of an event now long past.… (más)