Saturday 11 April 2009

Wednesday 8 April 2009

Oceanminds

I've just discovered a new and exciting idea. Oceanminds is a social networking site devoted to marine interests. Sort of like facebook for the oceans. you can join at http://www.oceanminds.com/

Spearfishermen kill tiger shark

This is all a bit after the fact, but for those of you who haven't heard the story....http://www.nypost.com/seven/03122009/news/...ooth_159201.htm

The long and the short of it is that a group of spear fishermen while out fishing for tuna shot and killed a tiger shark. Their apparent motivation for this was that they felt that thye were being threatened by the shark. However examination of the video(!) that they shot shows no sign of aggresive behaviour at all. I used to spearfish back in South Africa, and we regularly had to deal with sharks, normally a bang on the nose was enough to turn them, or if they were really determined, they got away with my catch-but I never envisaged actually shooting one.

In my eyes, they further darkened their act by selling the video they had shot of the event. It is here http://video.aol.com/video-detail/diver-fights-off-12-foot-shark/3475778870

I guess the truth is that when we venture into the water with a gun (or on land for that matter) it gives us the option of using it in self defense as we see it. We are all probbaly quick to pull the trigger when we have a trigger to be pulled! These guys did one of these two things
1. the shark was cruising them and they panicked (this is not cool to admit to!) and shot it and then realised that they had to finish the job. The after the fact marketing of the event was a positive spin on what was a gut panic reaction.
2. the shark was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time-it swam into Craig Clasen's sights whan he was keyed up and he pulled the trigger. This happens! Again all the events after are simply to justify this.
For more info see wetpixel at: http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29214 or join the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=74037951270 The latter has 3379 members from all over the world.
 
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