Monday, November 03, 2014

Shark Selfie - fail!

Not cool, and pretty darn stupid on top of it - source.

Read this.

I fully concur.
I do like Peter, and the selfies per se are cool - but showing how one recklessly leans out of the cage is not, and the messaging is once again just the usual tired pseudo-conservation clap trap. Belittling the danger posed by GWS actually does them a disservice by not respecting them as what they are, apex predators - and absolutely not, not all strikes by GWS are investigative and/or mistaken identity!

And should you have any doubts that it was just simply stupid.
I got a friend who got nailed in the head when engaging in the exact same antics, and who only got away, with according copious loss of blood and major drama, because the Shark bit the skull and didn't injure the neck! And what would have been the head-lines, pun intended, and the according setback for Shark conservation, had the accident not been successfully hushed up?
Needless to say that my pal has learned his lesson and is not anymore doing any of that!

Anyway.
Maybe the operators should examine the size of those camera ports and ensure that those overly eager photographers are being prevented from taking those unnecessary risks?
 

4 comments:

jsd said...

To my mind there are several aspects to this dangerous silliness.

- There's a conundrum of which long-lived war photographers are surely acutely aware: once you have a camera and are recording reality, you somehow consider yourself to be at one remove from the dangers and start doing dumb things.

Turning your back on an approaching great white... Duh.

Related to this, but different, is the doing-of-dumb-things when the camera is on you. What is the mental condition - embodied in the transcendental idiocy of the sham apotheosis of St Erich of Hopalot - such that someone is incapable of realising that certain creatures are just damn dangerous?

DaShark said...

Once you have a camera and are recording reality, you somehow consider yourself to be at one remove from the dangers and start doing dumb things.

Been there done that - and more than once! :)

Shark Diver said...

I never do dumb things.... stupid things on the other hand ;-)

DaShark said...

I can attest to that! :)