Damn the guy!
I was actually enjoying my blogging retirement.
But this shit and specifically, his underhanded description of that infamous predatory attack by a Bull Shark cannot remain unanswered.
Here is that attack.
No the attack did not happen because the spotter did not do his job.
It happened because (read it - brilliant!) a stupid self-promoting Sharkitarian who had developed the inane hypothesis that they would not bite him as long as he would lower his heart rate, or whatever, decided to wade around, bare-legged, among a pack of feeding Bull Sharks!
I mean, seriously!
And the worst thing?
Despite of the fact that the Bulls Shark disproved his inane hypothesis, camera running, he continues to spout the same pseudo-scientific drivel til this day - and some poor suckers in Germanic Europe believe him and continue to give him money! Case in point: if you can, you may really want to experience the truly epic masterclass in snake oil salesmanship in the YouTube series prowin- pro nature donates 50 000 U$ for Erich Ritter's SHARKSCHOOL e.g. here.
Simply amazing - both the indisputable craft of Ritter and the naivety of his credulous victims!
Simply amazing - both the indisputable craft of Ritter and the naivety of his credulous victims!
Anyway.
There's a sucker born every minute, nobody else cares, and he is and will forever remain the laughing stock and pariah of the Shark research community. I just feel sorry for poor gullible Amin who will inevitably end up like all those other gullible past foundations, sponsors and philanthropists, see below: um teure Erfahrung reicher, and tainted by association!
But back to the spotter.
Here's what he had to say when confronted with the allegations.
What a sad and pathetic little man!
Perception is nine tenths of reality to someone like this guy! Ritter, you have always done your narcissistic "martyr" act far too well!
I think back at the events of that day and see him flexing his muscles in an Arnold Schwarzenegger pose while stating loudly for the two cameras...."We aren't afraid of no stinking sharks"!
This was his response to my telling him he should get out of the water as the tide was slack, too much bait and blood was in the water and we could not control the sharks safely after already having several close calls. He looked at me and laughed! My crew and I exchanged worried looks after his comment.
But the Discovery crew said to Ritter..."we only need 5 more minutes of B roll" and Ritter, who was always a whore to the cameras, said "no problem"!
5 minutes later I was fighting to save his life....and did so thru rapid and definitive means.
I still have the blood stained belt I used to tourniquet his leg. I held him in my arms in the emergency flight I had on standby and kept him from going into shock. I stopped the paramedics in the US from reopening the wound when they wanted to ogle a shark bite by pulling off my clot producing dressing that kept him from bleeding out, and sat the day and night in the waiting room thru his surgery and recovery to make certain that he would be OK. He walks to this day because I saved the hanging torn muscle in his leg when others told me to leave it but I wrapped it into his wound and that muscle was surgically reattached and allows him to walk and run without a limp and continues to work his ankle to this day.
He will never know that I got the Walkers Cay company to give him $10,000 for his recovery and a year later when they decided they wanted repayment of that loan....I fought them hard to back off and leave the man in peace.
They agreed.
So as the "spotter" who you blamed for this horrible misfortune in your "little man's life" I say this.
You should thank me Eric for "giving" you a "war wound" which has been your only meal ticket and the only thing that gives you any credibility among the misguided groupies that you pander to. It certainly has not been your scientific insights in shark behavior or papers full of pseudo scientific drivel that has earned you any acknowledgements.
My crime was that I was loyal to you.
Something you know so little about based on that rambling dissertation I just read! You managed to burn every bridge with every solid individual that wanted to believe in you and who would have launched you into a viable scientific career.
Sadly Ritter....You just can't fix stupid!
Thanks for allowing me to rant!
Mike, feel free to print this if you like.
Gesagt getan!
8 comments:
There really should be some sort of mechanism whereby if someone who got a doctorate subsequently brings that discipline into disrepute, they have the PhD removed. As there isn't, Ritter can carry on with his pseudoscience, threatening to sue his critics to try to silence them*, and lies, while milking the public for $$$ and the media for fame.
Oh how gullible the masses are!
* Dear Erich, it is a great regret to me that you have never sent me one of your attorney's letters. You know, the one about how if I speak out about you, you will sue. You've sent it to so many people over the years. Why can't I get one? I'll frame it and hang it - in the toilet.
This website is run by Springer publishing group. I wonder how keen they would be to keep this article up if they knew Ritter's 'research' can only be published in predatory journals?
Research?
Hahahahahaha!
Ritter has been a self-aggrandizing annoyance all of the some twenty years I've known him. At one point he insulted my wife in one of his typical bragging moments during a filming project at Walker's Cay. My wife Chris was the designated photographer during the very first time Ritter decided to walk around in the bull sharks, about three years before he got bitten. Chris, who was never a braggart, followed Ritter's instructions as to content: "I want photos of my bare leg next to the bull sharks" (I can still hear his drawn out Swiss accent). Chris lay in the shallow water snapping away trying to catch the best angles as the sharks swam around, came and went. With the movement, water stirred up etc. it was a bit of a task and in those days we were still shooting 35mm film. That night at dinner we got stuck with Ritter at our table. By stuck I mean that we had arrived a little late and the rest of our group were already seated. We were at least a week into the project and by this time no one wanted to sit and listen to Ritter so as best as we could we would fill up a table so there was no seat for him. Well, tonight Ritter sat down with Chris and me and we talked about the day's shooting. Chris, who never considered herself a professional photographer, but nevertheless had talent, said, "When shooting wildlife I feel good if I can get one really good shot out of a roll of film", to which Ritter responded, again in his drawn out drawl, "That's the sign of an amateur; EVERY ONE of my shots are good." Chris and I just looked at each other, both thinking, "What a delusional asshole". IN another conversation where Ritter was going on about the non-aggressive nature of sharks I asked him what he thought about the sailors' accounts from the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. He responded emphatically, "It's bullshit". I sat there stunned, one because I didn't believe him and two, that he had just insulted hundreds of US Navy sailors who had gone through the worst hell imaginable. Once we left Walkers I never saw him again, and hope I don't but he's like herpes, coming back to annoy and irritate over and over again.
He and his Germanic Europe Gang ... The apple doesn't fall far from the tree
Like his Freediving buddy Christian Redl
His course's based on quantity not quality as his "World Record's"...
They would be vanished for ever if someone, not average, would try the same.
Pseudo "World Record's" like pseudo Research
Kudos to some people in Micronesia who noticed that BS during the first meeting and rejected every business request from their side.
I just hope not bumping into that Gang again on my next vacation
@DaShark
I knew it was just a break. I thought about betting on that opener. ;-)
'IN another conversation where Ritter was going on about the non-aggressive nature of sharks I asked him what he thought about the sailors' accounts from the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. He responded emphatically, "It's bullshit".'
- And don't forget, Bill, in that masterpiece of narcissistic shark porn 'Anatomy of a Shark Bite' Ritter announced that the sharks that devoured those poor sailors (in what we must assume were a series of accidents) were tiger sharks. No evidence. Just Ritter doing his thing of pretending to know and then expecting everyone to believe him because he's Dr Erich Ritter, the self-proclaimed world's only and best and infallible shark behaviour expert. ...Covered in shark bites.
If only the public shaming done to Walter Palmer, the despised hunter who killed Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, would be applied to pseudo-scientist and fresh water perch phd Ritter, then this delusional confidence man would slink back under the outhouse door he crawled in from and not be heard from again. His brand of weird science is akin to Jenny McCarthy's boastful ignorance proclaiming to be a graduate of the University of Google and just as ill-informed. Every word from his slick-tongued, lying mouth is a cancer to real science and the scientific method. He must confronted and denounced at every opportunity. There is no lower form of life and no greater waste of time on the planet.
Jacques Cousteau
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