Shark Water - The Truth will Surface

[syeve]

Please keep the personal attacks out of the discussion/argument.
Thanks

[trilinearmipmap]

First of all there is no room on these boards for personal attacks. If you wish to make a personal attack against me, PM me, I will meet up with you face to face, we can discuss it in person.

The statistics on shark attacks are skewed by a huge reporting bias towards first world (mostly U.S.) shark attacks. Most of the reported shark attacks each year occur in the U.S. despite the fact that the U.S. only has about 5% of the world's population. There are billions of people living in African and Asian countries which have long coastlines and large local shark populations, yet despite this reported shark attacks in these countries are rare. This points to an error in the collection and reporting of shark attack data. If a five year old blond kid gets bitten by a shark in Florida it makes the news. If a brown person in India gets attacked by a shark no one notices.

The other factor in under-reporting of shark attacks is pressure from local government and tourist authorities. If a shark kills someone in a tourist area it can mean tens of millions of dollars in losses due to bad publicity. You can bet that if a swimmer is killed by a shark in a country with a tourist-dependent economy, the death will be reported as a drowning or heart attack.

Multiply the number of (U.S.) reported shark attacks by 20 (the inverse of the U.S. proportion of world population) and you will get hundreds to thousands of shark attacks, and perhaps scores to a hundred shark deaths, worldwide every year.

The question is, do animals have a right to live despite the certainty that each year some number of people will be killed by them. This is a judgment call that needs to be informed by reason, ignoring false statistics, environmentalist propaganda, and ad hominem arguments.

[syeve]

^^I guess that is where we differ. If I go into bear country and get eaten by a bear, I don't understand how that is the bear's fault...furthermore...If I go into the ocean, where I KNOW sharks reside, then guess what, I better be ready to face the APEX predator, that being a shark or any number of other species in the ocean that are much more evolved than humans.

Environmentalist propaganda? I don't subscribe to propaganda nor do I listen to erratic statements with the purpose of inciting fear...what I did see in that documentary was the needless killing of an animal. The sharks live for 2 days after being finned, if you're ok with the treatment of any animal in such a matter, then I digress, there is no point on further discussion.

[BlueAbyss]

If you're going to kill something, kill it. Don't make it suffer.

[Ron99]

I'm not quite sure where you are getting some figure of 20x the US rate of attacks? This seems to be your opinion rather than something backed up by any information or even best estimates by experts in the field. From a quick search it looks like estimates for unreported shark attacks might be about the same number as the reported ones so you are looking at around 100 attacks a year and maybe 10 deaths. Still not a large number.

Most (reported) attacks happen in the US and around Australia/New Zealand. These are areas that have alot more recreational water activities such as surfing than the third world so it is likely that your africans and asians are rarely mistaken as seals or turtles and mistakenly attacked.

So nobody is putting forth "false" statistics. We go by those statistics that are available. Your number is even more false because it is an arbitrary estimate you have made yourself based on some idea about populations of the US vs. the rest of the world but it ignores important factors such as the circumstances that may have contributed to the attack. There is no reason in your argument. It is all your personal opinion and ideas.

To address your last question, the answer is emphatically yes. The sharks or other animals are not cruising around thinking "Gee, I got to find me a juicy human to kill and eat". We are entering their environment and often engaging in activities that put us at risk for attacks. It's not a judgement call, it is just logical that everything that has an ecological niche is there for a reason and should be preserved for the overall balance of the environment. I would propose that humans are perhaps the ones who should be culled as it is our gross population explosion and unthinking destruction of the environment that is putting the entire planet and our own species at risk

To take your argument to a more extreme position, should we let people become Catholic priests when we know a small percentage of them will abuse little boys each year? Should we let any men walk free on the streets rather than just keeping us locked up for breeding purposes when we know that a small percentage of the will abuse and possibly kill small children? Should we let anybody drink alcohol when we know that some of them will drive and get into an accident that kills people (15,000 to 16,000 each year in the US)? Should we let anybody eat hamburgers because saturated fats will lead to heart disease that will kill more than half a million people in the US this year? Sure, these are more extreme examples but they are the same sort of argument you are trying to make.

[Treebeard]

Originally Posted by trilinearmipmap

The question is, do animals have a right to live despite the certainty that each year some number of people will be killed by them. This is a judgment call that needs to be informed by reason, ignoring false statistics, environmentalist propaganda, and ad hominem arguments.

Environmentalist propaganda? And the stuff you post here is the gospel truth?

The question is, do humans deserve to live if they encroach in another creatures habitat? In my opinion, when you venture into the ocean you do so at your own risk. If you go for a walk in Banff National Park and a mother grizzly sow eats you because she is protecting her cubs, tough luck!

And for the record, I am NOT a tree-hugging, David Suzuki worshipping environmentalist, but I DO believe that the human race has exploited planet earth for far too long, and somethings gotta change are we are all doomed.

[jsmth321]

Originally Posted by trilinearmipmap

Clearly besides the cruelty issue there are effects on many other species when you remove a predator/scavenger like sharks from the ecosystem. So finning or otherwise killing sharks which do not endanger humans cannot be justified.

I do feel that for those few species known to attack humans with any frequency (Tiger Sharks, Great Whites and Bull Sharks) we should mount an aggressive cull program. Of course this is not the popularly accepted view, I have never cared much for going along with the crowd. For me, if something kills people, we shouldn't tolerate it. There is only room for one apex predator on this planet and that is us.

Even the most dangerous of sharks pose little threat to humans, they are an essential part of the ocean eco-system, without them the oceans will be far more screwed up then they already are, you cannot expect to remove top predators from an eco-system and expect the eco-system to flourish.


[quote=trilinearmipmap;430202]The question is, do animals have a right to live despite the certainty that each year some number of people will be killed by them. QUOTE]

Yes they do, all living animals on this planet have every much right to be here as we do. Predators may see us as prey and by all intents we are possible prey, we have become too comfortable living in citys and modern society and many people seem to have forgotten that if we go into the woods or oceans, there might be something bigger that could kills us.

Might interest you that a non-predator is responsible for more human deaths in Africa, the hippo, should be cull all of them as well?

[BlueAbyss]

End the hippos.

[JDigital]

Originally Posted by trilinearmipmap

There is only room for one apex predator on this planet and that is us.

I find it absolutely hilarious that you place yourself above an animal that has been around for 400 Million years, and then say we are the apex predator.

[trilinearmipmap]

Even if you were right, people are going to go on killing sharks.

If I were a subsistence fisherman in Indonesia and someone paid me a few dollars to fin some sharks, I would do it and feed my family that day.

It is quite a luxury to be able to sit back in comfort and judge others who don't have it so good as us.

I see a lot of hypocrisy on this thread. People claiming to be holier than thou, caring about the environment. Meanwhile what brings us together is this hobby of taking fish and invertebrates out of their natural environment for our viewing enjoyment.

On the one hand you claim we are killing 10 to the 18th power sharks, then you claim we are not an apex predator. OK.