Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Nikitating Membrane?

Dicey - the situation but above all, that cage! Source.

What what what?
Check it out, 1:56!



Boy-oh-boy... literally!
It's called a nictitating membrane, and GWS do not have one (!!!) - which is incidentally one of the diagnostic features differentiating the Lamnids from the Carcharhinids! GWS protect their eyes by rolling them back - yes it's just detail, but it perfectly illustrates the total lack of credibility of these programs, and that of their utterly useless anchors!

And the cage breach?
It was the object of much brouhaha in 2008, and the publication of the video has (apparently) led to the chumming ban in Lupe.

It was of course much ado about nothing.
Yes maybe it was operator error and if so, shit happens, especially when you repeat the same thing thousands of times. In any case, there have not been any more such cage breaches. Or if they have, they have been hushed down - which is good for tourism and maybe less so for the clients.
But it may have also been a particularly stupid and/or greedy and/or inexperienced Shark, the more as when they want, those GWS can turn on a dime as witnessed by thousands of images of them hunting Seas at the surface.
And Walsh continues to make money off his video - and good on him as it was certainly a big scare.
Who knows and really, who cares.

And the long term effects? Nada de nada!
The chumming ban, like the ban on leaving the cages is still in effect - and with a precious few exceptions, nobody gives a shit. Least of which, it appears, the Mexican authorities!
My prediction is that this will change once one of those idiots get eaten - but then again, who knows. Those guys got other eggs to fry, as in are we gonna worry about this - or about some stupid suicidal gringa being chomped at by a Shark near some godforsaken rock somewhere out there in the middle of nowhere?
Just saying!

Leaves Animal Planet.
Meh - it, and the whole suite of Discovery Communications networks will continue to air what people want to see.
And this is it - the stupider, the better!

5 comments:

Professor Pedantic said...

Agreed: derived from nictate to wink, and describes the blinking of the third eyelid (including, for advanced users, the rate per second) hence:-

nictate -> nictating membrane;
or nictitate -> nictitating membrane;
or nictititate -> nictititating membrane;
or nictitititate -> nictitititating membrane;
or nictititititate -> nictititititating membrane;
or (my favourite) nictitititititate -> nictitititititating membrane but never, ever, nikitating membrane.

The Solomon Islands police use the above for a verbal sobriety test with a 100% failure rate.

DaShark said...

Now THIS is what I call dazzling brilliance!

Lindsay L. Graff said...

Nothing pleases me more than knowing that my 12 high school, Fiji Shark Studies students are leaving the island with a better grasp on shark biology than every person who works for Animal Planet...

DaShark said...

And since when would that be a challenge Lindsay?

Lindsay L. Graff said...

very good point.