The Great White Shark Hunter by Peter Best. This book is about hunting the giant man-eating predator that was once the scourge of many a summer beach. There are still occasional reports of attacks on humans, but none, thankfully, has ever been fatal. On Sunday, March 27, at the Stouffville Golf and Country Club near Toronto a nine-year-old girl was playing a round of miniature golf with her sister. During a brief break, she decided to sit on her father's shoulders for a better view of her ball as it went down the final hole. Peter Best was just outside the clubhouse waiting for his game to start when he heard a scream. He headed for the clubhouse, which sits on a bluff above Lake Ontario, and the body of the girl on the ground below. That's when he saw the shark. "I was up on the third tee when I heard the scream and looked out. There was an unbelievable commotion. I saw a golf ball floating in the water, and a body floating in the water. It had no bottom whatsoever." The Great White Shark Hunter tells the story of the largest man-eating shark that has ever existed on the planet and how that monster shark was discovered and hunted over more than twenty years. A documentary called A Giant Jaws: The Shark Chronicles, based on Best's book, will be released in 2014. Peter Best's father was a commercial diver who specialized in wreck diving. The son grew up in a house full of sharks—sharks' teeth and other debris that he could find on reefs. In addition to the Great White Sharks, Best and his father caught, measured and documented great white sharks throughout the Caribbean, Bermuda, and, of course, Cape Cod. Best learned early to use a heavy tackle and line and a sharp shark hook (there were no snappers in the waters his father fished). On the basis of his knowledge, he began taking people out to fish for sharks. In 1986, Best caught a 757-pound great white. It was the largest white shark ever caught, and it set the record for ten years. He later caught several more sharks, the largest of which was a 1,200-pounder. In 2007, he caught an amazing 1,800-pound great white at Cape Cod. He says that he had no qualms about taking that kind of shark. After all, it was a predator like he was. And a man-eating one at that. Best's first encounter with a Great White occurred when he was twenty-two years old, when he and his father encountered a ten-foot great white near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The shark did everything possible to show the divers that it wanted them to leave. It was swimming circles around them. It attacked and even bit their catch of amberjack. Yet Best and his father knew it was the shark, not them, that had to move. "This bull was trying to get us to go away from this little kid who had just lost his arms." They were able to convince the shark to go and attack the amberjack again. Best continued: A week later, we went back. We decided to bring along this kid's arms as proof of the shark attacking us. A few days after that we went back. The shark wasn't there. The kid's arms were gone. The Great White Shark Hunter: Stories of the Man-Eating Predator that Once Swam in World's Oceans by Peter Best. When Peter Best returned to the same area to conduct the same survey a year later, he encountered what he called "the most beautiful fish I have ever seen." The Great White was still in that same area and it was doing "its thing," swimming circles around the divers. One of the divers suggested that they should swim around the shark, which they did. Best was amazed by its grace, power, and beauty. "I have been around many big fish in my life, but none had a personality as big as this animal." Best and his father had no hesitation in swimming with this beautiful and graceful animal. In 2009, Peter Best captured his first photograph of a great white shark doing what it was born to do. It was an instant classic. I have no idea how long I can hold this shark. This would be an absolute hell of a place to lose this. The Great White Shark Hunter: Stories of the Man-Eating Predator that Once Swam in World's Oceans by Peter Best. In 1980, at the age of thirty-seven, Peter Best founded the Stony Creek Nature Association in Northampton, Massachusetts. For fourteen years he studied sharks and other sharks' prey, especially swordfish, the second-largest fish in the ocean. His work has taken him around the world. "My dream was always to go to the shark's point of view," he told a reporter. Best's book will take you to the shark's point of view in a way that few other books can. I was able to spend a great deal of time with many species of shark, but I had never been able to spend much time with one of the most dangerous ones—the great white. The Great White Shark Hunter takes you deep underwater with Best, at times so deep that his tank's regulator had to be changed to accommodate the dive, far below the diving bell, through the darkness of the Great White's domain. And Best is an absolute master in getting this giant creature to accept him. This book is a must-read for anyone who cares about sharks. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) published a summary of a series of shark and ray tagging programs in the Northwest Passage, Hudson Bay, the Gully, and other areas of the Canadian Arctic. The series had as many as 3,000 tags placed on individual sharks and a few rare great white sharks. The data showed that even in the Arctic, where the water is cold, predators are still hungry. In fact, they are feasting on the vast salmon populations in these waters. DFO has recommended that the Canadian government restrict the catch of Pacific salmon, the main food supply of the sharks and rays, in these areas to keep the fish populations healthy. According to the Fisheries Act of 1993, it is illegal to kill, injure, or disturb a great white shark anywhere in Canadian waters. I can only wonder how effective this law is in protecting this endangered species. To my knowledge, no one has been fined or penalized for killing a great white in Canadian waters. The Canadian Whale Institute (CWI) has proposed a plan to re-introduce the killer whales of the Pacific Northwest into Canadian waters. According to their proposal, released killer whales will prey on salmon, which will have an unknown effect on the salmon population. The CWI wants to re-introduce the killer whales to waters off northern British Columbia and, in the meantime, protect any killer whales that might accidentally show up in these waters. An estimated 200-plus million salmon are caught annually for human consumption. The great white shark has no teeth; it relies on speed and strength, plus the ability to swallow whole salmon at a time. There is no doubt that these two species—the great white and the salmon—are competing for the same food. The real threat to the salmon's survival is the lack of predators in the sea. That has been the main threat to salmon since the first Europeans arrived on these shores. As more people learn of the presence of great whites in Canada's Arctic, and as more people learn of our conservation issues, I believe there will be many more incidents of attacks and incidents of fishing. It is only a matter of time. When there are more incidents of Great White Shark attacks, we can be confident that the great white shark has re-emerged as a formidable predator in our waters. For now, it is simply not possible to be able to predict when a Great White will strike. But I have always known that the great white has never left our oceans. When I was a boy in Inukjuak, I saw a giant white, eight feet long, swimming outside our harbour and I knew that he was out there, just out of sight. And on March 27, 2014, I looked up at the Stouffville Golf and Country Club and saw that great white shark, not six feet away from me, not six feet away from a nine-year-old girl. I was lucky; the shark was not interested in attacking her. But if it had, there is no doubt that it would have been a horrifying end to her short life. I wish I had been able to have known that girl, who was playing her first game of miniature golf with her sisters. I wish I had been there to be the one to talk her out of sitting on her dad's shoulders. I wish I had been there to warn her that she should stay far away from those giant jaws. The great white shark has not been forgotten. It has only been waiting for the time to re-emerge, like an old friend who has been away too long. It is still there. The great white shark will re-emerge. I guarantee it. I am sure of it. In Canada, it is a new year. And all across the country, people are looking for someplace to fish and to make a living. What we should all be looking for is not the great white shark. It is