4

No One Knows If They Should Treat It Like A Tragedy

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Before I left, I packed a shirt with "HULKAMANIA" written on it, so that I could wear it on the beach and not have to go through the trouble of explicitly telling everyone that I was runnin' wild on them. Then, audio of Hulk Hogan leaking idiocy from every orifice was released, and I decided that it would be in poor taste to represent the guy, despite all the good that he's done for the leg-drop industry. I tell you this because, while at the beach, I found people facing a moral dilemma when it came to purchasing shark merchandise. They couldn't decide whether or not it was ethically wrong to have a bloody shark emblazoned on their chests.

3

Everyone Was Willing To Get In The Water If There Were Kids There

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Everyone was nervous about going in the water. When I walked down to the beach for the first time, chairs and towels were arranged as if people had gathered to hold a wake for the death of fun. Barely anyone was splashing around, much less getting in. The ocean had betrayed them.

The fear was cut by the first joke that I heard on the trip. Someone said they would go in the water if there were kids in there, because kids are smaller, easier prey for sharks.

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Children: the perfect high-protein, low-calorie mid-afternoon snack.

Well, on second thought, that isn't a joke as much as it's a morbid declaration of children being snack-sized. That would not be the last time I heard that joke. Remember in 2000, when "Wazzzuuuuuuuuup!?!?" was the alpha and omega of funny things that you could say to someone? It was kind of like that, except with slightly more implications of future carnage.

I just wanted someone else to be in the water before I got in. I would eventually stand near the edge and kick around in it. I wanted to get in, and I couldn't. Soon, a family rushed to the shore a little ways down the beach, and dashed into the surf. It was a group of three kids. Two made it into the water on their feet. The last somehow fell forward and sideways. When you're a small kid, gravity is a random force that inflicts its power upon you until you decide to stop running everywhere. But he instantly managed to get back up and join his siblings out in the water.

2

You Can't Help But Join In The Hysteria A Little Bit

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I think the biggest issue that people have with sharks is a fear of their versatility. Eels will bite the shit out of you, but nature documentaries only show them peeking out of coral formations. Unless you're near a reef you have nothing to worry about. Jellyfish have mouths that are also anuses, so fuck them, who cares. And everything else is forgettable and therefore not worth fearing.

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Barracuda, you're not even worth mentioning.

1

People Need To Realize That Most Animals Aren't Out To Get Them

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In North Carolina, and in many other places, some people have a problem with pit bulls, because shitheads have seen how naturally strong pit bulls are and have trained them to be mean.

Pull yourself together. Stop treating dogs like they're in the wrong when they lash out at you for annoying them all day. Most dogs are going to be mean if you're a jerk to them. But awful people have turned pit bulls into animals that we constantly have to have a debate about. Are they nice? Are they not nice? Regardless of "aggressive breed" accusations, being generally kind and respectful to animals tends to yield positive results.

We've done a similar thing with sharks, where a lot of people really don't respect the fact that they live in the water. People go fishing on piers and throw chum, and we get up in arms when it becomes more dangerous to swim near those piers. "How dare I not be able to swim around freely in a place that is literally serving sharks their food? What kind of apocalypse are we experiencing where sharks are doing what they've been doing for millions of years?" We're probably never going to train a shark to be a house pet, but if we do, oooh, buddy. The world will be mine.

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"Don't worry. He doesn't bite. He swallows whole. ATTACK!"

But treating sharks like harbingers of doom does not help. Treating them like predators that we're going to have to work around is our only option, really.

Man has a tendency to want to conquer things, and when we can't conquer them, our immediate response is "What the fuck is this dog's problem? Blacklist this dumb puppy's whole breed." Water temperature fluctuation and migration patterns have had to do with more sharks appearing, and until we get a peace treaty from them that reads "Sorry. No more bites. Jaws 3 was terrible, tho. -Sharks," we're going to have to be on our best behavior and give them some leeway as creatures that might chomp on us.

Co-existing doesn't always mean learning enough about something to be totally safe from it. Sometimes it just means not being an outrageous dick about stuff.

Daniel is a shark wearing an elaborate man costume. It was a trick this whole time. He has a blog.

You'd think with all the Shark Week the population watches we'd be more informed about handling a shark sighting. Maybe that's why Adam Tod Brown calls for an end to Shark Week in 6 Reasons Shark Week Should Be Stopped. And if you think sharks are bad, wait until you read 6 Animals That Kill Nature's Scariest Creatures For Fun.

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