There are 34 species of sharks that inhabit Texas coastal waters. This is the conclusion of Dr. Donald Wohlschlag, who has been keeping count as he leafs through a zoological key to local marine life. Through his window I can see past the Port Aransas dunes out to the Gulf a gray Gulf today, all its denizens securely tucked in. Wohlschlag is an ichthyologist and ecologist here at the University of Texas’ Institute of Marine Science, an idyllic laboratory/learning complex peopled mostly by tanned and bearded graduate students.
Wohlschlag himself is a rotund man with small eyes that crinkle up gleefully whenever the talk turns from fish to human folly. Sharks are really a little out of his line he’s busy right now constructing a tank to monitor the metabolisms of pinfish and mullet but he is ready to share both his literature and his opinions on the subject,