#sharks kill roughly 14 humans a year

[humanshark]

😟...

This is a tribute to Peter Benchley, not the movie Jaws (1975)

The author of 'Jaws' dedicated the rest of his life to reversing the unexpected negative impact his book had on the image of sharks.

Not only were sharks supposedly killed to create props for the movie, but 'Jaws' ended up awakening a bloody sea of ignorance in people at the time, who, haunted by an irrational fear and lack of understanding about marine predators, felt motivated to take to their boats and kill thousands of great white sharks in the most feared ways.

Such as the promotion of great white shark hunting championships that targeted the biggest ones, which were mostly pregnant females who, after being displayed as a trophy, had their jaws ripped off and their bodies discarded in the garbage.

Fear spread widely to all shark species, creating a lack of sensitivity that made it convenient to exterminate entire shark populations around the world that for a long time remained invisible to people's perception.

And this has continued to resonate for a long time with the entertainment media perpetuating the portrayal of sharks as monsters, newspapers favoring sensationalism about shark incidents, governments promoting shark culls, the advance of the unregulated predatory fishing industry, scientists not being supported in their studies of marine predators, the destruction of their natural habitats and the pollution of the oceans.

For thousands of years, sharks have taken care of the health of our oceans, older than the dinosaurs or the first trees, they have gone through great mass extinctions, they have been worshipped and respected as gods and guardians by oceanic peoples and now we demonize them in our media and exterminate them by the millions every year, who is the real monster?

We are shark-eaters.

I hope you can also hear what Peter Benchley himself had to say about all this:

I finally finished this artwork! Hope you like it. At some point I will adapt it for my little Redbubble store.🛍️

I reduced the quality to try to prevent them from stealing. I hope it's enough! 🙁

---

I posted it in my little RedBubble store for anyone who wants it! There are clothes, prints and other curious things.🛍️

⭐️Link: redbubble.com/people/Requinoesis/

I also published it on INPRINT if you want a print with quality paper, I hope you like it! 🖼️

⭐️Link: inprnt.com/gallery/requinoesis/

[thereallifecath]

Every time someone tries to justify wearing fur, my heart breaks a little. I just don’t understand the disconnect. Ever since I was a little kid I looked in eyes of animals and wanted to hug every single one of them (except snakes, they can stay at a distance).

Sharks were supposed to be scary, vicious animals that only feasted on human flesh for the hell of it... they scared me when I was three. Then I grew up, and learnt that on average around 3-4 people die of shark attacks a year, whilst humanity kills roughly 100 million of them each year. They’re living breathing animals that sometimes mistake humans for seals - food.

The various amounts of animals that die a gruesome death for fur, to name a few; beavers, chinchillas, cats and dogs, foxes, minks, rabbits, raccoons, seals, bears, wolves. Look, I understand if you are living in a climate or culture that need fur for survival. But I’ve seen a ton of people on here justify because indigenous tribes use fur, they - generally white people, living in well populated, tempered climates - can use fur and leather too. Just like the meat industry, the rise in need for more fur - due to the fashion industry - means more small, fuzzy, cute mammals, are being captured, kept in fucking terrible conditions, and dying a gruesome death just to be skinned and sold for your latest winter coat. Most are raised in captivity. Most don’t even get to see outside a shoebox sized cage their entire life and somehow you’re able to be ignorant enough to turn a blind eye and just say ‘well it feels warm’.

I don’t think I’m ever going to understand that concept. Up until the age of 13, I had no idea that leather, was just a fancy word for cows skin. When I was 14 I watched a video that told the harsh truth that male chicks get thrown in grinders, alive, in factory farms, because they don’t need male chicks. When I was 16, I discovered that to keep up with the mass consumption of meat, almost the entire Amazon rainforest would have to be cut down for agriculture.

“So you want animals to have no purpose?” If humans can exist on earth without a purpose, then so can every other living creature.

I’m not saying I’m a perfect person who’s “woke af”. I’m saying it fucking makes me weep whenever I look into an animals eyes and know the world just wants them dead for consumption of their chicken nuggets. I actively try to better my actions and my effect on this earth and it’s animals. It’s absolutely unjust to kill any human, so why is it so ridiculous for someone to say the same about animals. Why are we better than every other living thing? We’re just not. If humanity continues on its path, we are going to absolutely destroy all the harmony and all the systems in place in the animal kingdoms that make the world go round.

Idk why I felt the need to share this. Maybe because I just saw something about this chinchilla living in terrible conditions and I just... I don’t want any harm to come to any animal - by humans. There is a cycle, a working one, amongst animals. We disrupted it by asking for too much, wanting too much.

[scoutshonor56]

Burning Down the House

With a new year upon us, I decided to leave our pouting, petulant, and clueless “president” alone for a while.  I’m at the point where I don’t want this blog to become a regular, though fun and cathartic, critique of this moron’s day to day behavior.  Besides, who can keep up these days?  Certainly I never intended this blog to become solely a political airing of grievances anyways, when started back in November of 2016 - but then, who would have ever envisioned the likes of Donald Trump in the White House?

 So today I’m going to address an issue close to my heart; the wellspring that nourishes my spirit and is essential to the health and well-being of every living thing on our planet – the environment.  You see, I’m a baby boomer who grew up in the 60’s, and was quite the impressionable 14yr old on April 22, 1970, when the first official Earth Day was proclaimed. That year also saw the creation of the EPA, and like most of us from “back then”, I still hold onto many of the ideals of an aged hippie -  

 Those who know me also know I later worked for NASA - another touchstone for my generation - at Johnson Space Center, inside the television/communication contract, for 14 years.  During that time I got to watch the Space Station being built piece by piece, from when the first module, Zarya, went up on a Russian Proton rocket, to the first crew occupation, to its successful completion.

 I still pay attention to our space program as a tax paying enthusiast, although not nearly as much, and thus I watched a fascinating show on NOVA a week or so back, entitled “To Pluto and Beyond”.  It was about the continuing voyage of NASA’s New Horizons exploratory spacecraft, which is now traveling at roughly 37,000mph some 5 billion miles from our planet and still able to send back data and outstanding imagery to its home base here on Earth (taking over 4 hours to do so).

 In a nutshell, when New Horizons was first launched, in January of 2006, scientists and astronomers didn’t even think much existed past what they call the Kuiper Belt (the area in space past the planet Neptune), other than insignificant, floating chunks of minerals and ice of varying size and shape – such as Pluto, now not even an officially termed “planet”.  

 But soon that would change as our telescopes got larger, more sophisticated, and certainly more powerful (such as the Hubble), revealing a wealth of new discoveries and vastly widening out view, and theories, about space past our solar system.    

 In just a little over two years after its successful flyby of Pluto and its moons, sending back stunning and never before seen imagery, project managers were able to plot a new course that would enable the probe to fly past what is now called 2014 MU69, or its more colorful nickname, Ultima Thule (which sounds much more bad-ass!)  

 To go into any detail about the show and this discovery would require a whole different blog, so for my purpose today, let’s just say the level of technology, engineering, and computational math involved in this exploratory endeavor is right up there with just about any other high achievement in man’s history; an incredible display of determination and shear brain power that simply boggles my mind.  Sure, it was just an unmanned flyby, a probe…but successfully plotted over billions of miles, traveling at 37,000mph through orbiting planets, asteroids, and clouds of space debris, where a collision with something the size of a pea could mean instant disaster?  Where the tiniest fraction of miscalculation can put the craft literally millions of miles off course?  In the harshest and most unforgiving environment imaginable?  You may as well try to explain quantum physics to me.

 So what - what’s this got to do with a Talking Heads song... my point is this: excuse me if I don’t buy into this long running campaign of bullshit and misinformation put out by the petrochemical and carbon-based conglomerates, their money-wallowing and soulless lobbyists, and the special interest groups, who for the better part of fifty years have retained a complete stranglehold on our politicians and policy makers.  They continue to control the discussion of our energy sources with fairy tales and scare tactics in support of a technology that is over 200 years old. Let’s dim the lights, roll out the boogyman, and wind him up:

 “It will cost jobs!!  The transition to renewable and clean energy is too expensive, the sources unable to compete in today’s economy!!  The technology and infrastructure have yet to be fully worked out!!  It’s much more difficult and complicated than you can possibly understand!!  It’s simply going to take more time – it will be a long, slow process, and oil and gas will continue to play a dominant role in the meanwhile!!”

 And on, and on, and on…

 Bullshit!  Germany now gets 40% of all its energy generated from renewable, clean sources.  There are other countries in Europe harnessing tides to generate energy.  Our planet is a hotbed for thermal energy potential.  A recent study done here in Houston, at Rice University, claims Texas (who leads the nation in wind generated energy) has enough sun and wind to completely wean itself off coal within the near future.  

 Since when did America become the nation that couldn’t; that shied away from a challenge, technological or otherwise; that chose to follow instead of lead… was I stoned during that period?  Did I miss something?  Fifty-eight years ago, President John F. Kennedy stood at a podium at Rice University Stadium and declared:

 “We choose to go to the Moon!   We choose to go to the Moon...We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”  

 To put this into context, at that time it had been just over a year since America had launched their first man into space: Alan Shepard riding a Redstone rocket 116 miles into suborbital flight, lasting fifteen minutes.  Back then NASA scientists and medical professionals didn’t even know if a human could survive such a trip, or for how long.  Would they retain their vision, their mental capacity?  Would they lose all sense of direction?  Pass out? Would they be able to endure and function during the required long duration flight to the moon and back?  How would we even achieve such a feat?

 OK, some might say, “Well, sure, NASA had a limitless budget - and after all, the space race was strictly for nationalistic reasons anyway, to beat the Russians to the moon…”

All true, but umm, have you looked out your window lately?  Pay attention to any news?  And no, Fox doesn’t count.  According to a recent analysis, published in the Journal Science (see the story in the NY Times), our oceans are warming far more quickly than previously thought; like 40% faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago.  Researchers now conclude that ocean temperatures have been breaking records for several years straight.  Compounding the effects of our melting polar caps, warm water also takes up more volume than cold water, resulting in sea levels rising at an estimated rate of .13 inches (3.2mm) over the last 20 years.  Satellite measurements tell us that over the past century the Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) has risen by 4 to 8 inches.

 Right now, over the last decade, we are seeing an increase in the number and severity of hurricanes, monsoons, tornadoes and wildfires.  NEWS FLASH Gomer and Thelma Lu, this isn’t a conspiracy perpetrated by greedy and alarmist eggheads in lab coats, nor is it “fake news” or fuzzy science; and it certainly shouldn’t be considered, or treated as a political issue.  It’s rock-solid, provable science that is accepted by 97% of scientists, climatologists, and geologists all around the world, who continue to ring the emergency bell. It’s happening today, all around us, and the bad news is we’re already too late; at this point, if we were to get serious this year, 2019, it will still be a game of damage control; of mitigating the consequences of our greed, ignorance, and gullibility.  

 In comparison, the goal and challenge of beating the Russians to the moon seems quite miniscule to that of restoring and maintaining the health of our little blue lifeboat called Earth.

 “Whatever, our planet is a dynamic, ever changing thing - Earth has gone through similar climate changes before!”   Yes, true – but over the span of tens of thousands of years, you moron.  Man has achieved the same results in barely two hundred.  

Just curious, but what part of 2.5 million pounds/second of co2 pouring into the relatively thin, fragile layer of atmosphere that protects our planet don’t you get?  Too hard to think about, or conceptualize?  Or is it easier for your lazy, flabby, unexercised brain to simply believe that it all just dissipates into outer space – you know, where the alien abductors that beamed you up into their mothership that weekend reside…

 Make America Great Again?  What a sad, short-changed, and utterly empty joke of a campaign slogan… Here, I’ve got one for you: SAVE OUR PLANET!  For your children’s future and their children’s future.  There simply is no option; no magical, last minute solution.  No plan B.  No spare planet accessible, sorry, this isn’t a movie - its real.  

 I simply don’t understand; why isn’t this the number one issue of concern for everyone?  Could there possibly be a greater threat and more important challenge facing us all today?  

 Ah well, what the hell – we’ll all be fine in a couple thousand years after we evolve with gills and become aquamen and women… Although, good luck finding something to eat, as we’re also killing the entire food chain of life in the oceans, from coral reefs to the dolphins, the sharks, and the whales…I guess we could become aquacannibals – now there’s a surefire idea for a hit movie!    Hmm, I wonder if we could talk Jason Momoa into that hard turn in the movie series plotline…  

[kacydeneen]

Law Aims to Ban Long Fishing Net Blamed for Killing Sea Life

New legislation aims to phase out mile-long fishing nets off the California coast that have entangled and killed sea life, including endangered species, by the thousands over the past few decades. The gear, known as drift gillnets, are mainly used to catch swordfish but often net far more than what fisherman are actually targeting, according to an analysis by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit. While tougher restrictions and new regulations are credited for reducing the number of marine mammals unintentionally caught in the nets, state and federal lawmakers insist the impact to the environment is still detrimental.

‘It’s Strangling Them’

“They’re wound up tight in this net and it's strangling them,” said one man who spent nearly 30 days at sea on three different drift gillnet fishing trips in December 2016, September 2017 and December 2017. He spoke to the Investigative Unit about what he observed on the condition he remain anonymous. 

Sea animals “were drowning to death in these nets,” he said. “That's why these nets have to be banned for good — it's the only way to protect sea mammals in the ocean.”

He shot over 100 hours of video while on board two different boats off the California coast. He told the Investigative Unit he managed to get permission from crews to be on board. However, what they didn’t realize is that the he is an undercover cameraman working for animal rights groups.

“The crews and captains were so casual in telling me how many dead sea mammals would come up in the nets,” he said. “Part of what's at stake is our dignity — do we want to kill intelligent mammals that share the ocean and increase its biodiversity so that we can have swordfish on their plate?”

Animal Advocacy Groups Release Undercover and Underwater Videos

His undercover videos, as well as underwater clips showing marine life entangled in the nets, were recently released by a coalition of animal advocacy groups in an effort to get the nets banned. Those groups include Mercy for Animals, Sharkwater, Sea Legacy and the Turtle Island Restoration Network.

“It’s extraordinarily damaging, deadly, inhumane gear,” said Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, who proposed state legislation to phase out drift gillnets. “California is a global environmental leader … I can't quite believe that we haven't closed this loop yet.”

Allen’s plan would offer to buy back permits from fisherman. Those who chose not participate, however, would be subject to more expensive permit fees each year. The current price of $330 would increase to $3,000 by April 1, 2020.

“The damage caused by this equipment is so high that if there are a couple of people who lose their job, you know, I think that that is a cost worth paying,” he said. “We're hopeful that this will be a very humane way of transitioning them out, moving them toward other types of fishing that are much less damaging.”

Allen said: “How much are we going to allow this really small group of fishermen with this one particular type of gear to cause this amount of damage off of our coast when there are other alternatives … that can still get good fish on people's plates but do so in a much less damaging way.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, is also proposing a federal ban on drift gillnets by 2020.

Mile-Long Fishing Nets Face ‘Great Deal of Scrutiny’

Drift gillnets can stretch up to a mile long, or roughly the entire span of the Golden Gate Bridge. The gear is typically 100 feet tall and must remain attached to a boat, and can only be dropped into the ocean from about sunset to sunrise. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration regulates the use of drift gillnets.

“Clearly this fishery has long been subject to a great deal of scrutiny,” said Michael Milstein, a NOAA spokesperson who provided a statement to the Investigative Unit.

“We understand this fishery and its impacts well,” said Milstein, who points to decades of data collected by NOAA. 

Since 1990, the agency has randomly placed government employees aboard fishing vessels to document how often marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds and fish are caught and killed in drift gillnets. The Investigative Unit obtained and analyzed those records — nearly three decades worth — and discovered fisherman only kept about 23 percent of what their drift gillnets caught over the past 28 years. The rest was tossed back into the ocean — either alive, injured, or dead. The Investigative Unit first began reporting on the impact of drift gillnets two years ago.

More Than 4,000 Dolphins Killed in Drift Gillnets

Observers board about 20 percent of all fishing trips that use the nets. So in order to determine the rate for entire fleet of boats using the nets, the federal government calculates estimated totals each year. Using those figures, the Investigative Unit calculated totals for specific species and found drift gillnets have killed 87,929 sharks, 4,135 dolphins and 1,218 sea lions over the past 28 years. The nets also killed an estimated 456 whales and 136 sea turtles, which include endangered and threatened species.

“We have worked with fishermen over the last few decades, and we have also added controls and restrictions to reduce unintended impacts on protected species such as dolphins and whales,” Milstein said.

Tougher Standards, New Regulations

Holes in the netting are now larger and must be at least 14 inches wide. Additionally, noise making devices have to be attached all along the net to scare away unintended victims such as dolphins and whales. Since the federal government started requiring those acoustic pingers in 1997, the number of entangled marine mammals has been cut in half, according to a government report. NOAA is also considering installing cameras on fishing boats to keep a closer watch on what is caught.

“The result is that the fishery is now much safer, although it is also much smaller in terms of the number of vessels than it used to be,” Milstein said. Nearly 30 years ago, 141 fisherman used drift gillnets. Today, only about 20 fisherman regularly rely on the gear.

Fisherman Jobs on Chopping Block

Environmental groups are pushing for fisherman to a use an alternative type of gear known as deep set buoy gear, which uses buoys to drop fishing lines 1,000 feet below the surface in order to better target swordfish and avoid marine mammals that prefer warmer waters closer the surface. In contrast, drift gillnets are set just 36 feet below water.

“Everybody is going to lose their livelihoods,” said Gary Burke, a fisherman opposed to the phase-out legislation. He has used drift gillnets off the California coast since the practice began in the 1970s. 

“They’re pigeonholing [fisherman] in a corner with this bill – ‘take what little money we're offering you or we'll put you out of business through regulations and restrictions and economically force you to do things that will cost you so much you can't afford to go fishing,’” Burke said.

Burke says tougher standards and new regulations regarding drift gillnets have already lessened the impact on marine mammals. Over the past five years, the nets haven’t snagged a single sea turtle, according to government records. The nets, however, did entangle and kill 15 whales during that same time period. While the gear is also used to net certain types of sharks, half the sharks pulled aboard last weren’t the right catch so they were tossed back into the ocean, most of them already dead.

The drift gillnet fishery along the West Coast only accounts for less than one percent of the swordfish consumed across the country. About 76 percent of the nation’s swordfish is imported from other countries, according to NOAA, many of which use drift gillnets and have even fewer regulations than the United States. Burke believes banning the gear in the U.S. will undoubtedly lead to more imports of swordfish that have been caught using questionable practices abroad.

“You're going to get imports from countries that have zero regulations,” he said. “If we don't produce it, we're going to import it — that's just the way it is.”

<!-- .adcontainer, .adunit { display: none }-->

Photo Credit: NBC Bay Area This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. Law Aims to Ban Long Fishing Net Blamed for Killing Sea Life published first on Miami News

[annbrighthaus-blog]

As a follow up to our post, The 19 Things you Probably didn't Know about Death, here are 14 additional things you might not know about death: Your Doctors' Sloppy Handwriting Could Be the Death of You According to a 2006 report from the National Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine (IOM), misunderstandings in medication and dosage due to poor handwriting have killed more than 7,000 people annually. The recent introduction of electronic prescriptions is expected to significantly cut down on these deadly errors. Snack Dispenser, or Bloodthirsty Killing Machine? Since 1977, an average of two to three people per year have been crushed to death by vending machines. So if your candy bar gets stuck in the little coil, just leave it. You don’t want to piss these things off. The Left Hand Path…To the Grave! More than 2,500 left-handed people die each year from using products made for right handed people. The deadliest of which being the right-handed power saw. Hot Shower Hazard In the U.S., hot water related burns account for roughly 1,500 hospital admissions and around 100 deaths per year. The Little Soldier’s Last Stand Muscle cells activated by calcium ions can cause postmortem muscle contractions, particularly in the penis, which can cause erections, and even ejaculation, after death. The Living Dead Cotard’s Delusion (Also known as Walking Corpse Syndrome) is a rare mental illness that causes living people to believe they are actually dead. When Masturbation Turns Deadly Auto erotic asphyxiation is the act of strangling or suffocating yourself in order to heighten sexual arousal and orgasm during masturbation. Unfortunately some people just don’t know when to quit, leading to roughly 600 deaths per year from auto erotic asphyxiation. Man’s Best Friend? We’re all transfixed by shark attacks in the news, but did you know that your furry friend is a bigger menace to humanity than Jaws? That’s right, dogs kill roughly 34 people per year in the U.S. And while the Pit Bull is predictably the biggest culprit, causing more than 245 deaths between 1982 and 2013, breeds that are considered to be more family friendly can also be dangerous. Labradors and Lab-mixes accounted for 54 fatal attacks in the same 21-year period. Eaten by Your Own Stomach Your digestive system is loaded with digestive bacteria that lives on after you pass away. Once you die, this bacteria begins eating away at the dead tissue in your gut before spreading to the rest of your body. Immortality is Real There is a secret to eternal life, but unfortunately for you, it involves being a jellyfish. The Turritopsis dohrnii (also known as the Immortal Jellyfish) is one of the only known organisms on the planet to have developed the ability to return to a polyp state. This unique transformation process essentially enables the jellyfish to restart the life cycle over and over again at any stage of its life. Himalayan Popsicle Graveyard Mount Everest is littered with the frozen bodies of about 200 failed adventurers. Their corpses now serve as gruesome landmarks for climbers on their way to the summit. Tunnels of Terror Due to suicides, accidental falls, and the occasional psychopathic pusher, around 50 people per year are fatally struck by New York City subway trains. You Are Constantly Dying About 40 million cells in the human body die every minute. Dead Man Talking Due to postmortem muscle contractions, gas that has built up in the lungs can sometimes be forced out through the mouth resulting in eerie groans, moans and sucking sounds from the lips of the deceased. There you have it - 14 facts about death that you probably now wish you didn’t know. But I bet you’ll think twice about shaking that vending machine the next time it steals your dollar. If this article inspired you to look into life insurance, get term life insurance quotes here or contact us if you would prefer speaking with one of our representatives.