10/24/2005: Dog becomes shark bait

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.

GUH

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!!!

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!

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

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

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!

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.

I'm both skeptical and unalarmed. Snopes regards the status as "mixed". The article contains a different but highly similar photo.

I believe cruelty to animals is wrong. I think that working myself into a high froth over this picture would be a waste of energy as there are countless opportunities closer to home that I could have a more direct influence on. [<strike>devil's</strike> shark's advocate] What about the sharks caught this way or any other way that are hauled onboard, have their fins removed "harvested" and their living bleeding bodies dumped overboard to suffer and die? Where's the love there?

[quote=BigV]What about the sharks caught this way or any other way that are hauled onboard, have their fins removed "harvested" and their living bleeding bodies dumped overboard to suffer and die? [quote]


Why would they throw perfectly good bait back in the water without a hook attached?


I'm not buying that they hook the dog alive. A dog has teeth and is likely to bite the shit out of you in a frenzy while putting in that hook. I can see them shooting feral dogs and using them as bait but I'm not buying the rest of it.

This is just too "good" to be true: a dog used as a giant fishbait, hook included? I'd say fake, even (or even more) if it's from NatGeo.

It looks fake-ish, but (sorry for the graphic nature of the following) it would actually be a pretty effective way to rig a live animal as bait. Sharks hit to disable first, then come back around to feed. The dog would be in a considerable amount of pain, and its thrashing would attract sharks. If the hooks are set in cartilage, they wouldn't tear free, and the lack of any major blood vessels (other than in the tongue) would ensure a relatively long period of consciousness in the animal, at least until it drowned or was attacked.

Sick, but entirely plausible. I imagine they have a number of dogs pre-hooked, then they chum the water until sharks appear. When they do, splash goes a dog.

All that said, I have a hard time condemning the fisherpeople on the "cute and fuzzy" aspect alone. Live bait is live bait, and if these people don't share our sensibilities about dogs, you can't hold them to the same standard.

I use live bait all the time -- minnows don't get an easier time of it, just because they lack puppy-ness. Neither do pigs used to bait lions.

I'd break the legs of anyone I caught abusing a dog, but we can't just throw a blanked condemnation over actions which are reprehensible to our genteel upbringing.

I don't buy the minnow / dog comparison. The dog would be much more aware of his condition / situation.

I personally am too apalled to comment. IMO no matter where you are from or who you are YOU ARE ONE SICK SUMBITCH TO DO THIS.
I wish someone would lock one of these people up in a cell with this Marine for about a half hour.
It is very difficult to draw a line for humanitarianism on these issues. Who said live bait is live bait? Sheesh......
Let's not forget.... we are animals too. More domesticated than dogs of course, but dogs are more domesticated than fish.

I project this IoTD will raise some controversy. After I recover from the initial shock I may dare to participate. Right now I'm just going to feel sorry for the dog and the twisted pieces of garbage that are committing these lewd acts. May God have mercy on their souls. I damn sure wouldn't.

I feel the same way, get off my nuts. I'm just saying.

What about cannibals? What about cultures that have rites of passage that we would consider torture? Why do we assume fish don't feel? The shark is a predator, so his death isn't tragic? Why isn't it wrong for people to eat dog? If it IS wrong to eat dog, why isn't it wrong to eat cows?

It's obviously cruel to treat a dog like that. But what if they killed it humanely and then used it for bait? What if it was an ugly animal instead -- how would you feel then? I'm just asking honest questions of myself and of you, come play.

Ok. I admit I have an emotional attachment to dogs/cats and furry critters all around. I don't like the idea of 'live bait' in any circumstance, though honestly I am not really bothered by live minnows being used as bait. I have no love of sharks but I don't want to see them tortured or abused or misused in any way. A living thing is a living thing and it should be honored as such and not used in some horrific, inhumane way. Human=humane? Not in my experience, but we should at least TRY. We should condem things that are blatantly tortuous, no?

Festival of righteous anthropocentrism.

The closer you are to me the more valuable your life is.

When you show the same compassion for the weeds in your lawn that you do for the alleged dog in the above picture then I'll listen to what you have to say. Otherwise, killing is killing.

Anything else is just indefensible anthropocentric crap.

But then, that's just my opinion.

Shark bait, oooh ha ha!

Sorry, that's just my favorite line from "Finding Nemo".

(Not to make too light of the situation, whoever did that is really mentally deranged if it's real.)

hmm. Well when the barking wont stop at 4 AM....you might as well get up and go fishin'. No need to cast. Just throw a stick and he'll swim out.

noooo..I kid....good doggie...fluffy puppy.

I saw video footage of that same dog with that same hook thru it's nose. Most definitely looked real in the video and I am having a hard time imagining why anyone would create a hoax image of this (tho stranger things have happened) I believe it and am appalled by it.

No animal should be treated in this way - there's just no need for it.

OMFG I almost didn't want to open up this one, I was scared IW ould see somethign far more graphic and lose my interest in the Cellar. I'm glad I looked though, thanks for not making it the worst of what I was thinking :P

Anyway, This is the most cruel, and inhumane thing I have EVER heard of. Those poor animals. Now, I'm not the type who normally goes on and on about animal cruelty (while I think it is wrong) I never publically state my opinion, but this is just SICK. LIVE DOGS AND CATS?! What is wrong with these people! I just want to cry.

It looks to me as though this dog has tried to eat someone's bait, perhaps washed up or discarded on the beach, and ended up with piercings. Probably not too much discomfort after the initial shock and critters adapt quickly to circumstance as evidenced by the earlier victim of a scrap with a porcupine.

Brianna! <Slap><Slap><Slap> Pay attention!

How many times did you use the word "I" in your last post... count them I'll wait.

I got 12, too.

Feet's point is that your values cannot be automatically applied to people of another culture. It isn't about you. It's about life. The reason we are appalled by the thought of pushing a hook through a dog's nose and not a fish's has to do with our point of view.

We were raised to value a dog's life nearly as much as our own. We grow up with dog's as pets and as friends and the feelings are too personal to let us accept this type of treatment. But, fish... yeah they swim on our counters, but they don't cuddle with us... they don't lick our faces. From our point of veiw, a fish's life has less value. Its just something pretty for the counter. It can't fetch a ball or comfort us when we're sad.

So, what is the difference between hooking a minnow and hooking a dog? It's the point of view, values, stemming from personal experiences that decide right and wrong. There is no absolute truth. The sharkbaiters have applied their values, derived from personal experience we know nothing about, to the situation and acted accordingly. Yes, its disgusting, appalling, and wrong - from our point of view.

But the thing feet and noodle are getting at is that this should make us take a closer look at our values. Why has our life experience allowed us to come to the conclusion that it is ok to hook a fish and eat it? Shouldn't we step out of our own experience and come to a conclusion that is right independant of your point of view?

Now for the punch line... None of this matters.

Feet, Noodle, <Slap><Slap><Slap> Pay attention! There is no absolute truth. There is no moral right. No matter where you draw the line someone else draws it two feet to the left. Societal values, then, must be about either concensus or tyranny. I choose concensus becuase many views are more likely to match mine than one is. I say we feed the sharkbaiters to the hammerheads in Vegas. And my point of view must be right, nothing else makes sense...

edit: i didn't read the previous post before posting this....

If it was meant to be disturbing it hit the nail right on the goddam head. Thats for sure.

i notice cats aren't in this line. i think cats -- more specifically, my husband's cat -- would make a heck of a bait.

shark bait..ooh ha ha.
stuck in my head now....just like a fishhook, or a cat penis.

um. darclauz. pretty much hate you now.

Someone told me they caught a dude using cats for bait off the coast of Savannah at Tybee island (my hometown) a few years ago. I was told they burnt his ass and rightly so. I personally cannot stand cats but nothing deserves that type of abuse.
I went bass fishing with some other guys two years ago at a local pond. One of them had white mice for bait. Said it was the best bait ever. I promptly left.
Killing is one thing. Sometimes things must die to sustain life.
Terrorism and torture are alltogether different. No matter what lifeform it is.

It is true that not al people think alike...but still, i find it really stupid...I dont think its a hoax cause ive seen it before! Im not gonna say that a dog is a superior beiing...but it stands closer to humans than a fish! No matter if they wer once outside pets...we "people" wanted to move on and got them in the house...because of the companion and friendship u get from them...We got used to it and in many cases the pets mean more to someone than a relative! They are also used and trained for great purposes...if u compare that with this sick thing.... I still think that people , who have a great advantage in thinking and feeling, are lost in emotion when they do things like this! Allover the world we evolute...we should help the countrys that live in the 1800's to keep up! Only to prevent such shocking things...
Cannibalism and live sacrifice are just as bad and if i would see it, i d condamne it!
Mitheral: i guess the only way to find out is to try it yourself! Put on a collar and attache a rope to it....u can get strangled, u can try shake it off ...
Now try it with a hook thrue yr lip....