View Full Version : The Sun claims that French resort island use dogs, cats as shark bait
Don Corleone
10-03-2005, 14:33
Warning: Photograph depicting animal cruelty at other end of this link.
Don't click this if you have a weak stomach (http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005450117,00.html)
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. :furious3:
Proletariat
10-03-2005, 14:40
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
10-03-2005, 14:42
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:
I'd have less problem if they clubed them or something first.
Seamus Fermanagh
10-03-2005, 14:46
:mails Beirut some precautionary Valium and Tullamore Dew:
You too are an afficianado of that nectar of the gods?
:bow: :bow: :bow:
The Dew is quite simply the best!~:cheers:
Seamus
Don Corleone
10-03-2005, 14:47
Yes, I'm being elitist. Dogs are better than other animals. :glasses2:
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
10-03-2005, 14:50
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
10-03-2005, 14:51
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. :whip: :whip: :whip:
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
10-03-2005, 14:51
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
It would be more convincing if they photoshopped in some blood.
Seamus Fermanagh
10-03-2005, 14:53
....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
10-03-2005, 14:54
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
10-03-2005, 14:54
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! :charge:
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
10-03-2005, 14:55
Frag's back !!!! Now that is news.
Proletariat
10-03-2005, 14:56
I'm having trouble stomaching the possibility of not having the finest shark-fin soup next time I travel to a French resort.
:hide:
(Don, I kid, I kid..)
Edit: Welcome back, Frag!
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?
Merci mia muca's. I am sure you all missed my fairly balanced views :bow:
computer did the boom thing, but I come back as a better person because I have more stuff now.
http://images.speurders.nl/images/11/1154/11549616_1.jpg
Next week it is MINEEEEEEEEEEE (well not this one, but this type YAY)
Merci mia muca's. I am sure you all missed my fairly balanced views :bow:
computer did the boom thing, but I come back as a better person because I have more stuff now.
http://images.speurders.nl/images/11/1154/11549616_1.jpg
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
10-03-2005, 15:04
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.
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.
Yes one should not believe everything one reads in the newspaper.
Don Corleone
10-03-2005, 15:08
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?
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
10-03-2005, 15:25
(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
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.
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
10-03-2005, 15:53
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.
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
10-03-2005, 16:06
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
10-03-2005, 16:07
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.
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.
On that picture the dog is hooked on his lips, I doubt it could support it's weight but I have no ambition to try it. But there is also no bleeding so it is not a new wound, and if it is an old one it would probably look a lot more infected and generaly unclean that it looks here. Ah well I am just trying really hard not believe it, as it would make me pretty sad.
Meneldil
10-03-2005, 16:30
I'd say this pic is photoshoped, for the reasons stated by Fragony. The wound doesn't bleed, and I doubt the lips of a dog could support its whole weight.
Furthermore, the dog clearly doesn't look like he's having a hook right in the middle of his face...
Now, this might be true, people in the reunion are weirdos. But it still rather looks like a good old Sun-made-up news.
Big_John
10-03-2005, 16:43
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?pretty much any creature that moves probably "feels" pain, since pain is most likely an adaptaion of sensory systems to allow creatures to move away from sources of harm. a worm can feel pain in as much as it has evolved a way to detect and move away from threats.
the complexity of the nervous system is a different question. qualifying the level/character/type of pain a creature can feel probably requires a knowledge of the complexity of the nervous system. insects probably can't feel the same range of pain stimuli that mammals can. but they almost certainly experience pain-stimuli in some respect.
on-topic, i haven't read the link, probably won't. but, as an animal/animal-product consumer, i can't really reject using cats/dogs for food/products/services. if cruelty exists, it should be stopped, of course.
English assassin
10-03-2005, 16:54
But has anyone ever heard of the Sun Photoshopping pictures that they've used?
Every day on Page 3...
I don't see anything enormously wrong in using a dead dog as shark bait, but a live one would obviously be cruel. Given that the Sun probably would have felt less strongly about the issue if live Frenchmen were being used in place of the dogs (Likely headline in that case: "Punch An Asylum Seeker To Win A Sensational Shark Fishing Holiday With The Super Soaraway Sun") I think I will wait until I read it in the Guardian before I believe it.
OT: is the worst newspaper in Britain thereby the worst in the world?
Seamus Fermanagh
10-03-2005, 17:40
Every day on Page 3...
I require proof of your statement......please.~;)
Seamus
Ser Clegane
10-03-2005, 18:49
I'd say this pic is photoshoped, for the reasons stated by Fragony. The wound doesn't bleed, and I doubt the lips of a dog could support its whole weight.
Furthermore, the dog clearly doesn't look like he's having a hook right in the middle of his face...
I think the "Sun" kind of indicated that this was not a real photo but only an illustrative picture by making the following remark:
A six-month-old labrador pup was recently found ALIVE with a huge double hook through its snout - like the dog above - and another through a leg.
The story might still be false or totally blown out of proportion - but I would not dismiss it based on the fake picture alone.
Don Corleone
10-03-2005, 18:52
The link that Redleg provided, Shephard of the Sea there, had a bunch more photographs. If they photoshopped all of them and provided them (falsely) as evidence, the Justice Department should investegate them for fraudulent fundraising practices.
Reverend Joe
10-03-2005, 19:01
Not to be condascending, but Don... this is... idiotic. Neither of the two sources provided are even remotely reliable. I would expect this kind of thing from Gawain, not you.
This is French-bashing taken to sickening Pravda levels.
Don Corleone
10-03-2005, 19:13
Read my first post, and subsequent ones. I asked if anybody had heard anything to confirm it because I don't find the Sun to be a credible source. From the get go I said the story should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.
As far as your opinions of me, frankly, I don't give a rats ass what you think about me. I don't author threads or posts to gain your approval.
Edit: If anybody is taking this to be French bashing, then my apologies. The French have a law banning cruelty to pet animals such as cats and dogs that is more stringent than the American version. I was more struck by the story itself, not who mandates the island.
Meneldil
10-03-2005, 19:33
Ok, this is true. Just saw it on France2 (one of our tv channel). Apparently, the autorities are already taking care of this.
Another reason to grant the Reunion its independance :embarassed:
Edit : I shall add that I'm really disgusted by that. We have a whole part of our penal code related to cruelty to animal, and people will - I hope - be sentenced. And I did not take it as French bashing.
yesdachi
10-03-2005, 19:55
Why bother fishing for dinner if you already have a tasty looking dog like that.~;)
Seriously, anyone that is cruel to animals should have that same cruelty placed upon them. Just deserts?
Reverend Joe
10-03-2005, 20:14
Ok, this is true. Just saw it on France2 (one of our tv channel). Apparently, the autorities are already taking care of this.
Another reason to grant the Reunion its independance :embarassed:
Good god.
Edit: frankly, I found this to be too sick and wierd to believe... I mean who uses a whole live dog as shark bait? It isn't even a good bait! Unless the dog is bleeding, a shark isn't likely to eat it.
Not to be condascending, but Don... this is... idiotic. Neither of the two sources provided are even remotely reliable. I would expect this kind of thing from Gawain, not you.
This is French-bashing taken to sickening Pravda levels.
Someone owes someone else a retraction of their statement and maybe an apogly based upon the conclusion that the story is correct if not accurate.
Reverend Joe
10-03-2005, 20:37
Yes, of course I'll apologise. But I'm not going to retract it! For god's sake, this story was completely unbelievable. I know, Don, that you don't care what I think about you, but I still never expected to see you even paying attention to something like this. Yes, it was a rumor, but it was a borderline psychotic one. Of course it's real, but that doesn't change the fact that it was ridiculous before a major network confirmed it.
Don Corleone
10-03-2005, 20:45
The old "you just got lucky" argument, eh? Look, in one thread I have people that I had previously considered to be friends telling me that I perform homosexual oral activities because I took issue at a hypothetical proposition to abort an entire race by a person they don't even know. In another, even when I pre-qualify the source and ask explicitly for rebutting evidence, I have people saying I should be ashamed.
You all can ___ _____.
Del Arroyo
10-03-2005, 20:59
It would be more convincing if they photoshopped in some blood.
I agree. I'm calling BS. That photo is 100% definitely photoshopped.
DA
Reverend Joe
10-03-2005, 21:00
The old "you just got lucky" argument, eh? Look, in one thread I have people that I had previously considered to be friends telling me that I perform homosexual oral activities because I took issue at a hypothetical proposition to abort an entire race by a person they don't even know. In another, even when I pre-qualify the source and ask explicitly for rebutting evidence, I have people saying I should be ashamed.
I wasn't expressing condascention. I was suprised. Frankly, I'm scared. If we all go pulling rumors out of tabloids, saying, "Hey, look at this, anyone heard about it?"
I lost my train of thought.
You all can ___ _____.
Thank you.:bow:
solypsist
10-03-2005, 21:37
FYI, that pic has been photoshopped.
I'm sure the gist of the story is true, however.
Louis VI the Fat
10-03-2005, 21:38
:furious3: Meneldil is right. It's true indeed.
Here is a video (http://www.30millionsdamis.fr/FR/Dossiers/NosPetitions/Contrelutilisationdechiensvivantscommeappatspourlapecheauxrequins/Contrelutilisationdechienserrantscommeappatspourlapecheauxrequins.asp). In French, sorry. But the images are clear enough - not for the faint-hearted.
Now I knew about abuse of stray dogs over there, but this is bizarre.
And no, I didn't take it as French bashing, if only because Réunion is Réunion, and France is France.
Another reason to grant the Reunion its independance Yeah let's kick 'em out. I can think of better places to waist our subsidies on. And we could finally buy sugar at much lower, real market prices.
Kaiser of Arabia
10-03-2005, 21:51
Deleted for the good of my user account.
FYI, that pic has been photoshopped.
I'm sure the gist of the story is true, however.
Soly, you posted too soon. Check out the video link posted by Louis IV; it's the same exact dog as in the Sun's pic. It's the real deal.
Aww... This is bad news.:embarassed: :embarassed: :embarassed:
My GF has family on Mauritius (which is very similar to Reunion and very nearby), so I think I will try to dig into this, to see if they do it there too. I know from my visit the family there that they care less than little about the dogs. I would hate to think that they do this kind of fishing.
Del Arroyo
10-04-2005, 01:00
I watched the video, but I'd like to see a few more dogs in that condition before I decide it's not a hoax.
By the way, what's so disturbing about it the video?
DA
Reverend Joe
10-04-2005, 02:42
That dog on the video is fake (meaning the wound, not the dog). I have two dogs, and I know for damn sure than no dog would just sit there with a hook in its face. The dog would whine and paw and lick at the hook, at the very least. And if it had been given apinkillers, it would be lying on its side, and would be rather unresponsive.
Meneldil
10-04-2005, 07:59
Quite not. If the guy who put that hook in his lips knew what he was doing, I don't think the dog would even feel pain after a few days.
What you can see in the video are people who are trying to get ride of the hook, not those who did put it. If the dog has been 'hooked' a few days earlier, I don't think he would be whining.
solypsist
10-04-2005, 21:17
i posted too soon and stand corrected.
Soly, you posted too soon. Check out the video link posted by Louis IV; it's the same exact dog as in the Sun's pic. It's the real deal.
Strike For The South
10-05-2005, 05:20
Only the French:dizzy2: but seriously what the hell~:eek:
Adrian II
10-05-2005, 12:58
The Dew is quite simply the best!~:cheers:
SeamusWholeheartedly thirded! I am a long-standing aficionado of the Dew.
Tribesman
10-05-2005, 13:01
What you can see in the video are people who are trying to get ride of the hook
I thought they were euthanising the stray .
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