Don’t blame sharks
Yesterday’s editorial on inane ideas from politicians looking for something to do in August came a day too soon. We hadn’t yet learned of a Barnstable County politician’s plan for a publiclyfunded shark killing spree.
Ronald Beaty — a Cape Cod gadfly who got himself elected to the Barnstable County Commission last year — has cooked up a “shark hazard mitigation strategy” to deal with the problem of sharks “attacking” seals.
Sharks would call it “eating dinner” but Beaty is alarmed. So despite the fact that there has not been a fatal shark attack on a human being in Massachusetts since 1936 (a shark did chomp on a human being’s paddleboard yesterday off Wellfleet) Beaty wants to deploy baited drum lines to hook and kill great whites. Those found still alive on the line would be shot.
This is insane, of course. But everyone now has an iPhone and access to social media so more people get to witness encounters between seals and sharks (and occasionally, humans and sharks). A shark ate a seal off Nauset Beach last week, the seal’s blood turning the water red. It was frightening to watch, but any person who swims off Nauset knows (or should know) that they share those waters with sharks. Lifeguards got everyone out of the water. No human was harmed in the making of this ready-for-Instagram video.
Beaty’s “plan” is, we assume, dead in the water. But it’s instructive in revealing that what little remains of county government in Massachusetts isn’t exactly drawing the best and the brightest. The county commission on which Beaty serves doesn’t have enormous power, but it controls a big budget. For attending meetings once a week commissioners collect more than $14,000 in salary. Voters may not have a clue what the commission does when they’re asked to vote on its members, but now they know what at least one of them is up to.
Experts have cheaper and more humane ideas for dealing with the shark “problem.” Stay close to shore. Swim on guarded beaches. Don’t swim alone, or near sharks or seals. That’s a near-guarantee for keeping sharks and people alive and swimming.