Eugenie Clark Taught Sharks to Press a Target

Sharks can learn, and Eugenie Clark is the person who proved it. Working out of a small laboratory on the Gulf coast, she trained them to press a target for food, something nobody had managed before, and in doing so she took apart the idea that a shark is a swimming reflex with teeth.

A Book That Built a Laboratory

Clark published Lady with a Spear in 1953, and among the people who read it were the Vanderbilts, who invited her to speak at a school in Englewood the following year. They liked her enough to build her a laboratory nearby. It opened in 1955 as the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory, moved to Siesta Key in 1960, and grew into what is now the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota. A favorable review turned into a research institution.

What She Actually Found

The target-pressing experiments showed that sharks could be conditioned, which was the first real evidence against the mindless-killer reputation. She also worked out that the Moses sole secretes a substance that makes an attacking shark back off and swim erratically, a natural repellent nobody had documented. And her time with the sleeping sharks in the caves off Mexico helped settle a long argument about whether sharks have to keep moving to breathe. They do not. The ones she watched were resting on the bottom, pumping water over their gills with weak muscles.

From a Queens Aquarium to the Gulf

She was born in New York City on May 4, 1922, and her father died before she was two. Her mother, Yumico Motomi, later married a Japanese restaurant owner, and Clark grew up in Woodside and went to Bryant High School, spending her spare hours with her face against the glass at the aquarium. Five fish species now carry her name.

Still Diving at Ninety-One

Clark made her final dive in 2014 and died in Sarasota on February 25, 2015, at ninety-two. If you want to see what came of a book review and a favor, Mote is open to the public.