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Let’s All Celebrate How Rare Shark Attacks Are
True ocean lessons can teach us to save human and wildlife lives
Roaring Rivers
Torrents, currents, and ripples by Christyl Rivers, PhD.
If Trump fell in the ocean near a shark, it is highly unlikely unlikely he would be attacked. First of all, most sharks are very small, Galapagos sharks, dog fish sharks, lantern sharks, cat-sharks, and so on. They are remarkably placid, although inquisitive, unless you are a tasty (not rubberized) fish.
Even the largest ones rarely injure, and even less frequently, kill people.
Charlize Zmuda died of shark injuries in Australia days ago, but her family urged that their community continued to enjoy water sports and swimming beaches, even as they mourn her. Australians who love the ocean know that sharks are important members of the food web and the awesome wonder down under.
Since 2000, Ms. Zmuda would be the 18th person to die from shark injuries. The ocean if far more dangerous for sharks, as they are killed by the hundreds of thousands each day. Some by over-fishing, some by gill nets and bycatch. Then there is also pollution, reef acidification (very bad on Australia’s great barrier reef) and too much ocean heating.
500+ species evolved 400 million years to be lip stick?
Sharks are utterly amazing and magnificent. Their reputation is undeserved since we eat them and they very, very seldom eat us. We also torture them. Wear them in shark skin suits. Carry them as bags and purses. Apply them on our lips, (as squalene). We demonize them in fiction. And more.
Ugly soul people are willing to hurt all living beings if it means their own lives are perceived as richer or better. In this way, although people who project their own flaws onto innocent animals, we come to believe that person is somehow powerful. In temporary lapses of common sense, we even hand them power — or bask in the illusion of it being real.
Exploitation of others is not power, but weakness. It does look like power for those who don’t understand the hundreds of millions of years of grand evolution and beauty the world presents…
