A Perfect Waste Of A Damned Good Shark

I know that most of you, especially the ones who live in Southern California, may have already heard about the recent harvesting of an 11-foot shortfin mako shark that weighed 1,300 pounds from the ocean off Huntington Beach by a group of fishermen from Texas, but I wanted to use this occasion to once again get up on that proverbial soapbox that this wonderful invention called the Internet has given us. Thank you, Al Gore.

As some of you may know, I spent a period of time as an amateur marine biologist, taking courses, working at aquariums, and heading out on research vessels from time to time. Some of you may also recall the story I love to tell about the time I got to see a 17-foot great white shark that was caught by some fishermen off San Pedro while I was working at the Cabrillo Aquarium, where I helped care for a number of much smaller and less sinister sharks. To this day, I still donate money to some of our Southern California aquariums and oceanic causes I believe in.

That being said, quite honestly, when I read this story, it really bothered me. Let me explain. While you won’t catch me passing up on the wonderful meat products that nature has to offer us humans on very many occasions, it’s not like we’re running out of cows, chickens and pigs any time soon, but things like whales and sharks are a different story. While some populations are rebounding, others are still in decline and under threat of extinction, so killing them just for fun might not be a great idea. Wow, now I sound like the Greenpeace people.

Don’t get me wrong, I at times think about, perhaps even struggle with, the fact that my chicken sandwich, cheeseburger, and the bacon I put on them or eat as a side dish, used to be a living, breathing creature, but I handle it. It is much easier when you never have to go out and meet the animal that you’re eating or actually see it in any way, shape, or form that is close to being alive because of grocery stores and restaurants, and living the life of readily-available food here in the grand ol’ US of A, isn’t it?

But where I do start to draw my own personal line is when it comes to hunting, fishing and things of those sorts. Now, before you take away my Conservative card, again, let me explain. Mountain men up in Alaska hunting so they can eat? While I wish we’d figure out a way to get them some pre-packaged food so they didn’t have to kill their next meal, all right, I can live with that. Killing a wolverine because it’s hungry and trying to get at the food you’re storing for the winter? I have a harder time with that. It’s not the wolverine’s fault you have to live in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. Native people killing some whales every year for food and tradition? I kind of have a problem with that in this day and age, but OK, I can live with that. Killing a big bear, elk, whale, shark or other animal for the quote-un-quote fun, sport, or thrill of it? Yeah, I have a problem with that. Hunting just to hunt, killing just to kill? Yeah, that, I believe crosses the line, especially when it is an animal whose numbers in the wild are just not what they used to be.

Japan killing whales? Completely pointless, and a waste. People out in the woods or on the ocean just out killing? Completely pointless, and a waste. These people killing this shark while out here on vacation? Completely pointless, and a waste. Though these fishermen did donate the dead shark to since, I just do not believe there is much science could learn today about this shark they don't already know, or could have learned by capturing then releasing it.

It all boils down to one thing. Some people just enjoy killing things. Some people step on spiders. Some people pick them up with a napkin and put them outside. Some people will go their entire life without killing a bear, elk, whale or shark, and some will not. It is the nature of the human problem. Some people will go their entire life without killing another person, and some will not. There’s billions of humans. But each one of us is an individual, right? Spend some time with an animal, any animal, and tell me they are not an individual with their own traits and behaviors.

I’ll let you stew on that for a bit. Either way, this particular shark is now dead and on its way to be hacked up for science so that some humans on vacation could have a thrill and have a story to tell, and I personally think that is just sad, completely unnecessary, and a perfect waste of a damned good shark that quite frankly, the world and its inhabitants needed more alive and swimming in the ocean than dead on a lab table.