There is Special Providence in the Fall of a Squirrel...

Today, I caused death. Not intentionally and I certainly am not bragging... but unintentional or not, I killed a squirrel. I did the usual try and slow down...swerve a little... all the things that you do while driving at 25 miles an hour and panicking as you see the squirrel leap lightly into the road in front of you and start to run. But, unfortunately for the squirrel and myself, everything I did was not enough and I hit him. And, while I was going fairly slowly, it appeared to be a quick death.

I feel so uncomfortable with the idea that my actions, unintentional or not can cause hurt, pain, or in this case death. I pulled over to the side of the road and my first thought was “Father, please change this.” My next was “why did I leave the house so early? If I had been a few seconds later.....” That kind of thinking is foolhardy and certainly didn't change the situation at all. I recognize that I may do this to people (hurt, not death) on a fairly frequent basis and that thought is overwhelming and uncomfortably sad. And, as I sat by the side of the road, I think the grief that I have been feeling for weeks just flooded into me and I couldn’t do anything, but climb out of my car and carefully cradle the squirrel in my hands and just sit by the side of the road and cry. I cried for the loss of the squirrel but also my losses and my fears and I just cried. I must have looked a wreck and half crazy... just kneeling by the side of the road, crying and praying and holding this poor dead animal. I eventually wrapped the squirrel in a holey t-shirt and buried it under the snow underneath a beautiful tree and headed off to town to 'fulfill' my responsibilities and commitments.... but throughout the day I could feel the grief sitting so close to the surface of my heart and the tears barely behind my eyelids.

I have to find a way through this grief. I am so far behind in school it isn't funny and I just feel like -nothing-. Just nothing. I do not feel like doing anything and I am just going through some of the motions and pasting a smile on my face and trying not to be angry because that won't help. I frankly do not feel like continuing to endure. I know this sounds funny, but in a way I am so glad that I hit the squirrel because I think I was forced to not only grieve but think about my choices and what I want right now. But I do wish that I could have learned the lesson some other way.

New Thoughts on a New Crisis

During the first week of December 2010, parts of the Red Sea played host to a biological murder mystery as well as to a huge amount of unwanted global publicity. As an added 'bonus', the situation almost correctly mimicked a situation in a well known horror book ('Jaws' written by Peter Benchley and published in 1974) which added to the world wide furor.

For those who have not read the novel 'Jaws', it is centered on a killer great white shark. The author Peter Benchley writes about an animal 'impelled to attack', an animal that 'exists on instinct and impulse', 'aren't very bright', and a 'maniac running around loose, killing people whenever he felt like it'. Other quotes include: "There is a creature alive today without passion... without logic... A mindless eating machine. It lives to kill." The plot of the book is fairly simple. A great white shark kills some people in the ocean off of a small seashore town in the northeastern United States. The police chief tries to close the beaches, but is overruled by the local major who is worried about the tourist industry. The beaches remain open and more people are killed by the shark. A shark expert is called to kill the shark and the shark is destroyed at the end of the book. The movie that was released in 1975 is centered around this simplified plot- leaving out the subplots for the most part.

The situation that has recently cropped up in the Red Sea is not really different. A shark- or more than one – attacked four people in two days. All four individuals survived and the local governor (Mohammed Shosha) declared the beaches closed for 48 hours. After two sharks were killed during that time, he then reopened the beaches and declared that the danger was past. True to the book, a woman standing chest deep in water was attacked and died almost immediately. Sharks sightings in this area are rare and attacks are rarer still- while five swimmers were attacked in six days recently, there have been only six reported shark attacks in the last decade in this area until now. The beaches were then closed to swimming and will be indefinitely, and hunters have been out looking for the sharks suspected. The one major twist is that these attacks appear to have been committed by members of the oceanic white-tip and the mako shark population- and add that scientist believe that one specific shark was responsible for two of the attacks- a finding that is unprecedented... well, outside of Peter Benchley's book of course. Add to that the idea that oceanic white-tip sharks are not considered seriously dangerous sharks for people and are not listed in the top killers.... and this story sounds a wee bit scary! The mako shark that attacked and caused the fatality has been caught and confirmed by checking its jaws/teeth. The oceanic white-tip is still at large.

There are lots of theories about why this 'tragedy' happened. There are thoughts that the fish supply is low causing sharks to have to look harder for food. Others have suggested that snorkelers who feed fish illegally are causing the fish to come closer to land... and bringing their predators with them. Other suggestions include the idea that illegal carcass dumping off shore could be conditioning the sharks to find food closer to the shore making humans more at risk. And other theories that are a tad less likely are climate change and possible Isreali plots- I swear I didn't make that up! The only thing that scientists seem to agree on is that these attacks are the result of humans disrupting the environmental balance in the area. My first thought upon hearing about these attacks was that the sharks are having a harder time finding food. It is also telling that the humans were a 'mistake' attack because almost all survived- they were stalked, bitten and then the shark left-recognizing that this wasn't his typical food. (that's a guess) Let's be blunt- if the shark wanted to eat the humans, they would have had no problems doing so and no one in these situations could have stopped them.

A lot of research has been done... and scientists have studied and discovered a lot more information about sharks – not just great white sharks) since the 1974 publishing of the novel that devastated beach tourist areas across the world by causing panic and vacation changes by thousands of people. We know that sharks are not animals that are looking to eat us. We know quite a few facts including

1. Sharks attack in three ways: the hit-and-run, the bump-and-bite, and the sneak attack. The sneak attack is more likely to happen during the time periods of dusk or dawn and also in murky water. The hit-and-run is the most common where a shark sees a piece of us moving (a hand or a foot perhaps) and attacks thinking it is a fish. Realizing that it made an error, the shark lets go and leaves most of the time. The bump-and-bite is the most dangerous as the shark bumps you to see what you are... and if it decides that you are food will attack wholeheartedly.

2. The three sharks that are more likely to attack humans are the bull shark, the great white shark, and the tiger shark. Each of these sharks have different behavior patterns, a different diet, and a different way for attacking prey. For instance tiger and bull sharks tend to hunt at night while great white sharks tend to hunt during daylight hours. Bull sharks are also more likely to attack in shallow water and by far are considered the most aggressive.

3. The most dangerous to humans is the great white shark which, while usually spitting out promptly its mistaken bit of human flesh, leaves huge bleeding wounds on its victims. The great whites that attack human tends to be in the 8'-12' range in length leading to speculation that they are inexperienced juveniles still figuring out how to hunt for the seals they prefer.

4. We are more dangerous to sharks and humans kill thousands for sport and food every year.

5. Some sharks travel thousands of miles and some have been known to travel 1800 miles in a six month period. Very few are thought to be territorial.

Peter Benchley himself felt some responsibility for the negative attitudes that the general public felt about sharks that he felt were created due to his book. He later in life became an ocean conservationist and in 2000, he wrote: “considering the knowledge accumulated about sharks in the last 25 years, I couldn't possibly write Jaws today ... not in good conscience anyway. Back then, it was generally accepted that great whites were anthrophagous (they ate people) by choice. Now we know that almost every attack on a human is an accident: The shark mistakes the human for its normal prey.”

What happened in the Red Sea attacks is a tragedy and frightening to think about. We as human beings man never know why the sharks attacked, and why such an infrequent thing happened so many times in one short time frame. What we can do is try to figure it out and change our behavior. For certainly, it seems very likely that no matter what the cause, human beings helped cause this tragedy. Blaming or demonizing the sharks will do nothing positive and has the potential to cause even more ecological imbalance as in our fear, we kill any shark we can catch. I hope that the families are receiving the help that they need to grieve and recover and that the victims are safe and recovering as well. But I do hope we see this as a lesson that we can attempt to learn and not as another opportunity for fear and murder. Our Heavenly Father loves us... and the sharks... and the earth. May we remember that... and that we can coexist... together.

The Predictability of Shark Attack

If there is anything that is predictable about sharks, it is that every attack no matter how 'minor' will be reported in full and chilling detail (if detail is not available, supposition seems to sometimes be used by media outlets, observers, medical providers, etc...). The larger it is, not only will it be reported on in great detail, but the stories will become legend and the facts and gossip will continue on to be discussed, dissected and embellished until the attack itself seems to be something out of a nightmare and not what it most likely is... a human being who has entered another environment that is not his native environment and (in most cases) has broken some basic rules that make them a more likely accidental target.

Our planet has billions of people that thrive and move on its surface- the numbers who will ever be party to a shark attack are so small and the number of people that will die from such attacks are extremely rare. Unlike how the media tend to portray an attack, a shark rarely attacks a person because the shark has determined that that the prey is human, edible, and then it attacks for its dinner. Instead, a shark bites because it is curious, confused, or distressed. Like the small baby puppy you bring home who chews on everything (including you) to explore its world, a shark explores much of its world through its skin and mouth. It has no hands and does not breathe air. In most ways, a shark has not changed evolution-wise in millions of years. It swims and hunts for food as, like us, a shark cannot concentrate on leisure until its basic needs are met. And a shark has a very simply brain. It is a strong and powerful collective myth that teaches us to anthropomorphize sharks- to believe that they think like us and feel like us... and therefore since they bite and they attack out of nowhere and the dark depths of water that they are evil, angry beasts. This attitude allows us to feel adversarial towards them and also justify what we do to them in our fear.

There are around 440 known breeds of sharks. They vary in size, shape, behavior, territory, and food consumption. However, a short poll on the street will find that most individuals know two hard facts about sharks. They will know maybe one of two breed names (usually tiger shark or the most popular great white shark) and they will know that sharks kill you and many people die per year. While I cannot say that the breed names are incorrect, the generalization of 'lots of people' or 'tons of people' simply doesn't consist with the facts. With very few exceptions, out of the millions of people that go swimming in the ocean every year all over the world very few people will ever see a shark in its natural habitat let alone be injured by one. As far as I can discover, these are the attacks across the entire world in the last month.

1. In May, a man in Australia was knocked off of his board and bitten on his leg. The breed of shark is unknown and he (the victim, not the shark) is in good spirits.

2. On June 10th in Florida, a young women was bitten by a shark while playing on a boogie board- she received 29 stitches. The breed of the injurious shark is unknown and her bite appears to be 'exploratory' – an 'oops' as a shark showed interest and then realized that she was not anything that he had interest in.

3. On May 18th, two women were bitten by 'a fish' while swimming off a beach of Vietnam. They were led to shore and given medical care. Her injuries are similar to those previously inflicted by sharks.

4. In May, a man was surfing at Point Plomer and he was bitten by a bull shark on his leg. He was treated by a paramedic and he walked away with no major injuries. There was a lot of fishing going on and it is believed that the bull shark was chasing the fish.

5. On April 13th, a young boy was bitten on his leg in Port Alfred, South Africa while surfing. After some surgery he returned home.

All of these attacks were tragedies and scary and painful for those involved. I am not suggesting that because shark attacks are so rare that they are not serious and important to the parties involved. They are also sometimes fatal. But across this vast world, only a handful of people have been attacked by a shark in the last month or so and all have survived. All were swimming in conditions that are considered by most scientists to place them at a higher risk of a shark attack- murky water, in the water with a shark's prey, and swimming early in the morning and during dusk. These conditions are much more likely to cause confusion to a shark and make him more likely to make an exploratory bite. Make no mistake, the fact that these people are still alive and pretty well is because the shark was not all together serious about eating them. The shark recognized that what he bit into was not his usual fare, was different... and possibly other explanations that I can not fathom- in a way I am anthropomorphizing too. :) This year there has been only one documented death which occurred February 3, 2010 to a man who was kite surfing in Florida. He died from blood loss due to the bite he sustained from a bite to the leg.

So while the majority of people believe that sharks and shark attacks are numerous and unpredictable, this is not statistically the case. In fact, in many ways sharks are very predictable. If you swim with seals or in schools of fish, then you are likely to be attacked. If you swim in dirty, murky water- especially when the sky itself is not bright and sunny, then you are at a great risk of a shark sensing your presence and becoming curious about what you are. It can not see you so it will check you out ...with a little bite. With the millions of people who use the oceans for recreation and for a livelihood, numerous is a vast exaggeration. In fact, there is some evidence that shark attack numbers are going down. Some scientists suggest that the numbers are going down due to fewer people traveling to beaches because of the recession. Others suggest that sharks have been hunted by humans too harshly and there are not as many sharks out in the oceans for human beings to intersect with. The numbers of many large shark species have declined by more than 50% due to increased demand for shark fins and/or meat and tuna and swordfish fisheries. (millions of sharks are taken as bycatch each year at these fisheries) Some large shark species have been estimated to have losses at over 90%. So sharks clearly have much, much more to fear from us than any of us do from them.

So when you go to the beach this summer, and look down at the water, before you jump in.... take a moment to remember your place in this world. Remember that Heavenly Father has given us righteous dominion over the land and the animals, but righteous dominion is no guarantee. Remember that we are visitors here (especially in the ocean) and that our Father loves all of his creations and all of his creations have a place and a purpose. Just as we do.

Which is the Most Frightening Apex Predator: The Great White Shark or Man?

(This post is part of a three part series which will attempt to address our relationship with sharks, why we fear them, how we can save them, and why we should!

Apex Predator- (also known as alpha, super-, or top-level predators) are predators that have virtually no predators of their own, residing at the top of their food chain. Apex predator species are often at the end of long food chains, where they have a crucial role in maintaining the health of ecosystems.

In the last month, there have been two very highly publicized and sensationalized shark attack/ fatalities. In Cape Town, South Africa on January 12th, a man named Lloyd Skinner was killed by a 'dinosaur sized' or 'gigantic' shark that is believed to have been a great white shark. In Stuart, Florida on February 3rd, a kite surfer named Stephen Howard Schafer died from injuries sustained when he was attacked by a shark that was originally reported to be a 'great white' shark who attacked in a 'multiple shark attack' or from 'a herd of sharks'.

Sharks are in the mind of most human beings to be the ultimate predator. It you ask people what animals they are frightened off, very few off the top of their heads name lions, crocodiles, etc... Sharks are the most frequently mentioned and great white sharks are the most accused and feared. Why this fact is seems to have many factors. Some factors are education/history (except for brief moments in some biology classes, the tales were hear from the past are not positive toward sharks), biology or natural survival instinct (fear of the unknown, the dark, 'monsters' and being eaten alive are all biologically ingrained fears), media (sharks are routinely stereotyped and villianized in most media sources and these sites sometimes actively push humans toward fear and loathing – remember “Jaws”) and control (as human beings we are fascinated and repulsed by things that we cannot control or will not bend to our will.) So, as long as humans have used the sea, sharks and man have had the potential to collide with negative results for either party.

So I ask the question: Who is most dangerous... the great white shark or man? To me, this question is so much more complicated that it sounds. Any apex predator is dangerous and certainly you will not find me trying to make an argument that sharks are not potentially dangerous to us. Sharks have instincts, are carnivores, and roam the seas looking for food and sometimes to breed. They have large teeth, are very 'curious' creatures, can sense even minute amounts of blood in their 'air' and are frankly quite formidable in the sense that they can move quickly and silently in their environment. The are also the larges predatory fish in the sea. The idea that they have flexible territories so more than one shark can exist (and do) in coastal areas adds to the risk. A great white shark is a predator and while humans are not their preferred food, shark attack numbers go up as more and more people enter a sharks environment. After all, we as humans need to remember that the seas are a shark's home and its domain- we are the visitors.

Humans are also an apex predator. We rule the land we inhabit. Other animals may question this fact, but few human beings could disagree with this assessment. We move other animals out of their habitats and take the space for ourselves. Humans mold the land into the image and shape they want for food, transportation, habitation. We move rivers, carve mountains, and sometimes change the entire shape and ecosystem of an area with man made inventions such as a water dam. We kill animals who live in our territories deliberately if they cause us difficulties or annoyance, and unintentionally by our daily activities. Land is our home territory and over the years (with few exceptions) we remind all others living that we are the supreme apex predator.

I believe that human beings are a much more dangerous predator than the shark for three basic reasons. The first is that the great white shark may change the borders of its personal territory, but as a species, it never pushes past certain borders and certainly has never found the way to leave it's environment and continue to live. The shark, no matter how it is feared, cannot leave the ocean so we can control how often we put ourselves into their territory. However, human beings have taken over may portions of territory previously denied to us- the air and the sea for starters. The shark has his tools or weapons- they have changed little over thousands of years. Our weapons have changed greatly over the years and allow us to kill the shark with very little risk to our own personal safety. Another concern is that great white sharks are not interested in us as human beings or predators. Human beings are too bony for a good meal and unpredictable. So while a shark may bite us out of confusion or curiosity, usually one bite is enough for the shark to find the human unappetizing and he is off to hunt something else. Humans on the other hand, are perfectly willing to hunt sharks for food or simply for 'sport'. We will carefully bait them and after tricking them into a trap, we will kill them as trophies or simply for 'a good weekend'. The last reason I believe that humans are the most dangerous predator is that we seem to be one of the few predators that is not on the 'endangered species' list. As human politicians and scientists debate global warming and growing populations, biologists and marine scientists watch with growing alarm at the rising number of animals that need to be listed as endangered or even extinct. While their voices are not quite unanimous, their voices cry that we are the animal that is causing the harm.

So this is my opinion... What is yours? Which apex predator do you think is more dangerous... us or them?