The Dr. Gruber Shark Repellent Story

1993

A true story

Written 08/24/2016 * 1,251 Words

BY Howard Yasgar

It was 1993, and my company API Marine was heavily involved in rebuilding electrical parts for the marine industry.

I recently invited my good friend Richy Shneider to use one of my empty offices. Richard was an absolute expert in all phases of the marine industry and he and his son Brian said they were thinking about buying my company.

At one time or another, Richard had done just about everything there is to do in the marine industry, he had built boats, he had bought and sold used boats, and for a while he was even in the stolen yacht recovery business.

It was Richard who had introduced me to his friend Dr. Sonny Gruber.

Sonny Gruber was a marine biology professor with the University of Miami, and he was the world’s foremost authority on Lemon sharks.

Every year Dr. Gruber can be seen on public television, when it’s “Shark Week.”

Besides from teaching at the university of Miami, Dr. Gruber also ran a shark institute on the island of Bimini in the Bahamas. The shark institute was where scientists also interested in studying Lemon sharks came to study them.

Managing the Bimini shark institute was quite an undertaking, and it required a lot of work, as everything they needed at the institute had to come from Miami by boat.

So, to help Dr. Gruber, my friend Richard would assist him in finding boats that were needed to ferry supplies from Miami to Bimini.

Richard even went along on many of the re-supply trips with Dr. Gruber.

So, that’s how I first met Dr. Sonny Gruber, it was when Richard took him over to API Marine to meet me.

It was mid 1993 when the following story happened.

Dr. Gruber, early in his career, like most professors, was always looking for a government grant.

Dr. Gruber told Richard that the government had many subjects that they were interested in having scientists do research on, and all professors everywhere have access to the grant list.

If a professor finds something he or she is interested in, they can then write up a proposal, and if it is accepted, the government will give them a financial grant to do the research.

So early in his career, Dr. Gruber saw that the government was looking to solve a serious problem. Sharks were attacking the sonar array that is towed behind military submarines.

Dr. Gruber had a great idea, he knew that there was a fish living in the Red Sea, called the Moses Soul Fish, and sharks just would not eat them.

Dr. Gruber felt that the Moses Soul fish must have some kind of natural anti-shark chemical in it.

So, he applied to be given a grant to study what the chemical was.

The government must have liked Gruber’s idea because he received a grant to move to Israel with his family for two years and study the Moses Soul fish.

After the two years of living in Israel, Dr. Gruber had extracted and synthesized the anti-shark chemical.

He gave all the information to the government and he never heard any more about it.

One evening many years later, Dr. Gruber and my friend Richard were sitting on the beach in Bimini, and Sonny Gruber told Richard the story about his finding the shark repellent.

Richard became excited, he knew that everyone in the marine industry wanted a shark repellent.

So, Richard asked Dr. Gruber to please contact the Navy to find out what happened to the anti-shark chemical he had synthesized.

Eventually Dr. Gruber received a reply from the Navy, they felt that because the chemical had to pass through the shark’s gills to be effective, they couldn’t use it and Dr. Gruber could do whatever he wanted with it.

Richard was ecstatic, he wanted to set up a company right away to try and market the shark repellent.

That’s when I came into the picture.

Richard came to me, and he was very excited, he said he thought everyone wanted a shark repellent and now

Richard had the exclusive rights to market Dr. Sonny Gruber’s shark repellant chemical.

Richard said that with my API Marine distribution network (API MARINE) we could market the shark repellent to every marine dealer and dive shop in the United States.

Richard was sure it was going to be a financial success, because everyone had been looking for a shark repellent ever since WWII, when pilots that crashed In the Pacific were attacked by sharks before they could be rescued.

I asked Richard how Dr. Gruber’s shark repellent worked, and Richard said the chemical needed to pass through the shark’s gills, and it caused a shark to swim away.

I gave it some thought, but it all sounded too impractical to me, how would someone ever squirt the chemical into the shark’s mouth so a liquid would pass over the shark’s gills.

I was surprised when Richard said that was no problem, and he unfolded a set of detailed drawings of a compressed air gun that could shoot the repellent into a shark’s mouth.

I could see Richard had put a lot of time and hard work into designing the compressed air gun. The drawings were technically perfect, and they all had been drawn in beautiful colors.

In Richards invention, the repellent was in a cartridge and it was placed in the gun. Then a compressed gas cylinder was also inserted. He said the gun could be used several times before the compressed air cartridge needed to be replaced.

I couldn’t believe that Richard thought someone could shoot this thing into a shark’s mouth.

Richard was very excited, he said we could sell the repellent and the gun to the life raft manufacturers they could put one in with each raft they sold.

I said, how could people sitting in a life raft ever use it, as it needed to be shot into the shark’s mouth. Richard said we could put a set of underwater goggles in with each kit, and he was serious.

I tried to calm Richard down, I said, Richard, I think Dr. Gruber’s shark repellent is worthless, no one would have the nerve to get in the water with sharks to squirt it in their mouth.

I think Richard was starting to realize that what I was saying was true, so he then said: well, we can sell it to dive shops. Scuba divers are in the water anyway and they would have no problem squirting the chemical in a shark’s mouth.

I had to agree with Richard on that point, so I made a phone call to one of our sales representatives that also called on dive shops, and I introduced him to Richard. Richard asked if the salesman could sell the shark repellent to dive shops.

The salesman said, “NO Way”, He said scuba divers love sharks, that’s why they dive in the first place, they want to attract sharks, not scare them away.

It was several months later when I read that someone had invented a shark repellent that you wore like a belt, and it slowly dissolved in the water and chased the sharks away.

That invention sounded a little more practical, Richard must have read about it also, as he never mentioned Dr. Gruber’s shark repellent to me again.