How can people get away with this? The Mako shark is endangered (see the Wiki article) yet in this video we see one caught and killed for a fishing contest. How about we just have a Bald Eagle huntathon…hey aren’t endangered anymore. I don’t understand how a threatened species can be killed so thoughtlessly? If you watch the video (which CNN placed on their front page), you see the shark swimming around the boat before it is hooked. They saw what it was and yet they still chose to hook and kill it. A creature that is threatened by extinction, hauled in for a $15,000 prize. That’s just wrong.

Am I missing something? Maybe that sport fisherman call them one of the more challenging catches because they jump and splash and fight. We wouldn’t want to take that fun away now would we? I guess that makes it okay. And of course their impressive fang laced mouth looks better hanging over a fireplace than swimming through our oceans. They kill swimmers too. The wiki article referenced above reports 8 attacks, 2 fatal. I guess we better remove them and every other animal that has killed at least 2 human beings.

This just upsets me. They didn’t have to kill this shark. I’m not opposed to fishing or hunting. I haven’t hunted in years but I do go fishing a couple times a year. But this is a creature that we are in danger of losing. And they had a good look at it before they chose to cut it down. And then they win a contest and are plastered on CNN and newspapers reveling in their glory. Obviously I’m in the minority here. What am I missing?