Holiday Cheer-From RTSea

Let the Bloody Mary's begin...it's the drink of choice for all shark divers far and near.

"Happy Holidays" backatcha RTSea!

Editors Note: Did Shredder grow horns?

Theater of the Grotesque-A Family Shark Kill?

We're still trying to drill down the "when and where" of this Tiger Shark kill and the images keep getting worse. We had seen some of these but not all. Kudo's to Trules Jemtland for finding this full image suite online. Nice bit of detective work.

If this is the Bahamas-which is likely, these images could still serve a media purpose leading the way for fisheries changes in the Bahamas. These,sadly, are the kind of images that do effect change and garner "sympathy for the devil".

On a personal note, this is a crime, made worse by the fact this was a gravid female. The pile of bloody shark pups is something we hope we never see online again.

Warning:These images are graphic.



TIGER SHARK MARCH 2008

Bahamas? Mystery or not this image is out

This image is part of a series we looked at a while ago. It is reportedly a dead Tiger in the Bahamas, obviously gravid.

Like other images such as the Great White in the Bahamas this spring, we waited until we had confirmation to post the image and back story. This Tiger image "pedigree" has eluded us thus far. No one knows anything, not the marinas, not the commercial docks, not the fisheries department.

Unlike the imageless story of another dead Tiger at Old Bahama Bay Resort this spring-we confirmed with the staff at the resort and the dock master that indeed a female, and once again gravid, Tiger shark was taken and killed there.

Helmut Nickel from the Shark-l has post two of the images online with the question we're sure everyone wants to know...is this the Bahamas?

Time it seems, for even "well known sharks", is not a given or even a luxury. This mystery remains if you know anything about this image let us know.

Anderson Cooper's Stunt Journalism

From the Washington Times this morning a "news industry" look at Anderson Cooper's Planet In Peril. For the record we're going to depart from our CV and jump to Anderson's defense, that entire series was great conservation television:

Anderson Cooper is a fine journalist, which is all the more reason for CNN to stop trying to feed him to sharks.

Last night CNN ran its program "Planet in Peril: Battle Lines," which careened from continent to continent, crisis to crisis, anxiety to anxiety, in what can only be called porn for paranoiacs. Some of it was very well done, but the overall product, I fear, felt like stunt journalism, ranging from Lisa Ling braving the Nigerian backwaters to meet with gun-blazing militants to, most prominently, Cooper swimming with great white sharks.

First he swam inside a shark cage. Then -- Cooper in peril!!! -- he swam without the cage, among those mindless monsters, clinging to a rock at the sea bottom while they circled hungrily. You could almost hear Sean Hannity in the distance screaming "EAT HIM! EAT HIM!"

I found myself impressed more than anything by the CNN expense account. Cooper, Sanjay Gupta and Lisa Ling were zooming all over the planet, to remote deserts, an island in the Pacific, deepest jungle, the Andes, and so on, and documenting all manner of horrors and injustices. But it felt scatterbrained, showy and entirely driven by the visuals. Yes, it's neat to look at great white sharks up close, and to wonder if they'll devour the anchorman (to a cry of "Anchor away!!!), but what does that have to do with anything?

Here's the CNN Planet in Peril website.

And here's an exhaustive summary of all the amazing things that Cooper & Co. did to document the planet in peril.