BIMINI, Bahamas — For years, people have been searching for a chemical substance that repels sharks. During World War II, the U.S. Navy created “Shark Chaser,” a mixture of copper acetate and black dye made to smell like a rotting shark; scientists later determined it was ineffective.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 8, 2005
n 1972, University of Maryland professor Eugenie Clark determined that a fish swimming in the Red Sea, known as the Moses sole, secreted a natural shark repellent. Researchers including the University of Miami’s Samuel Gruber and a team of Israeli and Egyptian scientists worked on replicating the milky liquid but gave up once they realized it worked only when injected directly into a shark’s mouth.