There have been two well publicized giant Great White sightings over the past week, one in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts and another in a lake north of Sydney, Australia--unfortunately they were both just the ravings of two crude, old, and probably drunken men.

On Thursday morning, 60-year-old Michael Lopenzo reported seeing two 22-foot-long Great White sharks lurking off Martha's Vineyard--the same beach that Spielberg shot Jaws. Predictably, this caused quite the panic. Michael Lopenzo, was arrested this morning for disturbing the peace because he was so full of shit. Allegedly, Lopenzo told police that he spotted the Sharks from a fishing boat named Alicia Li which was owned John Kennedy. There is no such boat, and lying about John Kennedy in Martha's Vineyard is a sure fire way to take a wicked pissah of an ass kicking. Lopenzo also gave his address at a homeless shelter.
[source]

This story is even worse: On Wednesday, a fisherman reported catching a 21-foot Great White in a net. He said he cut it loose because his boat was only 18 feet long. The funny thing about this fish story is that the Shark was supposedly sighted in Tuggerah Lake, which is a small brackish water lagoon, with a very small ocean access. Police have declined to identify the fisherman because he is very old and weird and has a natural distrust of the media. It is also probably because he is full of shit. In all likelihood, he caught a Bull Shark in his net, if anything at all, because Bull Sharks regularly wander into brackish and fresh water. Bull Sharks very rarely get longer than 10 feet though.
[source]

Summer just seems to be full of fish tales and bad Shark craziness. When will it end?

Never we hope.

--Sharky

technorati tags: Sharks, Great White Shark, fish tales, Australia, John Kennedy, Martha's Vineyard, Bull Sharks, Tuggerah Lake

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There has been a bit of a stink in the blogosphere--whatever that means--about the Monterey Bay Aquarium's attempt to get another live juvenile White Shark to exhibit. The aquarium's White Sharks--the aquarium claims--come from rescued bycatch from compensated commercial fishermen. Others claim that this is propaganda spread to hide that the aquarium bribes Shark fishermen to specifically target juvenile White Sharks in order that the aquarium may put them on display.

This from Ken Peterson, an aquarium mouthpiece:

Since 2002, we and our university research colleagues have handled 30 young white sharks in Southern California waters. Of those, 29 were caught accidentally in gear used by commercial fishermen as they were fishing for sea bass or halibut. The 30th was caught hook-and-line by our staff, and was one of three young sharks brought to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Of the 29 caught in commercial gear, five died. Some of those deaths undoubtedly were the result of injuries the sharks sustained in fishing nets before we received them. (There's no definitive way to say in how many cases that was a factor.)
We do know that, because fishermen are willing to alert us when they accidentally catch a young white shark, we've been able to tag and track more than a dozen animals and learn more than has ever been known about their movements in waters off Southern California and Baja. You can find the published data from the initial tagging work here.

[LA Times]

Who you gonna believe? Do you really think that only five of the supposed 29 Sharks died? Do you really think that the commercial fishermen were only fishing for "sea bass or halibut?" Which member of the aquarium "staff" was responsible for catching the 30th Shark hook-and-line? If you pay a trophy fisherman to catch you a Shark, doesn't he in fact become aquarium staff? The aquarium likes to give a lot of lip service to their tagging programs. Can't these Sharks be tagged and released without penning them in Malibu and bringing them all the way up to Monterey to but on display for drooling tourists?

Enough words...here are some pictures.

A freshly captive juvenile White Shark:

Same Shark after he becomes stressed:
Notice the squashed rostrum? That is from bumping into the sides of his enclosure.

Squashed Rostrum:

Close up:

On Sunday, a juvenile male White Shark was released from the captivity pen off Malibu after six days, because he wasn't eating. But, there is late-breaking word that a juvenile female White Shark caught off Ventura on Monday is already in the captivity pen off Malibu. It looks like the Monterey Bay Aquarium is really working overtime to get a captive Shark just in time to capitalize on that late-summer tourist revenue.

Read.

Stamp out greed and hubris.

--Sharky

technorati tags: Sharks, Great White Sharks, Shark Fishing, Ventura, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Malibu, bycatch, aquariums, Halibut, Sea Bass

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Actually, if we had our way they would also lose their shriveled little testicles, the vote, and would be forced to wear helmets, but we digress...

Colin Sherman was fishing off the beach at Glinks Gully, New Zealand when he claims to have found a dead 7-foot Great White Shark at the end of his line...hmmmmmm....sound suspicious?
Who is in worse shape, Colin or the dead Shark?

Mr Sherman believes the shark was a juvenile, perhaps a month old, which he says denotes the mother is probably swimming around in the vicinity. He says the shark was dead when he got to it.

[source]

A 7-foot one-month-old Great White, Colin? You gotta lay off the sauce. There isn't a Great White cunt large enough to squeeze something that big out. A baby Megalodon was never even that big. Nice story though about the thing being dead before you got to it and having a mother somewhere in world...What the fuck New Zealand, you guys need to get with the rest of the free world and tighten up your Sharking regulations. In 2008, a fisherman should fear having their picture taken with a threatened species, whether the kill was intentional, accidental(unlikely), or anything else.

Oh, and here is something that was more likely than Colin's Shark being dead when he found it. Global Warming has really been laying havoc to middle America. Look what happened on Monday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa!
Believe!

--Sharky

technorati tags: Sharks, Great White Sharks, New Zealand, tornado, Iowa, Cedar Rapids, Bjork, Global Warming

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Now if we can only give the death penalty to long line fishermen.

An anti-Shark Finning bill was approved by a voice vote by the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday.

“There’s a hell of a lot of two-legged sharks around that are a lot more dangerous than the ones with fins in the ocean,” said Neil Abercrombie , D-Hawaii.

[source]

Shark finning has technically been illegal in the United States since the Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000. The new bill closes a loophole that allowed for the transfer of Shark fins at sea from vessel to vessel without the corresponding Shark carcasses. This bullshit is now illegal. This will make it much harder for large scale Shark finning operations to get their bloody cargo back to Asia for Shark fin soup. The panel also adopted by voice vote an amendment by Eni F.H. Faleomavaega , D-Am. Samoa, to require all fishermen to land their sharks with the fins still attached. This is a minor victory for Sharks. Huzzah.

Try to make soup out of this.

Stamp out culinary barbarism,

--Sharky

technorati tags: Shark finning, Shark Fin Soup, Chinese Food, Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, Somoa, Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii, Deomocrats, House of Representatives, Sharks, Great White Sharks

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It looks like 37-year-old Great White Shark jamee Jason Cull is going to make it.

Jason Cull is lucky that he is Australian. Under George Bush's health care policy that leg brace would have cost an uninsured American $132,000.

Mark Bickerdike was at Middleton Beach in Western Australia that morning with his camera. He thought he was taking a picture of a Dolphin, but what he really shot was Joanne Lucas saving Jason Cull's ass.

Swim Faster!

Read.

Reports claim that there were up to three large Great Whites patrolling Middleton Beach all day.

I was not one of them,

--Sharky

technorati tags: Sharks, Great White Sharks, Australia, Perth, health care, George Bush, Republicans

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