DIAN FOSSEY established a personal relationship with the mountain gorillas she studied, and Jane Goodall achieved something similar with the chimpanzees of Gombe. At first the apes shied away from her, but she didn't give up. She began by observing them with binoculars and gradually reduced the distance until the chimpanzees admitted her into their intimacy. She tells it herself in her biography: \"Day after day, sun, wind or rain, I go up into the hills. This is where I was meant to be. And Cristina Zenato could sign the same thing about her relationship with the Nassau reef sharks.<\/p>\n
At last I had before me the woman I had so far only intuited under a chainmail suit. We immediately hit it off. I declared my admiration for her work and how excited I was to meet her. We talked as we put on our gear and on the way to the dive site, and before entering the water, I proudly told her about my feat of leaving a tiger shark upright for a few seconds. She then gave me a half smile and told me that she had left a coral shark motionless for fifteen minutes (it is clear that comparisons are odious...).<\/p>\n
Her usual dive site was next to a twelve-meter wreck at a depth of about twenty meters. Almost as soon as she reached the bottom, Cristina found herself surrounded by a swarm of sharks that swarmed around her. Slowly, without ever losing her composure, she began to take pieces of fish out of the blue tube she was carrying to give them in her mouth to the shark she considered. It was truly an absolute balancing act in a storm of fins.<\/p>\n
But suddenly the situation took a turn. Cristina put aside the tube with the bait and knelt down on the sandy bottom. The sharks kept passing close by, but instead of feeding them she stroked them, scratched their backs, touched their noses gently, and they swam slower and slower, some practically stopped when they were at her level, and two even landed on the ground and rested their heads against her lap. The spectacle was tender and wonderful, she was living live what she had seen so many times in her famous -Malague\u00f1a Salerosa- video.<\/p>\n
After a few minutes, he focused on one of the specimens that had been lying down and began to caress its nose with a circular motion of his thumb, and soon after he stood up holding the animal by the dorsal fin while he continued caressing it. Finally, in a show of control, she lifted it by the tail and left it completely upright on her right hand as if holding a violin.<\/p>\n
When we got out of the water I congratulated her energetically. Then she, seeing my happy and enthusiastic face, suggested that we continue chatting about sharks at her house over a cup of coffee. An occasion that, besides being an honor, I could not miss.<\/p>\n
C:\u201dSoy italiana, aunque naci\u0301 y me crie\u0301 en el Congo\u201d, me conto\u0301 en cuanto nos sentamos a la mesa, \u201dpero a estas alturas me siento ma\u0301s de Bahamas que de ningu\u0301n otro lugar. Esta es mi casa, yo la he elegido.\u201d Y siguio\u0301 narra\u0301ndome su vida en relacio\u0301n a los tiburones: curiosidad al principio, intere\u0301s y amor al fin, identific\u00e1ndome totalmente porque me pareci\u0301a estar oyendo mi propia historia.<\/p>\n
K: \"How did you find the method to stop them?\" I asked him at a moment when the conversation turned to the techniques he had learned underwater.<\/p>\n
C:\u201dPor casualidad\u201d respondio\u0301 ella con modestia.
\nC:\u201dYa has visto como se acercan cuando hay comida, es fa\u0301cil acariciarlos pero son muy nerviosos, y en una ocasio\u0301n me di cuenta de que cambiaban de actitud si les tocaba el morro. Pareci\u0301a que reteni\u0301an la marcha para prolongar el contacto conmigo, de algu\u0301n modo senti\u0301 que les provocaba una sensacio\u0301n placentera. Deduje que probablemente ese contacto creara algu\u0301n tipo de esti\u0301mulo de los impulsos electromagne\u0301ticos generados en las ampollas de Lorenzini .\u201d<\/p>\n
K: \"But I have seen some sharks already approaching very slowly before you touched them, even a couple of them have laid down in your lap without prior contact.\"<\/p>\n
C:\u201dSi\u0301, claro\u201d, afirmo\u0301 esbozando una media sonrisa.
\nC:\u201cLa te\u0301cnica funciona, asi\u0301 es como empezo\u0301 todo, pero a estas alturas yo creo que hay algo ma\u0301s\u201d.<\/p>\n
K:\u201d\u00bfA que\u0301 te refieres con algo ma\u0301s?\u201d, Cristina bajo\u0301 la voz.
\nC:\u201dA que los tiburones me conocen.\u201d Creo que abri\u0301 mucho los ojos como sen\u0303al de sorpresa.
\nK:\u201d\u00bfY tu\u0301 los conoces a ellos?\u201d
\nC:\u201d\u00bfCo\u0301mo no los voy a conocer? Los veo a diario, a algunos desde hace ma\u0301s de ocho an\u0303os, los conozco a casi todos. Incluso distingo el cara\u0301cter de cada uno y de que\u0301 humor esta\u0301n.\u201d Mire\u0301 a Cristina con admiracio\u0301n y debio\u0301 leer mis pensamientos, porque dijo:
\nC:\u201dNo hay mucho secreto en esto, Karlos, cre\u0301eme. Si visitas el mismo sitio ciento treinta veces al an\u0303o, conoces a todos los animales, y ellos te conocen a ti. Ten en cuenta que bajo siempre con comida, los alimento, los ayudo, y ellos lo saben. Entre nosotros se han establecido lazos de afecto, de amistad, de confianza. Existe una verdadera relacio\u0301n, ese es el secreto.\u201d<\/p>\n
I listened to her and wanted to believe her words, but it still sounded irrational to me to hear about bonds of affection, friendship and trust between a human and a shark.<\/p>\n
K:\u201d\u00bfQue\u0301 quieres decir con que los ayudas?\u201d Cristina salio\u0301 un momento de la habitacio\u0301n y volvio\u0301 con una caja que conteni\u0301a ma\u0301s de cuarenta anzuelos de gran taman\u0303o y me dijo
\nC:\u201dMira, todos se los he quitado yo con mis propias manos.\u201d
\nK:\u201d\u00bfDe la boca?\u201d
\nC:\u201dSi\u0301, claro. Bueno, alguno de otros sitios, pero la mayori\u0301a de la boca.\u201d<\/p>\n
K:\u201d\u00bfY no te afectan las cri\u0301ticas que dedican algunos naturalistas a los que dan de comer a los tiburones?\u201d Cristina sonrio\u0301, pero esa vez su sonrisa parecio\u0301 una mueca.
\nC:\u201dSi yo no atrajera a los tiburones alimenta\u0301ndolos, nunca les habri\u0301a podido liberar de estos anzuelos.\u201d<\/p>\n
K:\u201dYa, pero esos naturalistas mantienen que toda intromisio\u0301n en su medio implica algu\u0301n modo de destruccio\u0301n. A mi\u0301 me llovieron golpes de todas partes cuando intente\u0301 practicar la inmovilidad to\u0301nica con los tigre.\u201d Cristina se encogio\u0301 de hombros y cerro\u0301 suavemente la caja de los anzuelos.
\nC:\u201dSiempre habra\u0301 quien critique. Hagas lo que hagas, nunca le gustara\u0301 a todo el mundo. Pero en mi opinio\u0301n, el u\u0301nico modo de conocer a los tiburones, y ayudarles, es acercarse a ellos lo ma\u0301s que podamos, y la mejor forma de que la gente los acepte es que pueda verlos de cerca y deje de temerlos.\u201d<\/p>\n
K:\u201d\u00bfTu\u0301 crees que se podri\u0301a llegar a manejar a un tiburo\u0301n tigre como a un coralino?\u201d
\nC:\u201dNo lo se\u0301. Hay una enorme diferencia de taman\u0303o y por lo que cuentas no responden igual a las caricias en el morro, pero si quieres man\u0303ana bajamos juntos, pruebas con los coralinos, te ense\u00f1o a alimentarlos y tu\u0301 mismo ves las diferencias.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a long wait for me... The next day he provided me with a full mesh suit, like his, we chatted on the deck of the boat about how the feeding technique was and after that, we entered the water.<\/p>\n
I descended slowly, and once at the bottom I took off my fins, stood up and settled my weight between my two legs. Then Cristina handed me the cylinder with the fish. Immediately I was surrounded by about twenty sharks pushing each other and pushing me, and not only sharks, around me there was a ball of fish of all sizes that prevented me from seeing more than twenty centimeters from my nose. It was clear to me the reason for wearing the mesh suit, in that maelstrom it was easy to get a bite. There was a moment when I almost felt claustrophobic, but I took a deep breath and managed to control my nerves. I waited until the sharks calmed down a bit before I took my first piece of fish. I knew I had to be clear about which specimen it was meant for, because if one piece of bait drifts away they all go for it without hesitation.<\/p>\n
I picked the lucky one that swam in the right direction and at the right height and slid my hand between the rubber cylinder cover. I dug my heels into the sand, bent my knees a little more, held the piece of fish tightly and pulled it out decisively when the chosen shark was less than a meter away. Satisfied, I was about to release it in front of its head when a huge grouper snatched it out of my hand. It took me half a dozen attempts to calculate the speed of the shark and the optimal time to release it, but in the end I succeeded.<\/p>\n
The second part of the dive was even more exciting. I knelt down, put the cylinder with the bait to the side to keep them interested in me and started touching them as I had seen her do, even stroking their snouts, but at first I didn't notice them holding back. Cristina was telling me with gestures not to force them, but I was having a hard time controlling my anxiety. After a while I managed to get some of them to stop, and although they didn't end up landing on me, I was more than satisfied...<\/p>\n
Learning more about sharks and tonic immobility with Cristina Zenato was an honor. I realized many things, above all I ratified my theory that to be able to research about them you have to have \"contact\" and that this, even if you use bait, is not bad as some people say. Besides sharing with Cristina a coffee, a couple of dinners, several dives and many talks about sharks, we also shared the same point of view about these fabulous animals.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DIAN FOSSEY llego\u0301 a establecer una relacio\u0301n personal con los gorilas de montan\u0303a que estudiaba, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articulos"],"yoast_head":"\n