Oliver Teves, AP, April 7, 2009
Fishermen in the Philippines accidentally caught and later ate a megamouth shark, one of the rarest fishes in the world with only 40 others recorded to have been encountered, the World Wildlife Fund said Tuesday. The 1,100-pound, 13-foot megamouth died while struggling in the fishermen’s net on March 30 off Burias island in the central Philippines. It was taken to nearby Donsol in Sorsogon province, where it was butchered and eaten, said Gregg Yan, spokesman for WWF-Philippines.
Yan said a WWF Donsol Project Manager Elson Aca took pictures of the megamouth and tried to dissuade the fishermen from eating it. Shark meat is the main ingredient in a local delicacy.
The first megamouth was discovered in Hawaii in 1976, prompting scientists to create an entirely new family and genus of sharks. The megamouths are docile filter-feeders with wide, blubbery mouths. Yan said the Burias megamouth’s stomach revealed it was feeding on shrimp larvae.
Yan said the fish was tagged “Megamouth 41”—the 41st megamouth recorded in the world—by the Florida Museum of Natural History. It was the eighth reported encountered in Philippine seas.
He said the megamouth was caught in 660-foot deep waters, which are also frequented by the endangered whale shark, the world’s largest fish and also a filter-feeder in the Donsol area, about 185 miles southeast of Manila.
Aca said the presence of two of the world’s three filter-feeding sharks along with manta rays and dolphins indicates that the region’s marine ecosystem was still relatively healthy and should continue to be protected.
Yan urged fishermen who encounter the rare shark to immediately report to authorities or the WWF.
Others megamouths have been encountered in California, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Brazil, Ecuador, Senegal, South Africa, Mexico and Australia.
Original article
(Posted on April 8, 2009)
Comments
It’s unfortunate that these fishermen caught a megamouth. They probably didn’t intentionally set out to catch the world’s rarest fish. But considering that it died while being caught, did anyone really expect them to NOT eat it? They’re fishermen. Probably dirt poor fishermen. They catch and eat fish. They caught a fish, it died, they ate it.
Don’t these natives know that there’s globull warming and stuff?
I know, the above doesn’t make sense, but just wait a few days; the media will somehow tie this story to climate change, and then declare international sorrow for these folk’s having dinner.
I’d rather see them eat sharks no matter how rare they were than little dogs and cats.
I wonder if people like these or the Chinese ever thought they might be better of on a vegetarian diet, rather than killing intelligent defenseless little pets?
How a culture treats its little animals is a measure as to how far up the evolutionary scale it is.
China and other similar Asian peoples have a long way to go.
They’re going to be food riots in Asia in the near future. I’m wondering what they will turn to once all their little cats and dogs are gone?
Think of it like this if someone you found some rare item and could cash it in for hundreds of thousands of dollars or give it away for nothing what would you do? I think very few people would give it away for nothing.
Also be perfectly honest the value of things in this world is often what someone is willing to pay. A picasso is only more valuable than kindling because someone is willing to pay millions of dollars for it.
I say the same is true with the fish, I’m sure someone could have secured a good deal of cash for it but in absence of that, if you’re starving and barely getting enough to eat, parting with something like a large shark is a very difficult proposition.
For years there has been a story about what should have been the world-record largest largemouth bass. A black kid in the south caught it and cooked it too. Reports are that today the fish would be worth well over one million dollars.
I was fooled by this ” caption “; I had thought the title pertained to the usual cabal of anti-White racist ” supposed ” civil rights (for blacks only) leaders but then I realized that most don’t swim . P.S.( p.c.) Affirmative Action for our Olympic team is needed.
I wonder if people like these or the Chinese ever thought they might be better of on a vegetarian diet, rather than killing intelligent defenseless little pets?
EVERYTHING is on the menu in China, and a number of countries on the planet. We Americans/Westerners are the only ones, to my knowledge, that place dogs and cats off the menu. Hindus don’t particularly like us eating cows, the muslims think we are unclean because we eat pigs (a goat is nasty tasting). A good thing for the U.S. that no one cares about a chicken’s right to life:)
It’s laughable that the so-called “environMENTALists would mourn over a fish while approving the slaughter of millions of people by their own misguided policies. One only has to look at the ban on the use of DDT to see the wholesale slaughter that (they perpetrated and) is taking place in the tropics.
Yet another instance of cognitive dissonance shimmying and shaking like crazy in the liberal’s eco world view. Weren’t we taught for years that these Sacred and Holy People of Color are the true and loving stewards of the earth? That they are wise
I remember years ago I knew a woman who was an herbalist and lived in a small suburban/rural town in New Jersey. When I told her that we were starting to see new third world immigrants in my neighborhood she told me she almost envied me, as they were no doubt adding new life the neighborhood. I told her how my next-door neighbor had a nice spruce tree and other greenery in his back yard and flower bed in the front. After he sold his house the first thing the Trinidadians did (after their customary rowdy party) was cut the tree down and clear all the rest and then proceed to replace said idyll with garbage and construction debris, which they just left there (this later caused a rat problem for me, which I never had before). She got a sort of frown on her face, after which she looked like she wanted to say something but then let the matter drop. This was all in the early ’90s so I’m sure by now some third-worlders have reached her doorstep. It’s hard not to have a little shadenfreude about it but it’s really just cold comfort. I’d let her have her delusions if I could have my neighborhood back. I wonder if she ever woke up.
“If they truly believed in their “causes”, they would put up THEIR OWN MONEY to purchase land that they want to control.”
That’s a good idea. Ultimately wildlife may need territory all their own. Australia and Greenland, perhaps?
Hungry men know no morality. I’ve heard of Coelacanths being eaten as well.
While this is a pity, nets are by their very nature indiscriminate at what they catch. It would have been a bigger shame if all the meat on an already-dead 1100-lb shark was simply thrown away and allowed to rot instead of being eaten.
Man, I’ve had it! Asians do things like this, and kill magnificent creatures like tigers (because they firmly believe that eating the testicles of a tiger will give them super virility or something like that)…
We all live on the same planet, and it’s about time Asians begin playing by the same rules as we do!
Be fair about this. Indians killed buffalo by running herds over cliffs, and cut out the tongues and livers. White men had superior technology and killed them for amusement until they were nearly extinct. Teddy Roosevelt would go hunting with a couple dozen different guns loaded on pack mules, and massacre hundreds of animals of all kinds on a single trip. We’ve no business criticizing Orientals as a race for acting like wealthy, civilized White men did a century ago. We can snicker over their apparent obsessions with aphrodisiacs, but who doubts that there’s some dark pathology behind slaughtering animals that pose no threat when you’re not going to eat them? Whites have good reasons for favoring our own race, we don’t need to dilute our credibility by giving weak reasons.
Sorry, Schoolteacher, but you have several things wrong here.
1. The article clearly states that the megamouth shark died in the net in which it was trapped. It was not wantonly killed. I’d have eaten it, too.
2. North American bison were hunted to near extinction for two reasons: providing fresh meat for railroad workers and to force the plains Amerind tribes to surrender.
3. Yes, Teddy Roosevelt was an avid hunter, but how much of the meat he shot was wasted? His favorite caliber was .405” Winchester, which is pretty marginal for Africa’s “Big Three”, and requires excellent shot placement. He was also the originator of our national park system. Don’t put T.R. down on this score.
Do you really imagine that your chicken, fish, pork and steak comes from the supermarket?
I did not make myself clear, Mr Scott. I have no objection to the Fillipinos eating the shark, no matter how it died. I was responding to a poster who criticized Orientals as a race for killing tigers and eating their testicles.
