Shark attacks tourist in Sharm El Sheikh. Egypt attacks shark.
First the pig slaughter in the name of swine flu, and now the shark crackdown for the sake of catching “the killers.”
First the pig slaughter in the name of swine flu, and now the shark crackdown for the sake of catching “the killers.”
I should note that I am not at all suggesting that being environmentally friendly is letting your local sharks feed on humans. I am merely pointing out the ludicrous manner in which the Egyptian authorities deal with any animal-related threat whether real or exaggerated, as in the case of the swine flu. If a species is suspected of causing any trouble, they are just simply wiped out of the country by whatever ministry that fancies getting the credit of making people feel safe.
Actually, somehow I suspect that the officials in Egypt would just love to do the same to a certain subset of the Egyptian population *wink wink.* The motto in Egypt is --if it bothers you, finish it off!
Now that the investigation is being held in Sharm el sheikh, many of theories proposed suggest that humans messing up the environment was most likely the underlying cause of this aberrant shark attacks.
Someone was either drawing them to shore with churned-up fish. Or, as pointed out by dailymail, a cargo ship dumped a load of animal carcasses in the sea instigating the hungry sharks to gather. This brings us to another point--hungry sharks. Guess who made them hungry? Humans you say? Yep, absolutely! The depletion of the marine life ecosystem leaves larger predators starving.
But while we are kissing biodiversity goodbye, we should keep in mind that some of these species could hold the key to curing our ailments.
7 comments:
Welcome back!
The matter is quite complicated. and it is too early to reach any kind of viable conclusion. Many ill-intentioned people are pushing bizzare "theories" like this sheep-dumping crap. I am among those who would still give Egypt's Red Sea shores respectable "bio-diversity" marks (but not because of any thing the government is doing, though). Mostafa
Thanks! Good to be back too.
I agree most theories sound very bizarre but I was only echoing a sentiment of worrying about the marine life when I wrote the post. I don't know but given the not-so-friendly treatment of animals I feel like there is a reason to worry.
Il semble que vous soyez un expert dans ce domaine, vos remarques sont tres interessantes, merci.
- Daniel
Daniel,
Merci pour votre gentillesse.
Je suis passionnée de l'environnment et de tous ce qui est vert.
Ces attaques... ce phénomène inexpliqué ne justifie pas la chasse aux requins!
Thanks for bringing this up. We need more voices of sanity within the current mania against sharks to actually solve the problem.
First off, sharks have been living in the Red Sea for thousands of years. I'd wager they lived there before humans even came to the region. So when they start attacking divers all of a sudden, the smart thing to do is ask "why the change in shark behavior" rather than going out Inquisition-style to wipe them all off.
There are many changes in the region, from issues human issues that dumped its carriage of dead meat into the sea to (the also very human) threats of climate change. The ecosystem is changing and killing off the sharks is no way to deal with it.
At the end of the day, it is important to point out that the sea is home to the sharks. We as divers are basically visitors (or invaders) to their home. Killing them off doesn't sound like the right thing to do here.
Now if the sharks had mutated and were coming on land and attacking people, that would be a different story! :)
Great article. Killing off entire species to solve a problem is shortsighted and ridiculous.
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