Years-old April Fool's joke about fisherman 'Arnold Pointer' and shark resurfaces on Facebook
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on March 31, 2023 at 03:48
- 4 min read
- By AFP Mexico, AFP France, AFP Sri Lanka
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"Australian fisherman Arnold Pointer rescued a white shark (female) from death two years ago, releasing it from the net," reads a Facebook post shared on March 9, 2023 in a group with more than 50,000 members.
It says that the shark -- nicknamed "Cindy" -- now "follows him everywhere" and that the pair "have developed a mutual affection".
"Arnold says: "When I stop the boat she comes to me, turns on one side and lets me pet her, she grunts, squints and flaps her fins happily."
The story has circulated on Facebook for years and resurfaced in March 2023 in posts around the world, including in the United States, New Zealand and Malaysia.
Some of the false posts circulating since 2021 also include other images of men interacting with sharks, such as here and here.
April Fool's joke
A keyword search found a fact check published by Snopes in April 2008, which said the story was an April Fool's joke originally published in a French magazine for fishing enthusiasts.
Julien Lajournade, editor-in-chief of Le Magazine des Voyages de Pêche confirmed that the story was fabricated.
Speaking to AFP in July 2021, he explained that the name "Arnold Pointer" was inspired by "white pointer", another name for a great white shark.
Lajournade provided a copy of the article, which was published to mark April Fool's Day in 2006.
The article features the same text as the Facebook posts.
However, the false posts omit the final anecdote from "Arnold" about the downsides of his friendship with "Cindy": "The most frustrating thing is when she wants to play ball. She throws half-mangled 200-kilo sea lions onto the boat. Last time, I had to have the whole cockpit refitted."
Shark in South Africa
One false post includes the text "Photographer: Michael Scholl" and an image of a man touching a shark on the nose with a watermark that reads "Michael Scholl Copyright".
A Google reverse image search of the photo found it was published in a French-language blog post from 2005, which credits the picture to shark expert Michael Scholl.
Contacted by AFP in 2021, Scholl said he recognised the photos and that both were taken sometime between 1994 and 2004 during research expeditions near Dyer Island off South Africa, an area known for great white sharks.
"I have been getting queries about this picture for over a decade now because of the false claims that went viral. The photos, as far as I remember, were captured over two decades ago in South Africa," he told AFP on March 20, 2023.
He said he had taken the photo of the man wearing a blue cap and white t-shirt and identified him as shark expert Michael Rutzen.
Scholl said the man wearing a white cap and blue t-shirt in the other photo, which he did not take, was shark expert Morne Hardenberg.
Hardenberg posted the photo of him touching the shark on Instagram in 2013.
Jaw-opening reflex
Scholl explained that the photos show researchers touching the shark's nose in order to elicit a jaw-opening reflex from the animal.
He believes sharks do this reflexively to protect their head and eyes, while other scientists think the touch overstimulates the animal's electro-receptors.
Scholl pointed to a National Geographic cover from April 2000 that he said was achieved using the same technique.
"The images are 100% real but the story is 1% real," Scholl concluded.
"I leave the 1% about the story for the only reason that all of us who worked with white sharks have a connection to some of these sharks."
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