Shark Show Is Crusade Against Man-Eaters

Quirky roadside attractions are not quite as popular in Australia as they are in the United States, where places like Jake’s Great Wad of Phlegm Museum or Bob’s House of Lint can pull in more money than some developing nations.

But the Aussies are beginning to catch on, thanks in part to a man named Vic Hislop, a fisherman with the marketing savvy of an all-star wrestler.

Vic is - according to Vic - a living legend. He is Australia’s Crocodile Dundee of Shark Hunting. He has dedicated his entire life to the eradication of man-eating sharks. He has been on shark-attack standby for the Hong Kong and Japanese governments for years. His shark expertise has been requested all over the world.

And he has, for our educational benefit, set up “The Vic Hislop Shark Show” or “The Vic Hislop Great White Shark Expo,” depending on which page of the brochure you’re looking at, which, apparently, Vic wrote all by himself.

The brochure states: “Here we have kept the real sharks … a 1,000 lb., a 1,500 lb. and a massive 3,000 lb. monster on show.” It then adds, “The sharks are kept in a huge freezer at 25C below, with viewing windows, so you can get within inches of them.” Just imagine, I thought, being within inches of a frozen fish. It’s going to change the way I visit the supermarket.

Reading on, I learned that, unlike Crocodile Dundee, Vic doesn’t catch his prey with a knife, but he does use one to cut off their dorsal fins so he can sell them to restaurants in Hong Kong, something Vic is quite proud of. But I didn’t want to judge a shark hunter by his sales literature. So I went to Vic’s Shark Show in Harvey Bay, about halfway up Australia’s eastern coast, to meet The Man in person.

To me, the word “show” implied that perhaps Vic might wrestle with a live shark. Or at least a frozen one. But from the outside, Vic’s blue-and-white-painted “show” building looked like a sadistic fish market. In addition to hand-painted promotional shark slogans on the walls, Vic had turned the doorway into a huge set of walk-thru shark jaws. The entrance was only outclassed by a giant stuffed cartoonduck riding on the back of a life-size fiberglass shark Vic had mounted on a pole in the parking lot. I loved this place already.

Inside, the place looked more like Vic’s living room. It was as if the tacky brochure had come to life and charged you $8. (Yes, $8!) That’s what I paid to see pictures hanging on the painted cement walls (often shrouded with faux-velvet red curtains) of Vic posing with dead baby whales, dead baby dolphins and even a dead baby alligator, all of which had been killed by sharks. One picture depicted four dead sharks gored through the head, with a caption reading: “Vic caught these last winter while they were in the area waiting to eat baby whales.” Kinda made me wonder, what fish are the sharks supposed to eat?

Vic’s “show” also accused resorts, seaside tourist commissions and water-sport oriented companies of covering up shark attacks by calling them “unexplained ocean drownings,” for fear bad publicity would hurt business. His strong accusations - some supported by articles in the sort of newspapers that normally cover stories like a 400-foot Elvis appearing over the Kremlin - were refuted by letters from scientists, which were also on display.

When I asked the receptionist if I could meet Vic, she said he was away in Arlie Beach, 800 kilometers north of Harvey Bay, building a second Vic Hislop Shark Show. I guess his living room was still overcluttered.

I took an overnight bus and found Vic, wearing shorts, a T-shirt and a carpenter’s belt and talking on a cellular phone. He was muscular, well-tanned, and had something like a Yonomami bowl-style haircut.

He was just finishing the giant jaws walk-thru entrance at the new place, and I could tell he was upset. Someone on the other end of the line was telling him about another shark attack. When he hung up, Vic rushed off but told me we could talk later and handed me a copy of “Sharkman,” which his new brochure calls: “the book Vic just had to write.” Vic published it himself.

The next day, Vic gave me a tour of his new “show” before it officially opened. Explaining that I was the first media person to see it, he put up a sign that had the word “cartilage” spelled three different ways. I thought the new display looked a bit nicer than the one in Harvey Beach. Vic was going for more of a natural-history-museum approach, featuring, for example, a life-size replica of himself fishing in a life-size replica of his boat, catching a life-size replica of a shark.

I must say this about Vic: There’s nothing phony about him. But he’s no Crocodile Dundee. He’s more like Captain Ahab. He genuinely hates man-eating sharks with every fiber of his being. He didn’t tell me what got him started, but, as I learned in Chapter 1 of “Sharkman,” his father died at sea when Vic was 6, and Vic thinks he was killed by a shark. This seemed to explain a great deal.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: KNOW BEFORE YOU GO Americans are 100 times more likely to get killed by lightning than by a shark. Information on Australia: Australian Tourist Commission, Century Plaza Towers, 2049 Century Plaza East, Los Angeles, CA 90067. Ph: (310) 229-4870, (847) 296-4900. Books: “Reef Sharks and Rays of the World: A Guide to Their Identification, Behavior and Ecology,” Scott W. Michael, Sea Challengers 1993. “Sharks,” Doug Perrine, Voyageur Press 1995. “Sharks in Question: The Smithsonian Answerbook,” Victor G. Springer, Smithsonian Institution Press 1989.