Here's how NOT to treat wildlife. Florida Beachgoer Drags Wild Shark By Its Tail For Photo Op

[Liberal_in_LA]

** grey shirt buy pulls it back into the water after selfies over**

Florida Beachgoer Drags Wild Shark By Its Tail For Photo Op
Here's how NOT to treat wildlife.

They are not photo ops, people. They're animals that deserve better.



In another instance of beachside picture seekers going too far, a man was videotaped in Palm Beach, Florida roughly pulling a shark out of the water by the tail and then posing with it as onlookers clicked away, the Brevard Times reported.

The video (above), posted to Facebook by WPTV Channel 5 reporter Ashleigh Walters, quickly attracted comments ranging from "idiot" to "Someone should drag that guy around in the water just for pictures."

One animal conservation group was quick to condemn the incident.

"Removing a shark from the ocean for the sake of a selfie is highly cruel," Elizabeth Hogan, U.S. Oceans and Wildlife Campaign Manager of World Animal Protection, told The Huffington Post.

"This animal would have been suffocating and unable to breathe the entire time it was kept out of the water," she added. "Many shark populations have declined by more than 90 percent over the last 40 years; posing with sharks on land for photographs needlessly jeopardizes their lives and well-being."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/florida-beachgoer-shark-photo-op_us_56cb7165e4b0928f5a6cbed7

Video of the incident shows the shark thrashing near the shore before an unidentified man wearing multi-colored swim trunks grabs its tail and yanks it onto the sand. The animal continues to struggle until the man holds it down for a few photos.

The one-and-a-half-minute video ends with a different man dragging the shark back toward the water where the waves meet the shore. Ashleigh Walters, the WPTV reporter who recorded the video, wrote in the description that after the video ended the shark was taken into a deeper area where it didn't resurface for several minutes.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/gone-viral/os-man-pulls-shark-water-pictures-20160222-story.html

[restorefreedom]

1. fucking troglodyte. nt

[dinkytron]

16. troglodyte with a man bun.

[restorefreedom]

18. lol

[Logical]

2. I so wish he would of lost a finger. Just one! Asshole. nt

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. Does everyone realize the largest extiction event ever recorded is taking place now?

Species are vanishing faster than when dinosaurs disappeared during the K/T extinction event.

[woolldog]

5. What useful purpose do sharks serve?

None. I don't care about them going extinct.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Apex predators

That is the role they serve.

[Press Virginia]

31. Well that Apex Predator just got his ass kicked by a fat man with a bun

the guy's an idiot but that shark was looking for it.

don't start none won't be none

[lpbk2713]

10. They teach other fish how to be fast and evasive swimmers.

[woolldog]

14. Sharks are vicious, violent animals.

I don't care if they're hunted to extinction.

Dolphins on the other hand are cute, intelligent and friendly. I'm upset whenever I hear of bad things happening to them

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. ..

[Glassunion]

20. You forgot something in your post...

this =>

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. So you would not have a problem hunting out an apex predator

because they are not cute?

Mind you, we are in the midst of a mass extinction event... you might get your wish. while we also go extinct as a species.

Ignorant does not start to describe this post

[Nevernose]

41. That's actually true

Sharks keep food webs in balance

Sharks have evolved in a tight inter-dependency with their ecosystem. They tend to eat very efficiently, going after the old, sick, or slower fish in a population that they prey upon, keeping that population healthier. Sharks groom many populations of marine life to the right size so that those prey species don’t cause harm to the ecosystem by becoming too populous.

The ocean ecosystem is made up of very intricate food webs. Sharks are at the top of these webs and are considered by scientists to be “keystone” species, meaning that removing them causes the whole structure to collapse. For this reason, the prospect of a food chain minus its apex predators may mean the end of the line for many more species. A number of scientific studies demonstrate that depletion of sharks results in the loss of commercially important fish and shellfish species down the food chain, including key fisheries such as tuna, that maintain the health of coral reefs.

http://www.sharksavers.org/en/education/the-value-of-sharks/sharks-role-in-the-ocean/

[a la izquierda]

11. What useful purpose do you serve? Nt

[narnian60]

28. Thank you.

[alarimer]

21. What purpose do you serve?

I'm thinking sharks are more useful.

[woolldog]

23. I'm an attorney.

Surely that's useful to society. No sarcastic remarks please.

[Human101948]

27. Yes, remember the attorney who fell off the boat into a pack of sharks?

People on the boat were filled with fear as the sharks circled the struggling attorney but did not attack.

"How could this?" be asked one man.

"Professional courtesy," replied another lawyer.

[LanternWaste]

24. The same useful purpose you serve. No more, and no less.

The same useful purpose you serve. No more, and no less.

[woolldog]

39. And I submit to you

that just as I don't care whether sharks are hunted to extinction, sharks don't care whether humans go extinct. If I were dropped in the middle of the ocean, they wouldn't hesitate to eat me.

[Nevernose]

43. You wouldn't have dolphins if it weren't for sharks

One study in the U.S. indicates that the elimination of sharks resulted in the destruction of the shellfish industry in waters off the mid-Atlantic states of the United States, due to the unchecked population growth of cow-nose rays, whose mainstay is scallops. Other studies in Belize have shown reef systems falling into extreme decline when the sharks have been overfished, destroying an entire ecosystem. The downstream effects are frightening: the spike in grouper population (thanks to the elimination of sharks) resulted in a decimation of the parrotfish population, who could no longer perform their important role: keeping the coral algae-free.

Future generation taking back their sharks! Photo: Jamie Pollack
Future generation taking back their sharks! Photo: Jamie Pollack
We don't hear how the elimination of sharks might impact our best natural defense against global warming. Or how our favorite foods might disappear as a side effect of the extinction of sharks. Or that we could lose more oxygen than is produced by all the trees and jungles in the world combined if we lose our sharks. But we should.

http://www.seashepherd.org/requiem/why-we-need-sharks.html

I really hope you're either being sarcastic (in which case, it's funny but way too dry) or trolling for laughs (in which case it's still funny, but also too dry).

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Yup. The Holocene extinction

[woolldog]

4. That shark would kill me in an instant.

Hard to feel sorry for it.

[kentauros]

15. That shark wasn't big enough to kill anyone.

However, you naiveté about the usefulness of sharks might some day...

[LanternWaste]

25. No doubt you're a very, very tiny person

No doubt you're a very, very tiny person then, regardless of whether one feels sorry for you or not.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Idiot

[kentauros]

12. Not just him,

but also the people not doing anything to get that shark back in the water. If I'd been there, I'd likely have knocked that idiot on his ass and helped the shark back into the water. And, because none of the people taking photos or filming would have helped me either, then excoriating them for the anti-nature dicks they appear to be!

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Yup

That shark was stressed for no good reason

[narnian60]

35. People like you

make me proud to be a human.

[kentauros]

37. Thank you :)

I think, too, that part of it is this change in people due to their phones. They no longer have to be responsible humans so long as they can hide behind that damn phone. It seems to substitute their ability to think and react, or to do so in the ways people used to do in situations requiring their input.

I'm also not sure how successful I'd be in 'knocking someone on their ass' but at least I'd try

[flvegan]

9. Who are these douchebags and how do we stop breeding them?

The other day a dolphin, now bundle-ponytail hipster fuckstick and a shark. "Get my selfie, bro!"

Morons.

[Orrex]

19. Fair's fair

Immobilize him underwater and let the shark have a photo op on its own terms, or whatever it might want to do instead.

[hifiguy]

29. An excellent idea.

[flamingdem]

22. Florida Man gets penis chomped off during Selfie session with shark nt

[joeybee12]

26. Damn, if I were there this a**hole wouldn't have to worry about a shark...

Sure the guy's bigger than me, but sh*t like this really pisses me off...I'd at least geta few good hits in before I took the shark and released it.

[narnian60]

30. Thank you.

[joeybee12]

32. I can't believe no one tried to stop him...nt

[narnian60]

34. I know.

Unbelievable.

[KansDem]

36. I'm tending to believe that had that been a loaded gun...

...someone would be dead or seriously injured by now.

Oh, and the gun fired while he was cleaning it...

[AngryAmish]

38. Tattooed degenerate.

When I was in kindergarten my pappy caught a baby shark on Daytona beach. He then tossed it in the hotel pool...was it called the Aku Tiki? It had a tiki bar theme and the porter was the big black guy called Big Jim. We were buds that week.

Anyway, shark died in an hour.

[madville]

40. Is that less humane than let's say

violently setting a sharp metal barb into the fish's mouth, dragging it through the water until it tires out enough to give up and then killing it for dinner?

Would the reaction be the same or worse if the guy had drug it up on the beach by a hook in it's mouth, clubbed it, then thrown it in his cooler to take home and eat?

I just find it interesting, no one bats an eye at taking pictures with dead fish but taking a picture with a live one and putting it back in the water is outrageous.

[Nevernose]

44. Killing prey to eat is just how the ocean works

The difference is that ocean life (and decent human beings) don't torture and/or harass animals for fun and selfies.

(I do get your point, though)

[Liberal_in_LA]

45. Good.point

[SickOfTheOnePct]

42. Some humans

are such dumbasses.