Sunday, October 04, 2009

Rampant Idiocy!

Hotlips - very very pregnant!

Little worth reporting from Fiji.

Apart from the fact that many of the big Bull Shark females are pregnant and readying themselves to depart to the rivers.
We've consequently applied several tags and stocked some of the closest rivers with receivers. It's somewhat of a crap shoot - but hey, maybe we'll get lucky and get a couple of pings. During this time of transition, the Sharks are frustratingly finicky: they are ravenous when they are motivated to feed - but more times than not, they just have a quick peek but then maintain their distance. Especially when we have Mahi Mahi like yesterday! For some reason, the Sharks just don't like it and ever since discovering that, it has been firmly banned from my diet, delicious as it may be.

On days like this, I need to go fish for content on the other blue water blogs and there, too, the diet is quite lean, at least when it comes to noteworthy Sharky stuff.

What I however found was this short post about PETA.
Please read it and above all, explore the links. I've had my issues with PETA ever since discovering their idiotic attempt to re-brand, or whatever, Fish as Sea Kittens. What baffles me in general terms is that this is obviously not the work of some single lunatic, but very likely, the result of plenty of soul searching by some committee - a phenomenon that has never ceased to amaze me in "real life" where there is no lack of equally shocking examples (does cheap clothing really need to be that ugly?).

What angers me is that such exercises are costly and waste money that should instead be invested into serious, worthwhile and realistic conservation projects.
Like in science, the total funds available to conservation are finite, a classical zero sum - and in this recession, the sum is shrinking, as many conservation orgs. are painfully experiencing. To squander it in idiotic and inefficient conservation initiatives (or frivolous research, one of my pet grievances) is, I believe, profoundly unethical.

And I also found some remarkably idiotic Shark news in the media.
One is this piece of rubbish, unearthed by the good guys over at The Dorsal Fin, about a small dead Tresher Sharks that got washed ashore in England.

The other one, equally idiotic (and unsurprisingly, equally from England) is about a Shark attack, no less, in Plymouth!
Turns out that some idiot hooked and landed a Spurdog, a critically endangered species that may soon be listed under CITES II (or not - and heed my words, the Europeans will find ways to boost quotas to unsustainable levels if the proposal is accepted). The guy then managed to hurt himself on the Shark's spine - and yes, that would be the attack!

Don't we just love our media!

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