March 10, 2013
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sharks
Sharks. I am Californian. Possibly the oldest memory i have as a boy at 4 years or 3 years old involves sharks. My mother had gone for a swim, i was alone on the beach. she disappeared for a while, because of a current that made her go off base a bit when she was out there swimming. I was too young to understand that type of stuff, her extended absence was automatically feared to be from a shark. 3 or 4 years old and even know i have no recollection of ever seeing a shark, i knew what they were and i knew they were dangerous. i was afraid she had been eaten by one. 45 years old, i still have that memory of that fear strongly vivid in my mind. sharks to the mind of 4 year old are the perception of monsters. A huge , voracious creature that will steal people you love from you, it classifies right up there with any other imaginary creature that lives in the imagination of child. when, i read the comments of adults, towards the impending demise of the sharks. i was sickened. it is with the mind of an adult and educated one that i witnessed , such remarks as ‘go swim in the deeper water and see how you feel when one gets you or good, they will not be taking our fish from us. these and similar opinions were not exclusively limited to one or two people. it was the consensus of a majority as they attacked a person that actually was as dismayed as i am about the fate of sharks.
as is wont, i began to fathom a complete spite for the people that were writing these idiot remarks. but, unfortunately as any university educated person, i began to rationalize this all out. slowly i began to realize that it isn’t them i am angered with, it is the very scientists that seem to be just pulling our legs when they claim that the attitude for sharks has been changed. they haven’t achieved nothing. it is terrible. they haven’t even explained the very real problem that we face if these beautiful animals are gone. so i have mulled over this all day. i have constructed so many mental scripts in my head, then i had actually decided that it is pointless, that the human race is diseased with its mindset and why would i even bother?
My knowledge is primarily ancient stuff. yet, if anyone understands paleontology at all, they understand that sharks play probably more of a role then even dinosaurs. so, even if the actual science that deals with them directly is reneging and somehow not getting the extreme importance of these animals across, it seems that ultimately, by my nature , i have no choice. if, they cant get the common person to even realize what can happen with their disappearance or even get people to understand the impudent mentality these animals innocently face. then, i guess, it is up to a person like me.
honestly, i am finding it hard to get inspired to inform and educate about them, from what i know. not because of them, because of us. because we are allowing something that in reality never should be happening in the first place. our excuse of the past of not knowing what this kind of mindless destruction of earth does, does not apply. we will be guilty absolutely , of wiping out one of the most incredible animals that has ever existed. faith is hard to find with these type of things. but first, i guess, i should give some education.
sharks first showed up around the middle of the Devonian era. this is a time when roughly 500 million years ago (i am going by memory) , there was nothing on land. the best way to understand sharks is by comparison, so think of the role a cat plays in ecology. this is basically where sharks first began. they were scavengers and hunters. like tigers or any of the big cats, except lions.though if i was to apply the idea of a lion as far as pack or school, then that belongs to hammerheads. they are the only type of shark that travels in schools. (there is even something about the minor shapes of their heads that is recognizable towards their grouping). the rest of the sharks are like cats. lone and free roaming. the Devonian was an incredible time on earth. most of the survivors from that mass extinction display incredible abilities. something that demonstrates how they survived.the Devonian created boney fish, perciformes. largely only surviving in the land and fresh water systems. now, the boney fish dominate the waters of earth. the cartilaginous ones, that had proven domination are pretty much gone. sharks, are the last of that legacy save i think one or two other phylum( like the lamprey). the rest, are all ascendants from sharks. so basically any cartilaginous fish, is most likely a shark or in someway related to sharks. this, means that these creatures are almost the sole survivors, give or take a phylum. it is the same as finding a dinosaur.not by age , but because it would be all that remains.
during the reign of the dinosaurs, the sharks were hunted and hunters. they were largely the middle section of the ecology. they predominantly thrived in coral reefs.which they do as well now. the large prey eating type, didn’t even show up till near the end of the dinosaurs and roughly during the Holocene. when mammals showed up. they expanded immensely , because the competition from the sea reptiles was no longer there. the only thing that even remotely still exists , that would classify as a competitor in dinosaur is the sea crocodile. sharks, live in a vast desert. the ocean. the ocean is a desert. the food is so far apart and they can go for weeks if not months not finding any food. this seems to be something the modern sharks are conditioned for. they have amazing stamina , with the sustenance digesting slowly. sharks are like artic wolves. who we know little about , but exist in a desert that defies the idea of survivability. part of the sales pitch i see from the biologists is that the shark is an apex hunter. however, so are we, we are not even naturally worthy of that title. it means nothing to state this, without explaining it.
so, i choose to just explain it the way i understand it from prehistory. they as i said were like the cat in the coral reefs. there are certainly other predators in the reef as well, groupers,squid,tuna,barracuda,eels and octopus are examples. the thing is, sharks are their predator as well. not much will go after a grouper.any major upset of the ecology of the coral reefs will spell the end of them as well. yes, if the shark is gone, the ones the Chinese are killing off, are all mostly medium sized sharks, that are imperative to the healthy maintaining of the reefs. you can pretty much count the end of a lot of things when sharks are gone . this is exactly what paleontology learns and deals with. so, with history of the earth written in rocks, we know that a screwed up ecology in coral reefs equals, end of reef.
an example of what i mean is, the condition that exists in some segments of the Japanese water. it is void of oxygen ,( one thing that may happen). as a result jellyfish are the apex hunter there. not very much else can survive there. with no predator to cull off the weak or diseased, the potential for disease increases and it goes downhill from there.This is the kind of effect that we witness with city pigeons and birds and house cats that are allowed to roam outside. the genetics of the pigeons is messed up because nothing can take that screwed up source away. it is called synurbanization and is a very real problem for us and the animals involved.sharks eat the majority of phytoplankton and the predators of phytoplankton. this will potentially create a ice age effect over time due to the amount of gas that is not being recycled by the prey. it actually will create the opposite of global warming. as the Japanese continue to kill off the species that is around the areas they are near, other ones will come in to replace that ecological niche. as a result it is just going to end up eradicating more and more species of shark. then, that is the end. really. this kind of stuff is exactly what happened with the previous mass extinctions, only difference is, it isn’t nature and therefore no animal can evolve a better state to deal with it. our technology will always out do animals and further , it would take roughly thousands of years till any evolution would be able to contend with recognizing the sonar and whatever else means we use. so basically, these ingrates, who have no idea about earth are providing the very real possibility for the end of this era.
sharks are more then necessary for the well being of this planet. without them, we will be at extreme risk. even the opposition, whales, which eat phytoplankton and the predators of phytoplankton are at risk. so once again the world, with all this knowledge just turns a blind eye and stupidly thinks it is untouchable. that for some reason living in a middle of the metropolis protects them from the earth.honestly, i cant understand us humans , why we seem to think there is justification in the destruction of earth and subsequently life as we know it for the purpose of gaining wealth. money is not even an existing reality, we earn money, which can be anything from a loaf of bread to a car. it doesn’t even exist till we make it exist and then it becomes whatever we want it. we cant buy back a species of animal that is so magnificent that it has survive two mass extinctions . money can not make it suddenly reappear. but apparently it can make it disappear.from elephants, a surviving sentient species from the ice age, to polar bears and sharks, whales,primordial cultures of humans in a foraging tribal setting and well heck just about anything we humans feel looks good,tastes good or claim has magical properties is on the hit list. it shocks me. does everyone think that what we learn in paleontology is a joke or an opinion?
to wit, we do know for sure there was three mass extiction, we also know that the last one was not only because of the metoer strike. the other two we haveonly theory. but real evidence to support the existing theory. will the human race be the cause of the 5 th mass extinction on earth? is this our legacy? i really cant say, i can say that as long as we do nothing, letting these japanese kill off the sharks that we pretty much are on that road. personally, i dont want to be part of a species remembered as the one that killed the earth. i kind of want to go in the opposite direction. i guess i am funny that way.
