This is NOT Our World

Although this blog will eventually encompass many aspects of the wildlife of planet Earth, dangers they face, and ways we can help, this particular post is about an episode of Dirty Jobs, with Mike Rowe. This was an episode made especially for Shark Week, and if focuses on the Greenland shark, a six-gilled mystery living deep below the arctic ice. Mike and his team follow a group of scientists and research students to study this shark, but what I did not expects was how they would go about this.

In order to study these sharks, the research team would ice-fish for them. Yes, that involves hooks, very large and sharp hooks. Now, a lot happens in this episode, but I shall be focusing on my favorite participant, a research student named Bailey. She always wears a smile and has a very happy-go-lucky attitude. Not what you would expect from a mass-murderer. Ol' Bailey's plan is to hook the sharks, and if when they are reeled up they appear too injured to survive, she cuts them open. Now, it may come as no surprise that the vast majority of sharks she has hooked do not survive, given the fact that they have been impaled by an enormous hook. After she is done cutting off the poor sharks head (while it is still alive) she proceeds to open up its stomach. She then expresses excitement when she finds fish heads in the sharks belly, leading her to the discovery that this shark eats fish. Golly, a shark that eats fish! Who would have guessed?!

Anyway, at the end of the episode, Mike demands that Bailey justifies what she is doing. She explains that she looks at it as being for "the greater good." Now, this is a shark that has virtually zero human contact and affects the lifestyle of no one. I would love to know exactly what "greater good" this monster is referring to. Our good friend Mike is not satisfied with her answer (who would be?) and proceeds to seek an explanation from a senior member of the research team. Suffice to say, he cannot justify this act either, although he attempts to.

If you are as outraged by this as I am, please comment. Thank you.