The Sun claims that French resort island use dogs, cats as shark bait

[Don Corleone]

Warning: Photograph depicting animal cruelty at other end of this link.
Don't click this if you have a weak stomach
I know it's the Sun, so I have to ask if this is for real? Has anybody else heard about this from another source? It just seems too extreme to be true. According to the article, on the French resort island of Renunion Island, some local sport fisherman have taken to using stray dogs & cats as live bait for shark fishing. If this is true, the local government ought to put an end to the practice, pronto.

[Proletariat]

I'm not clicking, but is there something in the article that might convince me that dogs or cats are more valuable than anything else we use as bait?

I don't get it, Don. I remember a Drew Carey stand up where he was talking about 'Dolphin-Free Tuna' and how the tuna must feel hearing about it.

I had a few vegan friends in high school and I remember asking them if dyes made from certain insects that were used in sodas were off-limits to them. I actually got the response, "No. It's a frigging bug."

What's the difference? Just because it's not cute?

[Proletariat]

Okay, like an idiot I went ahead and clicked (Imp of the Perverse and all). That's pretty disturbing, but I still don't see the difference between a dog and a minnow other than how adorable one is.

:mails Beirut some precautionary Valium and Tullamore Dew:

[BDC]

I'd have less problem if they clubed them or something first.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

:mails Beirut some precautionary Valium and Tullamore Dew:

You too are an afficianado of that nectar of the gods?


The Dew is quite simply the best!

Seamus

[Don Corleone]

Yes, I'm being elitist. Dogs are better than other animals.
Surely you can appreciate the difference between hooking a sandworm through it's frontal orifice and hooking Fido through the snout? Well, this is the line on my slippery slope. I don't believe in torturing animals that we frequently keep as pets. I don't have an issue with killing dogs (I've done so, to keep them out of my grandparents chicken coop). It's the needless suffering of it. Every time I've ever been sport fishing, the bait wasn't live.

[Tribesman]

mails Beirut some precautionary Valium and Tullamore Dew:
Why not send him a decent drink Prole ?

It looks like a novel form of pest control , nothing more .

[Don Corleone]

I never even thought about Beirut. Perhaps he and I should get our passports ready and start packing some duffel bags for a quick 'vacation' to Reunion Island.

Beirut, for the love of God, don't click on that link. Just take it from me, you'll be sufficiently enraged without the photograph.

Tullamore Dew is good, but I discovered something even better last visit over there... Powers! Mmm....

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Don:

As to cruelty, I agree with you. Cruelty debases the person engaged therein and needless pain makes no moral sense.

However, live bait is not all that uncommon. Minnows, worms etc. are often used live in fishing.

Some of us even eat living things as food (e.g. a freshly shucked oyster may be stunned by the cold of the ice it was in, but is not yet dead).

There is some grey area here.

Seamus

[Fragony]

It would be more convincing if they photoshopped in some blood.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

....Tullamore Dew is good, but I discovered something even better last visit over there... Powers! Mmm....

Tasty stuff, I agree, but I still give the nod to the Dew and Bushmills single over it.

Seamus

[Proletariat]

mails Beirut some precautionary Valium and Tullamore Dew:
Why not send him a decent drink Prole ?

I would've, but he enforces the communal post celebration and birthday threads and this is my form of protest.

(Seriously, what do you recommend, Irishman?)

[Don Corleone]

Seamus,
I know I'm being slightly hypocritical here. I hunt for crying out loud. But I just think dogs are a special case exemption. If they were hooking rats and throwing them out the back, I wouldn't be anywhere near so upset. But leave the dogs alone!

Tribesman,
If the dogs are a pest problem, gas them. Heck, once gassed, use their corpses for bait. I understand 'hard arithmetic'. I'm just having a hard time with the idea of using an undrugged dog as live bait. Call me a sap.

[English assassin]

Frag's back !!!! Now that is news.

[Proletariat]

I'm having trouble stomaching the possibility of not having the finest shark-fin soup next time I travel to a French resort.





(Don, I kid, I kid..)

Edit: Welcome back, Frag!

[econ21]

A key issue here is whether the animal can feel pain. I am no biologist, but I am pretty sure all mammals (like dogs) can feel physical pain rather like we do and plants, for example, can't. Birds, reptiles, amphibians and even fish I suspect also feel pain. With insects, worms and oysters etc, I rather doubt it. Do they have nerve endings, a central nervous system etc?

[Fragony]

Merci mia muca's. I am sure you all missed my fairly balanced views

computer did the boom thing, but I come back as a better person because I have more stuff now.



Next week it is MINEEEEEEEEEEE (well not this one, but this type YAY)

[Redleg]

Merci mia muca's. I am sure you all missed my fairly balanced views

computer did the boom thing, but I come back as a better person because I have more stuff now.



Next week it is MINEEEEEEEEEEE (well not this one, but this type YAY)

So I take it your going to go to the Island and fish for sharks out of that boat.

You going to use the bait from the article?

[Louis VI the Fat]

It's the Sun - one step up from the National Enquirer.

This story looks plain rubbish to me. Never heard of it and it doesn't sound plausible at all.

[Fragony]

You going to use the bait from the article?

Perhaps, the Sun is excellent bait to catch fools Dunno if I am throwing them back, a man has to eat after all.

[Redleg]

Yes one should not believe everything one reads in the newspaper.

[Don Corleone]

Well, Louis & Fragony (welcome back, btw) you have a good point. If you read my very first post, the point wasn't to rant for dogs, but to get some confirmation of a source that I have found wanting for accuracy in the past. Until I see it confirmed in a story elsewhere, I have to consign it to the trash heap labelled 'rumor mill'. I was just wondering if anybody HAD heard this from other sources.

I KNOW they have reported things that later turned out to be simply untrue. But has anyone ever heard of the Sun Photoshopping pictures that they've used?

[Redleg]

Looks like its not just The Sun making such reports.

http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_050818_1.html

Meanwhile, dogs and cats are also involved in another assault on nature, this time as victims and as bait. On the French island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean, fishermen have been using live dogs and cats as bait for sharks

Other sources are available also - but most are internet bloggers or discussion forums. I just typed in "dogs used as shark bait" - and looked at the first 10 hits. THe sun article was one linked to Drudge Report, and then the diver chats had several hits on it. The link above was the only none discussion forum hit besides Drudge that came up. However I only looked at the first 10 hits.

So is the story possible - I believe it just might be, but more creditable information from other sources would make me convinced of the story being true. Right now its just in the possible catergory needing more confirmation.

[Tribesman]

(Seriously, what do you recommend, Irishman?)
Midelton if you a feeling very very very generous , if not then the Jamie 1780 .
Though I prefer Island whisky to whiskey

[Fragony]

It could be true of course, but why use bait that isn't present in the natural habitat of the shark, makes no sense to me. And why catch stray dogs/cats when it is so much easier to buy some of these nice smelly fish that sharks tend to like so much. Most sharks are pretty picky eaters, if they don't recognise something they would probably do a testbite and move on. IF it is true, then I would love to have some quality time with these guys.

[Redleg]

It could be true of course, but why use bait that isn't present in the natural habitat of the shark, makes no sense to me. And why catch stray dogs/cats when it is so much easier to buy some of these nice smelly fish that sharks tend to like so much. Most sharks are pretty picky eaters, if they don't recognise something they would probably do a testbite and move on. IF it is true, then I would love to have some quality time with these guys.

Well it seems that more information from a nuetral source is needed by both of us then. I don't want to believe its true for the same reason you just mentioned - its not the natural diet of sharks.

[Don Corleone]

From what I know of shark behavior (thank you Jacques Cousteau) two things stand out. First, shark behavior varies widely from species to species so how successful a bait Snoopy and Garfield would make is dependent on the species they're going for. Secondly, most sharks are finicky eaters, as Fragony suggests. That means it would be hard to get them to strike an undesirable meal if they are in curiosity/hunger mode. But they're also fiercely territorial, and when they get agitated will hit anything. A biopsy on a single great white shark, caught off the North California coast in 1975 produced the following stomach contents: partially digested fish and seals, a license plate, a rubber tire, plastic milk bottles, a couple of rocks, and a portable radio. Clearly, with the exception of the fish and the seals, none of this was part of their natural diet.

[Fragony]

Could be, but they normally feed on seals that have a fat layer of over 5 centimeters, even a mild attack would shred a dog or cat to bits. It just doesn't seem like very effective bait, bait needs to be on the hook after all.

[Don Corleone]

If the hook is in the dogs tendon or snout, the force required to tear through that portion of meat would be sufficient to embed the hook. All of this assumes the shark doesn't gulp (and then regurgitate undesired matter) as some species do. Remember, people catch fish (and sharks for that matter) on metal spinners. You don't need a large fleshy chunk to hook the shark, it just makes it easier to disguise the hook.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

I remember eating Rudolf.

And bunny for easter :p

So?

Louis,

PS: otherwise, I know a few articles claiming that Elvis was abducted and raped on an UFO and Karl Rove is the result.