Area man jumps the shark

By adamg on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 10:09am

Wildlife officials not pleased; Henry Winkler unavailable for comment.

Free tagging:

Wildlife

Sharks

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Comments

mensa candidate

By John-W on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 10:28am.

So when animals do this to humans, we typically hunt then down and kill them.

If you see this guy

By Stevil on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 10:41am.

Jump on his back and ride him around a little while - see how he likes it. Hope someday one of his basking sharks has a Great White friend on the other side of the boat.

Remind me later

By Kaz on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 10:55am.

Guys, remind me later not to tell you about all the equestrians, the dolphins and killer whales at SeaWorld, monkeys trained to ride dogs, alligator wrestling, bull riders, and polo players...

The guy grabbed a basking shark and rode it around a bit...it's not the end of the world for either of them.

But just as stoopid as any of those examples of human-wild animal interactions you list (which I guess would be the alligator one, and arguably the killer whale one). The human-domesticated animal interactions are things some people might want to debate, but I'm no PETA member (or NAMBLA for that matter) so whatever. The guy's free to do what he wants to do and we're free to say "what a maroon" because some news director thought this was worth putting on television and then Adam thought it was worth putting here.

Good god! Think of all the productivity lost by this incident... I could be clipping my nails now!

Domesticated animals came from somewhere

By Kaz on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 11:35am.

The point in the domesticated animals being raised is that at some point in our past, they were wild...and we jumped on them. I'm not saying this guy was planning on becoming Aquaman and domesticating basking sharks for water polo matches...but our history is rife with our mastery of animals for both work and recreation.

so..

By John-W on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 12:04pm.

This guy is just helping evolution along? Perhaps by potentially removing his genes from play? Our history is rife with lots of things for both work and recreation. "It doesn't make it alright." ~T. Hall

As long as we're talking domesticated animals, there's been a lot of recent theorizing about the process of the domestication of dogs and it seems to be much more a mutual evolution of our two species rather than just the dominance of one over the other (like perhaps goats, sheep and the like).

Not all of them. The current

By anon on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 12:55pm.

Not all of them. The current theory on dog domestication is that they kind of slid into it by following humans around and scavenging our junk rather than us forcing them into domestication.

Oh but of course

By Stevil on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 11:21am.

Those are all exactly the same! (the alligator wrestling and bull riding are equally obnoxious)

Domestication of animals and humanely killing them for food are not the same as harrassing and torturing them. Leave the basking sharks alone - if you want adventure go pick on something that can defend itself like an alligator, a bull or a great white or maybe a polo player and then tell me how tough you are.

Note that when the killer whales really don't want you riding them they pound you, drown you and eat you. There's a time and a place - jumping on an essentially defenseless, harmless animal in the wild that doesn't know you or trust you is neither. That goes even for humans - if this guys kid jumps on his back, that's fun and games and perfectly fine. If I truly did that it's assault and at my weight possibly assault with intent to kill! :-)

Deadly weapon

By Kaz on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 11:37am.

Intent to kill? In Boston, that depends...were you wearing shoes?

Clogs

By Stevil on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 12:00pm.

My friend from Sweden gave them to me - great for a quick trip to the convenience store. And no animals were harmed in the making of the clogs - but a valiant tree gave its all.

Whew!

By Kaz on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 1:23pm.

Because I thought you said crocs at first, at which point I was going to have to kill you.

Interesting dilemma I just came up with in my head. Maybe Jake Wark or Pete could chime in here...if I kick someone wearing crocs or uggs, is that considered a deadly weapon (shod foot)? Because I really think that's stretching it.

Spectacular subtitle on the

By t-honks on Fri, 07/29/2011 - 3:02pm.

Spectacular subtitle on the linked article.