‘I need to be there too.’
‘I know you do, honey. I’m arranging for a ship to come and pick you up. You’ll be back here in a few days. Use the time well. Teach the island people about turtle conservation. Pass on your skills. It’s the only way ahead … for all of you.’
‘We will, Uncle Hal.’
Suddenly Hal Hunt’s voice changed again.
‘Hey, can I speak to my old friend Omo – or rather Tuvali as he calls himself these days. It’s been a long time since we had a chinwag.’
‘Oh, Uncle Hal, I’ve got some sad news for you …’
The relief ship from Tahiti was three days away, and so, paddling a big canoe salvaged by the villagers from the treetop in which it had been deposited by the storm, Amazon, Frazer, Bluey, Matahi and Oti set off to pick up Leopold Chung from the neighbouring island.
However, on reaching the atoll, there was no sign of the man, other than a pile of empty coconut shells.
‘What do you think happened to him?’ asked Amazon.
‘Well,’ said Frazer, ‘either he really was mad and swam for it, which means right now he’s working his way through the digestive system of that tiger shark, or maybe the Tian-long came and picked him up. My guess is that we haven’t seen the last of that crook.’
On their way back to Uva’avu, they were joined, briefly, by a dolphin and her calf. They may have been paying their respects. Or perhaps they were merely chasing the flying fish, which sailed over the canoe.
‘Anyone for fish baseball?’ said Frazer, which earned him one of Amazon’s friendlier punches.
TOP 10 FACTS: SHARKS
SHARKS’ ‘bones’ aren’t actually made of bone! Their skeletons are formed from cartilage. If you want to know what cartilage is like, feel your ear – it’s made from cartilage too.
The teeth of a SHARK grow in long rows. As the teeth are ground down or fall out, new ones from the other rows come forward to fill the slot – like a conveyor belt. This continues for their entire lives.
SHARKS’ eyes are on the sides of their heads, so they can see nearly 360 degrees. Their panoramic view of the undersea world only has two ‘blind spots’, one in front of the snout and the other directly behind the head.
SHARKS need to move oxygen-rich water over their gills constantly in order to breathe, and mostly this means continually swimming. If they stopped, they would ‘drown’!
The TIGER SHARK will eat whenever an opportunity presents itself or swims by! It will eat other sharks, turtles, whales, dolphins, fish and squid. But stranger things have been found in their stomachs, including car tyres and number plates!
While the TIGER SHARK is considered to be one of the most dangerous sharks for humans, second after the great white, the number of attacks is low. More people are killed by bee stings than by sharks.
Although we are not in much danger from SHARKS, they are threatened by us. Forty million are killed every year just for their fins, which are made into soup. The rest of the animal is thrown away.
Around 21 species of SHARK live off the British coast. The biggest is the BASKING SHARK, which eats plankton and grows up to 11 metres. Shark attacks in European waters are extremely rare. Since 1847, there have only been two unprovoked shark attacks in England, neither of which proved fatal.
SHARKS have been around for about 400 million years, even before dinosaurs roamed the earth!
Like humans, SHARKS are at the top of the food chain. Just as humans rule the land, sharks rule the sea!
TOP 10 FACTS: LEATHERBACK TURTLES
There are seven living species of sea turtle: the FLATBACK SEA TURTLE, the GREEN SEA TURTLE, the HAWKSBILL, KEMP’S RIDLEY SEA TURTLE, the LOGGERHEAD SEA TURTLE, the OLIVE RIDLEY SEA TURTLE and the LEATHERBACK SEA TURTLE.
The LEATHERBACK TURTLE is the largest of all living turtles.
LEATHERBACK TURTLES usually weigh 250-700 kg, but the largest ever recorded weighed 916 kg and was found on a beach in Wales.
Despite their size, LEATHERBACK TURTLES are the fastest moving reptiles in the water. The quickest leatherback turtle ever recorded swam at 21.92 mph.
LEATHERBACK TURTLES don’t have teeth. Instead, they have sharp, snapping beaks with backwards spines on their upper lips, which help them swallow food.
The upper side of LEATHERBACK TURTLES is dark grey and black, but their underside is light in colour.
LEATHERBACKS live from the far north of Alaska to the southernmost tip of New Zealand, in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Jellyfish are the favourite food of LEATHERBACK TURTLES. They also eat squid, and other small sea creatures.
Despite their wide distribution, LEATHERBACK TURTLES are facing extinction. In 1982 there were estimated to be 115,000 adult females. By 1996 this had fallen to 30-40,000. In the Pacific Ocean today, where the action of Shark Adventure takes place, as few as 2,300 adult females now remain.
The main threats to LEATHERBACK TURTLES are loss of habitat, climate change and poaching of their eggs. Local communities are being taught how to protect the turtles’ nesting beaches, and an initiative to save Pacific leatherbacks has begun in Costa Rica.
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First published 2013
Text and illustrations copyright © Willard Price Literary Management Ltd, 2013
Map copyright © Puffin Books, 2013
Illustrations by David Shephard
Cover Illustration by Eamon O’Donoghue.
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The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
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ISBN: 978-0-141-33949-8
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Shark Adventure Page 17
