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Great White Sharks Visiting San Francisco
Ponca City, We love you writes "Juliet Eilperin writes in the Washington Post that while for years, humans have thought of great white sharks as wandering the sea at random, only occasionally venturing close to shore, it turns out we were wrong. Scientists lured 179 great white sharks to their boat with a carpet decoy designed to look like a seal, and used a lance to attach satellite tags with the aid of 2.3-inch titanium darts to track the sharks and discovered that Pacific white sharks spend months near the northern and central California coast between August and February, foraging among elephant seals, sea lions, and other prey. The sharks were spotted as far inland as the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, east of the Golden Gate Bridge. 'It shows you how wild it is off our West Coast of North America. This is Yellowstone,' says Stanford University marine sciences professor Barbara A. Block. The fact that 'a major concentration' of great whites can ignore humans 'shows us the sharks are really minding their own business. The number of interactions with people is very small, considering,' says Salvador J. Jorgensen."
Love the first paragraph in TFA that points out the obvious: "For years, humans have thought of great white sharks wandering the sea at random, only occasionally venturing close to shore."
Holy shit. I always thought "For years, elephants have thought of great white sharks wandering the sea at random, only occasionally venturing close to shore."
I just learned something today. Guess I thought I knew more about elephants than people. I am sadly mistaken.
Let's see. You're using a film, produced by Hollywood, as a guide to the behaviour of a wild creature. Great move, that.
While you're at it, how about using Independence Day (ID4) as a guide to defeating an alien invasion using a Macintosh? Or The Core for a guide to plate tectonics? Or The Day After Tomorrow for a guide on global warming?
Sheesh.
As any serious diver will tell you, generally speaking, a shark sighting is a cause for excitement and anticipation, not panic. Leave them alone, and they'll generally leave you alone. Remember, kids: things make the news because they're (a) sensational, and (b) rare (which leads to the sensation.) The hype of shark attacks is nowhere near justified.
As any serious diver will tell you, generally speaking, a shark sighting is a cause for excitement and anticipation, not panic. Leave them alone, and they'll generally leave you alone.
Unless there's ominous cello music playing in the background.
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
Not to mention the novel. Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, has stated that he regrets the perception that his work created of great white sharks.
Apparently, he didn't really know anything about sharks back then. Did anybody, even scientists? No. Mr. Benchley has offered the opinion that he wouldn't have written the book if he had known anything near what we know today, 'at least not in good conscience.'
Peter Benchley became an ocean conservationist later in life. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2006.
According to Wikipedia, "Benchley was a member of the National Council of Environmental Defense and a spokesman for its Oceans Program: "[T]he shark in an updated Jaws could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim; for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors."
Just so you know.