Kate Wing's Blog
Best Week Ever (and Last Week Ever)
May 27, 2008
Posted by Kate Wing in Reviving the World's Oceans
On Switchboard, that is. After eight great years at NRDC, I will be heading out into the wild world of consulting as of Friday. There are so many things I've been meaning to blog about, from my trip to the Grand Hall of Evolution in Paris, to the trash raft, and my long overdue Wave Energy follow-up. I'll get to some of those this week, and I'm taking requests, but after May 30th I'll have to put them up at Blogfish where I am joining Mark Powell to tackle the thorny issues of sustainable seafood guilt and gobies.
Today, I'd just like to highlight this excellent FAQ on white sharks from the California Department of Fish & Game, which I stumbled upon while looking up some rockfish assessments. A recent study in Aquatic Conservation looked at 21 species of oceanic sharks and found that 11 were in trouble under the IUCN red list criteria, including the great white. California has protected great white Sharks, but they're still targets worldwide as trophies and as food. Which makes it all themore important for us to come to grips with our response to sharks, which includes "ooh, that's cool" and "that thing can eat me." Because it can, but it's not likely. DFG points out just how unlikely shark attacks are in California, and that worldwide, we still catch more sharks than sharks catch us.
As one old dive instructor used to say "underwater is the only place where man rejoins the food chain." DFG seconds that with my favorite piece of advice:
"There is only one foolproof method for avoiding a white shark attack: stay out of the ocean."
And miss all the lingcod? The odds are still on our side.
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Comments
Ian Wilker — May 27 2008 11:05 PM
Ye shall be sorely missed, Kate. Who, now, will sing the praises of the lingcod, a fish so mean and ornery it made espn's Top 10 scariest fish list?
You and Mark will be a great team -- the superduperstars of ocean-nerd blogging. And I mean that as an earnest compliment, of course. One reason I've really enjoyed your Switchboard blog is that you've so often beamed a down-to-earth relish for the natural history, the policy details, even the argot of your field. As a guy who can spend hours poring over a Sibley guide rolling species names across my palate ("vermilion flycatcher ... bufflehead ... pied-billed grebe ... " and so on), I sensed a kindred spirit at work.
Godspeed!