A legend has passed. That’s the general consensus amongst marine biologists and scuba divers, in particular those with an interest in sharks. Dr. Eugenie Clark became known during her long career as the “Shark Lady,” and helped us understand much about this often maligned species.
Born in 1922 in New York City to a Japanese mother and an American father, Clark became interested in marine life during a childhood visit to the Battery Park Aquarium in New York City, and later went on to make it her profession by studying zoology at both Hunter College and New York University.
Clark pioneered the use of scuba diving as a way to collect scientific data and make observations while on expeditions around the world, starting in the 1940s. While her initial studies focused on triggerfish and filefish, and even discovered many previously unknown species (some of which were named in her honor), it was her shark studies that made her famous. Clark began studying sharks in the 1950s, and until these studies, sharks were generally considering dumb and ferocious, a sort of mindless killing machine of the oceans. Clark were one of the first to collect data that contradicted this, proving that sharks could be trained to perform tasks, and could master relatively advanced cognitive skills. She also disproved the general hypothesis that all sharks must move to be able to breathe with their gills when she discovered sharks sleeping suspended mid-water in the cave systems of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. She also discovered the first natural shark repellent in the Moses sole, a bottom-dwelling fish from the Red Sea.
During her long career, Clark authored many books, most notably 1953’s Lady With a Spear, which chronicled her early expeditions to the South Pacific. She also authored many articles, both for academic publications and for more popular scientific publications, such as National Geographic. She was also a multiple grant recipient from the National Geographic Society.
Clark performed more than 70 deep ocean dives in various underwater vehicles, and continued to scuba dive well into her 90s despite being diagnosed with a non-smoking related lung cancer.
At a time in history where even women who completed university degrees tended to reduce or even end their career once they started families, Clark married five times and had four children without hindering her career in any way. A number of highly respected marine scientists today point to Clark as one of their inspirations, and the legendary Dr. Sylvia Earle, nicknamed “Her Deepness,” calls Clark her mentor. The combination of her academic research, her pioneering work in underwater exploration and her ability to connect with the public and communicate her message of protection and understanding for the world’s shark species, made her nothing short of one of the legends of scuba diving.
