10/24/2005: Dog becomes shark bait

[Undertoad]

DreamerFi sends along this horrible, horrible one from NatGeo. The full story is here - basically, this dog was intended to be used as shark bait. From the text of the story:

Live and dead dogs and cats are being used as shark bait by amateur fishers on the French-controlled island of Réunion, according to animal-welfare organizations and local authorities.
...
A veterinarian successfully treated one of the canines, a six-month-old dog with a large fishhook through its snout (see photo), at an SPA (Société Protectrice des Animaux, or Animal Protective Society) clinic in Réunion's capital, St.-Denis.

Unlike most of the hooked animals, the dog was someone's pet, according to Saliha Hadj-Djilani, a reporter for the Thirty Million Friends Foundation's TV program. The dog had apparently escaped its captors and was taken to the SPA by a concerned citizen. Fully recovered, the animal is now home with its owners.

[lumberjim]

GUH

[Trilby]

You see? It's this sort of effing SHIT that makes me contribute to PETA!!! Yeah, they are extreme and I do not particularly believe an ants life is as important as my kid's life BUT (and this is a HUGE caveat) people who are this extremely SICK need people like PETA to counterbalance them! DISGUSTING! I'd like to string them up as shark bait! FIENDS!!!

[York]

Ok people may have different traditions and stuff, but these people are just lazy, ignorant aboriginals! Its like the only country where there's no compassion! They still live about a 200 years back...Can anyone please teach them how to catch shark with some normal bait? and maybe make them aware that this is 2005 and full of other options? Pplleeaaasseee!!
I just want to go over there and try it out with one of them!

[Oafed]

From July 1998 through the end of 2004, PETA killed over 12,400 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals" -- at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That's more than five defenseless animals every day. Not counting the dogs and cats PETA spayed and neutered, the group put to death over 85 percent of the animals it took in during 2003 alone. And its angel-of-death pattern shows no sign of changing.

Please tell me how PETA provides a counterbalance?

....

On the other side - what about the sharks? What makes dogs more worthy of not having a hook in its mouth? We've been hooking sharks for years and no one seems to care.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Please tell me how PETA provides a counterbalance?

By providing a high profile bad example. You have to do as they say, not as they do.

I'm having a hard time with that picture, after the initial revulsion.
There's no blood.
There's no tear around the hook.
It wouldn't work. If you tried to pull a dog that size through the water that hook would rip out quickly.

Something's fishy(no pun) here.

[Trilby]

I need to know more about that PETA story you posted. Were the animals SICK? IN PAIN??? So much left untold...and ya know what? Sharks are predators. I feel sorry for them, too, but they aren't really "man's best friend", are they? doofus.

[Oafed]

There's no blood.

*The dog was found in a creek... must have washed off

There's no tear around the hook.

*The hook would be inserted clean and obviously no tension was applied since

If you tried to pull a dog that size through the water that hook would rip out

*Sure, but why would you need to 'drag the dog'? Just throw him in the water, let him swim around until the shark gets him. As long as your line is long enough, you're fine.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I'm having a hard time with that picture, after the initial revulsion.
There's no blood.
There's no tear around the hook.
It wouldn't work. If you tried to pull a dog that size through the water that hook would rip out quickly.

Something's fishy(no pun) here.

I assumed that the hook went through more than just the lip. That it went through the roof of the mouth and above the teeth. Hard to tell, but now that I look more closely, it does look like it just goes through the lip. Maybe these fishermen are incompetent as well as cruel.

[xoxoxoBruce]

*The hook would be inserted clean and obviously no tension was applied since

You may be right but it's hard to believe the dog didn't try to paw or shake it loose. Especially after escaping his tormentors.
I believe the story, I'm just having a tough time with this picture.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You may be right but it's hard to believe the dog didn't try to paw or shake it loose. Especially after escaping his tormentors.
I believe the story, I'm just having a tough time with this picture.

Same here - there seems to be a reasonable amount of proof that animals we consider pets are being used as bait, but the pic did raise questions in my mind.

Are sharks usually caught with live bait? (my experience of catching them begins & ends with Jaws). If so, how were the islanders catching them before the dog population exploded? Is it really that easy to catch and hook feral dogs? (I appreciate that the one in the pic is described as a pet, but an island population that has no real love of dogs surely can't have that many of them to dognap).

It does mention that the animals are usually hooked in more than one place - perhaps the paws take the brunt of it?

[laebedahs]

That looks like a golden retriever too. Poor dog. But yes, the picture does seem questionable.

[chrisinhouston]

You know, I've eaten shark and while it's not bad, I wouldn't go out of my way to put it on my plate. The other strange thing about this story is that its mostly the Chinese or those who supply them who are fishing for sharks as a delicacy in sharkfin soup and some other dishes. For most commercial fisherman sharks are a big hassle with little market value, they eat your bait, scare away the fish you want, put up one hell of a fight and most sport fisherman end up cutting the line when they realize what they have hooked.

I guess the moral of this story is that man's existance on this planet really screws up the balance of nature. In a perfect world, dogs and cats and most other creatures reach a balance as far as their population goes, and so do the fisheries of the world.

Guess we've really fucked this world up!

[Elspode]

Two thoughts here. You're going to hate me for the second one, but I can't help the stuff that pops into my head:

1) Somebody should have their ass kicked soundly for this.
2) It would take a real manly guy to cast a golden retriever.

[tang]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I'm having a hard time with that picture, after the initial revulsion.
There's no blood.
There's no tear around the hook.
It wouldn't work. If you tried to pull a dog that size through the water that hook would rip out quickly.

I agree. Plus that looks like an ineffective way to bait your hook. If you did get a strike, I don't think you'd pull in a shark. I think you would just pull in the head of a dog.

Snopes seems undecided...
www.snopes.com