English: Fresh shark fins drying on sidewalk at Hong Kong (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(With apologies for the awful and unintentional rhyme:
Do a sharks a kindness, sign this:
https://www.causes.com/campaigns/35520-encourage-singapore-airlines-to-stop-shipping-shark-fins
Bull shark populations have declined up to 90% from finning pressures. You can donate as little as $10 and get various perks: a shout-out on Twitter or FB,
Bull shark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
a personalized certificate all the way up to an autographed vintage JAWS t-shirt.
Click here to adopt!
Photos by Lisa Stone
I am still ecstatic from Ralph Collier’s lecture this afternoon at Glendale College this afternoon. Great turn out–students, teachers from all disciplines, and people from outside school–including one dazzled shark nerd in a Jaws t-shirt who sat in the front row, and my dear friend Lisa and her fellow shark fanatic pal, Jack.
Ralph covered some fascinating stuff about shark behavior including “spy hopping” in which white sharks (and apparently oceanic white tips) stick their heads out of the water to check out what’s happening on land and sometimes startle random seals off the edges of rookeries. They also spy hop to calculate which group of seals in the haul-out area might be easiest to sweep into the water via a giant breach. Essentially, I learned that white sharks ain’t dummies. Not by a long shot. They have memories. They make calculated decisions. Ralph doesn’t believe in calling shark encounters “accidents”–he gives the animals volition—whether the intent is to investigate or to launch a predatory strike.
I learned two more disturbing consequences of shark finning:
1. When the discarded bodies of finned sharks are thrown overboard, they sink to the bottom where ammonia leaking from their ravaged bodies destroys coral communities.
2. Increasing numbers of people in Asia who consume shark fin soup are developing neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and A.L.S. Researchers have proposed that the high concentrations of mercury in shark fin and flesh bind with other neurotoxins and create a lethal toxic compound. Could this new health concern become a powerful force in stopping finning?
Writing the introduction to Ralph Collier’s lecture tomorrow. This man knows everything about white sharks from their interactions with people to their inspections of inanimate objects and sea birds. He was the first to notice how white sharks roll their eyes during predatory or investigative attacks. The Egyptian Government asked for his help after a series of attacks in the Red Sea in 2010. He’s appeared in 50 documentaries, his work cited in over 300 publications. He’s written stuff on white shark dietary habits, and how they see colors and respond to sound.
It is a fascinating thing—the devotion of one’s entire life to understand the behavior of such an alien creature…. I wonder how one might compare this obsession with sharks to the obsessive drive of the artist? It’s a question that I’m frankly too tired to contemplate, so here’s a meme:
Today in shark class we marveled at the oddness of shark biology—the sand tigers’ practice of intrauterine cannibalism (unborn pups eat other embryos while still in the womb) and the unborn big eyed threshers that eat eggs from their mother’s uterus, a practice known as “oophagy.” (I love the sound of that word–somewhere between “egg” and “oaf”). We talked of Hawaiian and Aztec shark god myths and marveled at pictures of weird species like dwarf lanterns and goblin sharks. I suggested we all convert to an ancient shark worshipping religion and walk around the campus in strange wooden masks.The class had the feeling of discovery and aimlessness that grade school classes used to have—“Oooo—look at this weird picture.” I guess my goal, if I had one, was immersion and delight.
I told the class that as a child I mourned the eclipse of “Jaws” reign by “Star Wars” in 1977. Since I lost my father last year, any mention of childhood summons him. My father was, after all, the person who took me to see “Jaws.” Each memory threatens to pull me into unknown depths. Even the well-worn stories are reframed by his absence.
Thought I might get some snorkeling practice today before my first dive lesson tomorrow. As tranquil and sun-filled as La Jolla had been, Leo Carillo was murky and treacherous. Endless, rolling, silty green. The kelp still looked gorgeous, but those waving sea grasses, so mesmerizing a month or so ago, now seemed menacing, filled with potential predators. I felt utterly insignificant in the vastness. My friend Renee and I had to scramble out on the rocks where waves smashed us into other rocks and each other. When we finally found a high crag covered with bivalves and star fish, I sat there, chest heaving, staring at the crabs in their obscure passages, spitting out salt and thinking maybe I needed a swimming lesson since I took my last one in 1974.
Equally obscure, murky and dangerous were OCEARCH’s replies to critics during a live Facebook chat. When I asked them what “450 million mystery” could be solved by killing sharks, (which they do in the name of research), they conveniently avoided addressing the killing and focused on the mystery: “We want to find out where they go! How they breed!” When other activists asked them to justify their method of tagging which severely limits shark mobility and leads to infected, ragged fins, they replied that sharks brutalize each other all the time. When the questions became too rational or scientific, they simply blocked the activists and real researchers and answered questions from 8-year-old kids and sports fishermen.
No matter. Every movement starts small. I do believe OCEARCH will be exposed. How long can people be fooled by shark researchers wearing backwards baseball caps and flashing those heavy metal devil fingers? Ugh. I don’t want to contemplate the answer to that question.
Shark! (Photo credit: guitarfish)
1. Read about the swift but gruesome death of abalone diver Randy Frye in the waters of Northern California.
2. Watched a mini-documentary on technical diver David Shaw who died trying to retrieve the remains of another diver from the depths of a dangerous cave.
3. Meditated for 20 blissful minutes that were occasionally invaded by thoughts of decompression chambers.
4. Felt less alone after reading several articles criticizing OCEARCH’s machismo and brutality.
5. Marveled at Denise Levertov’s briskly paced poem The Sharks.
6. Tried to do the dishes mindfully, but spaced out and started worrying about August almost being over, a reverie broken occasionally by hummingbirds.
7. Ate fruit
8. Thought again about Thom Knoles–of the failure of the stressed out intellect and how the expansive silence of meditation feels so nurturing, so full of presence.
9. Wondered for the trillionth time about the basic goodness or evil of mankind.
10. Marveled at the ability of writing to redeem boredom and to reveal the miraculous within the ordinary.
Last August, I walked around Malibu Beach on a brilliant summer day collecting signatures to win protection for California’s dwindling population of great whites under the California Endangered Species Act. Even though a triathlon was underway and many folks nervously laughed about their upcoming ocean swim, I found near unanimous support for sharks.
However, the California Fish and Game Commission opted to provide only temporary protection for white sharks as a “candidate” species. That protection is due to expire in early 2014. We need to urge the CFWD (California Fish and Wildlife Department) to give the great white permanent protection as an endangered species.
The CFWD is currently accepting comments on this issue.
If you need more information about why California’s great whites need protection, read this.
If you have time, call, e-mail and write. It honestly takes less time than you think! But at least shoot them a quick e-mail.
Contact info for the CFWD is here. (scroll down a bit to get the addresses, etc.)
I want to give the proceeds of the “Jaws” Anniversary reading to SharkSavers because I really dig their Finished with FINS campaign. I like that they strike right at the heart of the market for shark fins by expanding their outreach and activism to Hong Kong and Singapore.
This morning I contacted SharkSavers about partnering up for my February “Jaws” benefit and threw in a $25 donation toward funding shark sanctuaries.
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