Are sharks really monsters?
Skimming through the news on “the guardian” app on my phone today the picture of “The jumping shark” caught my attention. Neither have I ever seen a jumping shark nor have I heard of one doing so. But isn’t this picture just beautiful?
Usually all you hear about sharks in general, but especially about the great whites, is frightening and negative. Actually they are presented as the monsters of the ocean. And because shark attacts are always big on the news around the world, even many miles away from the ocean like in Germany, everyone knows that they are better not to mess with. Just recently there was a report about a diver being killed by a great white in Australia and that people are trying to find and kill the shark now. Why? I myself would not say that I feel extremely comfortable being around a shark and yes maybe also especially around a great white which, as the name already says, is huge. But the ocean is their home, so should we as humans and therefore guests to the ocean, not be informed about certain rules that exist in this environment? If we are invited to a nice dinner at someone elses house we indeed know how to behave ourselves, don’t we?
One of my best friends living on Maui, Hawaii always says “more people are killed by a coconut falling off a palm tree than by a shark here” and I am convinced that she is right. Still I felt really uncomfortable when I went surfing with her, because I had to think about the ‘horrific sharks’. An Hawaiian local has told me though that if the water is murky it can happen that sharks mistake humans for seals what is the reason for attacks, which are very rare by the way. Because sharks do not care about humans, they only attack them if they scent danger or mistake them for food, because of their murky environment which limits their sight. Humans should know about such details in order to prevent themselves from such attacks which, due to media, seem to happen often, but are actually very rare! So, seeing this picture on the guardian today made me realize that this picture in combination with the article is the first neutral or even positive information I have truly ever seen about a shark on the news.
This article describes how this picture was taken almost accidentally by a man who watched local people in Australia surf. The interesting thing though is that he mentions how he has realized something that could have been the shark way before he was able to take the picture. Also the text conveys that the shark has probably been around the surfers for about an hour and not attacking them or anything just existing and following his all day life chores like feeding most likely. Imagine that, a great white not attacking a human being!! This made me smile, because it shows that sharks by nature are not attracted to humans. This is why this picture actually made me happy, because it proofs that sharks are actually no monsters and that it is all going to have a happy end if we play by their rules. So they are just made monsters by us, as always.
