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NEWS > U.S.A. > CENSUS OF GREAT WHITE SHARKS RAISES FEARS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, INTERNMENT CAMPS
CENSUS OF GREAT WHITE SHARKS RAISES FEARS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, INTERNMENT CAMPS
March 11 2011
San Jose, CA – Despite our position as the apex predator on planet Earth, as the one species that has ever lived capable of dominating virtually every other species of life on the planet, there are still certain creatures that lay beyond our control. While 
there are certainly less obvious examples such as HIV which still have power over us, few things strike fear into us the way some animals are capable of doing, most significantly perhaps the great white shark.
Likely borne from whatever primordial fear that causes us to be fascinated by tigers and lions and dinosaurs, sharks have a profound impact on the human psyche, shaking us in ways that defy logic. Sharks and other monstrous animals, after all, kill very few people and unlike other causes of death interaction with such a creatures is exceedingly rare, yet they still create deep and profound fears in most people. While many would cite ‘Jaws’ as the root cause of such fears of the Great White, it is more likely that that movie simply exploited existing fears which have been deeply rooted in the human mind for ages. Regardless of the reasoning or the rationale, the reality is that
most people do indeed fear sharks, something that is likely to continue despite a new study that shows low populations of the man-eaters, at least low populations willing to take part in the census.
“Once we went out and noticed that we were seeing the same sharks every year, it started to dawn on us that this population isn't huge. This low number was a real surprise. It's lower than we expected, and also substantially smaller than populations of other large marine predators, such as killer whales and polar bears,” said lead researcher Taylor Chapple. “There are thousands of killer whales but just 219 great whites. Based on filling the same niche, and relative metabolic budget of these animals, one might assume that they'd be somewhere in the same ballpark.”
The census only included adult and teen sharks in the region. Shark offspring are federally protected.
“This is certainly an interesting result and one that few would have expected. Most people would have assumed that this region, and other heavily populated areas like Australia and South Africa, would have been teeming with giant man-eaters but that just doesn’t appear to be the case. Unfortunately sharks are not obligated to answer census questions like human Americans and that could skew the numbers a bit,” said Scrape TV Zoology analyst Cambridge Walker. “The reality is that we know very little about the lives of sharks and how they behave. We don’t know their breeding habits or migration patterns and that could throw off the results. It’s also very difficult to get accurate numbers because they don’t comprehend human language and don’t have hands to fill out the forms. Heck, even if they did the forms would get soaked and fall apart.”
The study will revisit the grounds next year in order to compare datasets.
“The major concern with this of course is what will be done with the data. Will this data
be accessible to everyone? Fishermen? Government officials? Advertisers? Those are concerns especially in such a small population which could be vulnerable to intrusion from outside forces. If someone sees these numbers and decides it’s an opportunity it could mean bad things for the indigenous population,” continued Walker. “I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy nut or anything but in the wrong hands a census like this could cause a lot of problems for the shark population in the region and could even affect other marine populations. We may even end up with fluoride in the Pacific, that would be a real tragedy.”
Federal authorities currently have no power over sharks unwilling to take part in the census, something California lawmakers are hoping to change.
Mike Michaels, American Correspondent
NEWS > U.S.A. > CENSUS OF GREAT WHITE SHARKS RAISES FEARS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, INTERNMENT CAMPS
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