Author: Sandra Laight

Words, Women and Sharks

The phrase domestic violence is almost comical in its connotation. Say it. Then, think about it. What do you picture? If you really think about the two measly words, they don’t amount to much do they? I picture a malfunctioning toaster blasting a piece of hot toast into an unsuspecting breakfast patron’s eye. I also sometimes picture a runaway vacuum cleaner nozzle getting the better of some unsuspecting vacuuming person’s hair. I rarely think of those two words as what they really are and what it should be called – men terrorising and killing women and children in their own homes. That is what is should be called because that is what it is. It is not random inanimate domestic household appliances gone awry and causing violence. It is men terrorising and killing women and children in their own homes.

The phrase shark cull is almost comical in its connotation. Say it. Then, think about it. What do you picture? If you really think about the two measly words, they don’t amount to much do they? I picture a shark with long hair getting a hair cut by some crazy cleaner wrasse with tiny scissors. I also sometimes picture people wading into water with the bright orange batons that runway personnel use at airports to guide planes waving masses and masses of sharks who are clogging up the shores in directions away from beaches. I rarely think of those two words as what they really are and what it should be called – humans killing sharks to minimise the already miniscule chance that they may injure bathers on the coast. That is what it should be called because that is what it is. It is not a minimising of an out of control population of potential vermin that require thinning out for the safety of crops or the prevention of disease. It is humans killing sharks to minimise the already miniscule chance that they may injure bathers on the coast.

Now, before you accuse me of diminishing the death of women or sharks to the detriment of the other, bear with this argument, convoluted as it may be at this early stage.

Last year, 4 young men died from coward punches by the hands of other young men who were complete strangers. This received massive amounts of air and print time and publicity campaigns are still running to stop this scourge of despicable violence.
During the same period of time, 72 women died by the hands of men they knew and shared or at one time shared a life with. During this same time, over 100,000,000 sharks were killed by nets, hooks, knives and machetes by complete strangers who shared a commodity based relationship with the sharks who were and are not aware of this relationship.

The publicity campaigns for the coward punches and the sharks far exceed the campaigns for the violence of men against women and children. Coward punches seem to have thankfully stopped and the campaigns seem to have worked. There has not been a fatal coward punch incident since the campaign and the bar lock outs started.
The shark awareness campaigns are taking hold around the world and many cities and countries are banning shark products. The anti-cull campaign has a worldwide vocal public who continue to denounce the Western Australian government’s killing of more than 150 sharks and counting since the beginning of the cull in February 2014.
Male violence against women has not only not diminished but is actually believed to have increased.

Obviously there are myriads of issues to be discussed here and yes, they are complex and varied but there seems to be a clear message that people understand what the campaign is saying about coward punches but not sharks and not about men killing women and children in their own homes. I believe language has a lot to do with this.
The words king hit were replaced by the words coward punch. These two words speak the truth to the situation. A king is not performing the act, a coward is. Through this act of changing the words to speak the truth, the public have listened and responded. It is time to do the same for sharks, women and children. The words currently used are not speaking the truth to the situation. They are bureaucratic words couched in paperwork and wrapped up in red tape. Cull needs to be replaced by lure and kill. Domestic violence needs to be replaced, but by what? The word domestic is far too cosy and on the flip side it is wrapped up in privacy and an inability to intervene and the word violence is too general to be effective. The word coward seems to work here for all three acts. Cowards are the agents of all three acts. Perhaps the new campaign for sharks should read cowards luring and killing sharks out of fear and cowards hurting and killing women and children in their own homes.

Perhaps when we start speaking the truth, the truth will change.

September 4, 2014

Human Options and Animal Choices

Are these in binary opposition or can they be mutually respectful and beneficial?

Animal choices are becoming increasingly limited as their habitats are being diminished by human interference. Elephants do not choose to run away and join the Circus; they are kidnapped, broken and are then enslaved there. In effect the same goes for our domestic pets. They don’t come to our doors asking for our company, we take them there.
There are of course exceptions to this rule. There are animals who are wild and make the choice to be in our company, sometimes for food, sometimes for companionship and sometimes for both. Pocho the crocodile and Chito Tarzan the man in Costa Rica are an amazing example of this.

It has been pointed out to me that in terms of sharks, the fact that they are difficult to see and study has worked in their favour. They haven’t been put on a leash as much as our terrestrial companions have been. They have thus far managed to avoid annihilation unlike many other species. They, thankfully, continue to exist despite our best efforts.

In February of this year, the shark alarm sounded at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia and my friend and colleague was there in the sea with the shark. His recount of the event was fascinating; mostly because of the insights he got out of it. He said the most striking part was the silence of it. “It had happened so fast that if the shark had hit anyone underwater, there would have been no sound at all – you would just be gone.”

He said that the shark was about 10 feet in length and was about 15 feet away from him in the next swell. It came in diagonally toward the beach. He said it could have knocked any of them off in a second. There were about 15 people in the water bobbing outside the breakers and it swam between them in a lightning burst about a minute later. He said it was only terrifying to him in retrospect, at the time he felt no fear and thought the shark was hunting the fish that were around. He never felt the shark was after them, it was aware of them, but not interested. It was looking past them at its prey, the fish.

Bondi is a netted beach where many sharks are entangled and drown each year. Yet, this shark, who had made it past the nets and was in the surf zone, had chosen not to bite-investigate any of the bathers around it. Instead it chose to pursue its regular prey, fish. This shark made a choice: to pursue small, difficult to catch prey instead of the larger, easier option of the humans within easy reach. This brings up a myriad of questions as to why. Questions we rarely ask.

Was the shark, as my friend had surmised, aware of the bathers but saw them as mere obstacles to its prey? Were the bathers the 23rd bowl – an extra choice – or were they merely part of the seascape the shark was occupying at the time? Sharks have been proven to learn – in fact, 80 times faster than cats according to David Attenborough, yet this is rarely investigated on the side of human / shark benefit.

New research into rare earth magnets as shark repellents is being conducted as an alternative to nets. Sharks can learn to avoid areas and be attracted to others. Regular yearly migrations of sharks to feeding areas have been observed; whale sharks to snapper spawning grounds, various sharks to the South African sardine run…the sharks have learnt where and when the food is. We should be able to harness this intelligence of theirs to become entangled with our own for mutual benefits.
We are only scratching the surface of the hidden lives of sharks. The human world has the option to give sharks the choices they are capable of making. The real question is will it?

Making Sharks Like Us

The worldwide campaign to save sharks has gained momentum and is a heartening occurrence. It seems that people really do love sharks and are giving their utmost to make governments and policy-makers listen to them. A recent ad for workplace safety even states that coconuts kill more people than sharks as an example of probability neglect. However, while these campaigns are great examples of human compassion for wild animals, the slant of many of the ads is distinctly mammalian. They are appealing to the soft and fuzzy side of human emotions and are often trying to portray the sharks as soft and fuzzy themselves.

The increased inclusion of tonic immobility in a lot of shark footage is trying and most likely successfully changing people’s minds about sharks. Changing people’s minds may be a good thing but not if it is at the shark’s expense. Tonic immobility – the act of caressing and turning a shark on its side or belly to render it immobile and catatonic is an astonishing discovery. While this a good thing for the image and study of sharks it has been revealed that it is stressful and potentially harmful to sharks.
Photo ops of divers kissing calm, docile sharks are no doubt of value to changing the image of sharks but why can’t we just accept them as sentient beings who share the planet with us and are worth saving? Why the PR blitz of man taming the beast?

To me, the most haunting and real images of sharks are the ones of them being cognisant of our presence. Scenes of them watching us, bumping us, investigating our presence, sometimes even braving the risk of taking food from us, circling us and then swimming away – these are all the most common images of the shark / human interface and yet they have been neglected for the blood-soaked ‘attack scenarios’ or the circus act of tonic immobility.

Shark week is on at the moment and as I do not have pay TV I will be missing the extravaganza of Sharknado 2 and all the other sensationalist portrayals of sharks as man-eaters or even worse, villains who mean us harm. All of this is adding up to the same thing – making sharks like us. That is to say, we are making sharks akin to humans – capable of malice and cruelty and spite, or capable of love and affection and emotional connection, like us. We are also, making sharks like us, that is to say, making them tolerate and look forward to our company through the act of feeding them and ‘taming’ them for our recreational amusement.
None of this seems focussed on the shark side of this interaction. We want them to like us or be like us but there does not seem to be much indication that we like them as they are – wild, able to learn and make choices we may not like, unpredictable and potentially dangerous. These attributes do not seem to fit with what we are willing to expect of them.

The most searing example of sharks as sentient beings comes not from the aforementioned scenarios but rather from graphic footage of them being finned alive – the nictitating eyelid flicks over the shark’s eye with each hacking cut of the machete being used to remove each fin. It’s eye, not a lifeless or dead or doll’s eye as it has been so commonly described, but a sentient, intelligent eye is looking straight ahead as it’s finless body is positioned on the edge of the boat by the laughing fisherman as he grips the skin on the top of its head, squeezing savagely before letting loose his grip and allowing it to slide overboard to drown. That shark is sentient, it is feeling pain and I have no doubt it is feeling its own demise. It is aware and it is telling us that loud and clear as the camera catches that final look.
If we are so desperate for sharks to be like us, then look closely, they are.

The Real Final Frontier

While humans search for new planets, new life forms and new experiences, the real discoveries are being left undiscovered right under our noses. In our very short time on this planet, about 50,000 years, we have barely scratched the surface of the potential relationships we could be having with the creatures we share this planet with.

To give a few examples, scientists still believed that animals were not capable of feeling pain in my lifetime. Naturalists had to prove to biologists that crocodiles actually cared for their young in the way mammals do. And recently, humans have formed deep long-lasting relationships with hippos, crocodiles and fish; relationships that people believed were impossible between these species.

Dogs have evolved to read our faces differently to other species so as to communicate with us on our level. Meanwhile, we humans are looking but not really seeing the animals we share our space with. We have learnt some basic communicative signs from animals such as a wagging tail in a dog is good but in a cat is bad, but truthfully, we have barely explored this final frontier of human – animal interaction.

Christian the Lion captured the world on an amazing scale and people are still amazed that an animal can hold such fond memories for such a long time about a relationship with a human. But why is this the case? Why are emotion, affection, nostalgia, love and mourning the sole domain of humans? Many have argued that the Judeo – Christian way of thought has shaped this deep-seeded belief that the emotional world and the world of the sole is completely a human one. Surely, humans cannot be the only card-carrying members of this club.

People who loved animals were and still are considered weird, alternative, or somehow different. Thankfully, pioneers like Jane Goodall, David Attenborough, Konrad Lorenz, Ron and Valerie Taylor and many others have helped to break down that bias and have shown the world the possibilities of human – animal encounter in a very enlightening way. Imagine how impoverished the world would be without knowing that chimps share 98% of our DNA or that sharks are capable of learning. This is the tip of the iceberg.

We now know of tonic immobility in sharks – an incredible discovery that enables humans to render sharks immobile and harmless by overloading their sensory systems through gentle touch, twisting the tail and flipping them upside down. This is unlearned behaviour and is thought to be a defence mechanism. Tonic immobility allows an engagement with the shark on a very human level as touch is an essential component of the human condition and it has been brought to the shark world in a brave and groundbreaking way.

However, while this procedure has allowed scientist to tag and examine sharks in a much less stressful way, it is also being used in a tourist capacity as a type of circus trick for recreational divers to observe and touch these animals. Scientists are now learning that the procedure is much more stressful for the sharks than previously thought – altering blood pressure and causing hypoglycaemia is some cases.

The ability to interact this way with potentially dangerous sharks is a wonderful discovery and does have very positive implications for shark first aid, however, yet again, wild animals are being ‘put on a leash’ for the safety of human interaction and this does not afford the shark the rights of agency or respect it deserves.

Where does this leave the human – shark interface?

July 25 2014

When people and animals collide in unfavourable odds for humans, the language used in reporting these interactions is decidedly biased on the human side of the argument.

https://twitter.com/RDollery/status/429469726180642816

Who can forget that famous placard at the WA Anti-Cull Protests held up by two men which read “Sharks Kill Innocent People”? I still cannot understand what this sign is trying to express or indeed what it means. How do these men know of the innocence of the people unfortunate enough to be fatally wounded in a shark bite incident and more importantly, what do these men claim these people are innocent of? Breaking and entering, impure thoughts, infidelity?

This is not the first time the word innocent has been used on the human side of an animal / human altercation. It creeps into the rhetoric again and again. Just tonight, a piece aired on Seven News of a crocodile handler whose hand was seized while feeding a crocodile at a South Coast Zoo. The couple who filmed the event even claimed that they watched “a man, an innocent man, get dragged to his execution, fair dinkum. ” Again, what does this mean? Clearly there is some sort of perverted sense of justice being applied to human / animal interactions where humans are automatically considered innocent in opposition to animals which seem to be deemed the opposite, guilty.

Here are just some comments I found on a site after a Google Advanced Search with the exact phrase “Sharks kill innocent people” :

Sharks can fight back at least and that is why humans hate them more.
CyberDeath11826-30, MAug 9, 2013

Why do sharks kill innocent people even when unprovoked?
tdmpel22-25Aug 9, 2013

Personally I believe a lot of people live in the “Eliminate the threat” kind of lifestyle, I don’t think these creatures deserve to be killed in their own territory. A man has the rights to “Castle Doctrine” and kill a dangerous intruder in their house, I feel its the same with Sharks, its their territory, they see us as an intruder or food but we see cows as food so no one really has the right to claim “But they’re dangerous!” because cows don’t have a say.
YvonneG9318-21Aug 9, 20131
Heart

I want them extinct except the kinds that never get over four feet long and basking sharks, and I am confident we would be fine without them.

The site is:
http://www.experienceproject.com/question-answer/Why-Would-Someone-Want-To-Kill-A-Poor-Innocent-Shark-:)/2267861 TahatchTruthteller36-40, MAug 9, 2013

There is an interesting range of comments here but again, the language is the human construct of a sense of justice – either for or against.
I do find Yvonne’s comments both insightful and interesting, not just because on the surface I agree with her sentiments, but because she brings up the idea of defence in terms of territory and she also brings up the idea of an animal’s ability to defend itself and it’s agency as being dangerous or not.
We humans are failing to acknowledge that wild animals, and indeed all animals, have the ability to defend themselves and their territory. Even my domesticated cat Rufus has inflicted serious harm on me and others in his four-year lifetime including a tetanus shot for an unfortunate cat-sitter. I do not begrudge my cat or any animal for that matter in exercising their right to defend themselves or their territory if they feel threatened. They have evolved with physical attributes which enable them to do this and our existence and sharing of space with them does not diminish that fact.
The language we use to describe these interactions has to be investigated much more closely. Language is the basis of human communication; it is a vessel for emotion and action and it is being used in a manipulative way when dealing with animals.
Even the word cull, which is commonly used for the mass slaughter of animals in Australia including kangaroos, flying foxes, Indian mynahs and now sharks, is a very misleading word.

Cull is a very gentle sounding word. The Oxford Dictionary definitions are as follows: 1. select, choose or gather from a large quantity or amount (knowledge culled from books) 2. pick or gather (flowers, fruit, etc…) 3. Select (animals) according to quality. Esp. poor surplus specimens for killing.

Even this definition only brings in the truth of the act in the third definition and even then, the WA government’s act must surely be in violation of law as sharks are not in surplus as CITES and many other organisations have attested, they are in fact in shortage in many areas worldwide.

By scrubbing the blood off words such as cull, legislation is able to pass, as these gentle words do not trigger emotional responses in people. If a more accurate and less palatable word such as slaughter were used perhaps the situation would not have gone as far as it has.
It is time to look closely at our language and use of it when dealing with animals and people. People are not innocent in this debate and animals are not guilty.

Dear Colin Barnett
and the Western Australian Government,

I ___________________________________
understand that the ocean is neither a swimming pool nor an aquarium, it is wilderness, and as wilderness, there is a small chance I may encounter the wild creatures that live there.
I hereby acknowledge that as a recreational user and temporary visitor of the ocean that I do not require special consideration nor do I require the Western Australian Government, nor any government, to legislate on my behalf or in my name to turn the ocean into a slaughterhouse for my protection.
I henceforth can enter the water with this knowledge and take responsibility for myself without your help.
Thank you

_________________________________________
Signature and Date