Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks by Juliet Eilperin
My rating: 4/5 cats
oh my god i just saw this on the teevee tonight, so i am adding it to the review and you should all watch this clip because it is hilarious! to me. also terrifying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Fc-T…
SHARK WEEK SHARK WEEK SHARK WEEK
today is the start of shark week, so get ready. i have been ready for a week now. last week, i watched the best of shark week on demand, i watched jaws for the very first time, and i read this book. i also commanded my father to buy me some goldfish crackers so i could pretend to be a shark while i watch some shark week on the teevee.
no one is more ready than i am.
this book is great. it explores the shark’s meaning across different cultures, but only pretty superficially, and more as a springboard to her real point, which is the rapidly decreasing number of sharks we have to play with. between mainland china’s increasing prosperity and the higher demand for celebratory and status-proving shark’s fin soup, which has led to fisherman “finning” the fish and tossing then rest of its body back into the sea, (and everyone agrees the fin adds nothing to the soup, it doesn’t even really taste good, and is purely for status. can’t you people just buy an escalade and be done with it?) and sporting tourism groups that allow regular folk to go out into the ocean and land themselves a giant hammerhead (seriously – what are you going to do with a hammerhead?? go pineapple picking instead) and of course the accidental capture/killing of sharks by tuna fishermen and the fences meant to keep sharks from getting too close to oceans where people swim.
but, man… it doesn’t look good. sharks have been around since before dinosaurs and even though we know a lot about them, mostly through watching shark week (that is where marine biologists get most of their data, i am sure), no one seems to know how many are left, despite valiant efforts to track them. the ocean – she is too large!
but it is pretty clear that they are struggling and their numbers are dwindling. and it is not getting a lot of press, because it is hard to make people give money to save the shark because this
makes a less adorable t-shirt than this:
although i love the chubby shark on the cover of this book. awwww
but people are afraid of sharks. and it’s true, if a shark goes for your leg, it’s gonna hurt, no lie. but the chances of that happening are pretty small. i hate the beach/ocean for a number of reasons (because it is a fish-toilet, because of the idea of swimwear on me and on others, because of pointy things and weird green slimy things and sand in my parts) but shark attacks are not really a worry for me. want some stats i learned from this book??
On average, more than forty times as many Americans seek hospital treatment for accidents involving Christmas tree ornaments than incidents involving sharks
look out!!
…652 people died in chair-related incidents in a single year compared with the 4 killed by sharks
dorks.
so don’t be afraid of the sharks!! they mostly just hang out, looking for real food. we don’t taste good – too bony. we require too much effort to eat. however, swimming with dogs increases your chances of getting shark-attacked, because of the erratic movements and rapid dog-heartbeats. it appears to the shark from afar that a fish is in distress. and when it gets close enough, it is too late.
i am giving a lot of practical advice here.
this book is good stuff – it talks about the dwindling fish situation, and what happens when the apex predators are removed from the equation (basically, jellyfish take over) and how it will affect humans. because it will. make no mistake.
and yet i have to admit – it made me crave fish – i am part of the problem, i know, because i want to make sure i get enough fried clams in me before the ocean runs out of all life and i am stuck eating jellyfish pie, like in America Pacifica, a book which did not make me hungry.
dunno.
i think sharks are fascinating, i loved this book, and i suggest you go watch some shark week and then read this book when the week is over and you go into shark-information-withdrawal.
