I get an email from Field and Stream and the subject includes “587 Pound NY Thresher Shark.”
I like Thresher Sharks. They look kind of cool with the extra long tail. There is even a Thresher Shark Research and Conservation outfit.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t like what I would see, but I open the email anyway and this is what I saw…
Crap.
I am not a fan of killing sharks just for the sake of killing sharks. In fact, I’m pretty firmly in the “don’t do that shit” camp. Sharks are a pretty key part of the ecosystem out there, top predators usually are, and taking them out of the system just so you can get this picture makes me a bit pissed. Thresher sharks don’t kill people, although I did read about someone that may have been killed by the tail of one of these sharks as they were pulling it in a boat somewhere. There was zero cause to kill the thing.
I think most fly fisherman would likely NOT have killed the beast, but the non-fly Field & Stream subscribers likely would and that is why they presented it front and center in the email. I hope more of the C&R ethic can make its way into the bait and kill crowd, but I don’t know how that will happen.
I applaud the Shark-Free Marina effort for trying to get there.
These are American Bison skulls… killed for fun, driving the Bison to the brink of extinction.
—
