choolboy Record —3l

Sharks in 31 Days

Fhe patience of New Guinea oolboys at the Divine Word tholic Mission at Alexishafen

; been tried to the breaking

nt, and now they are eating

sharks that formerly ate

m. 31 days the schoolboys have caught and eaten 31 sharks.

According to old-timers, the xishafen Bay, near Madang, has ays been a safe place to swim and spear-fishing. There were always rks around, but they bothered >ody and nobody bothered them, ’hen around Christmas last year, .ceful co-existence came to an upt end with a series of vicious acks resulting in severe lacera is and the loss of limbs for oolboys out for a swim, jnong the victims was John Kisa, ididate for the religious brother )d at the Divine Word School in xishafen, who lost a foot. Two nths later a local villager was ed by a shark while spear-fish "he Brother candidates entered a mcil of war with their disciplin-

K SSgSL ?“^ S ed L t nnp r nnw f H° n °^H r^ e i n Q^ d iV S s^oo h fHo 6^l 1 o 1 ?f ay tcV! w C^> ocL a fv, o SS ri^ffa ?hp th HvP^ ar^vb£b ar PmntiS° U in Fn AWiSn Sjjf* 1 em P ties mto Aiexisnaien Bay.

The biggest sharks tore their way through the net, but in 31 days the shark population decreased by 31.

Altogether more than 45 sharks have been caught in this way and range from two-foot babies to sevenfoot hammerheads.

Brother Berchmans says of his schoolboys, “They have turned the tables on the man-eating sharks and have become shark-eating men!”

only sharks but sawfish are being caught the light net near the Catholic Mission [?]quarters, Alexishafen. These two measured [?]ft. and 12 ft., and the larger of the two [?]hed well over 500 lb. His saw, which is [?]g preserved as a souvenir, is 37 inches [?], with razor sharp two-inch teeth along sides. The two sawfish provided the [?]ion freezer with almost 700 lb of edible [?]. It is the same net which caught the sharks in a month —and 50 sharks over [?]ral months. In the photograph above is Brother Berchmans, SVD.