Animal lovers beware. This post is sad.
My favorite little boy and I were strolling along the beach last week when, in the distance, a crowd was gathering... The crowd grew larger as more on-lookers gathered in a circle. It was approaching "high-school-fist-fight" proportions (remember the days when a school fight was the highlight of the day? No worries about getting shot or stabbed, just a few clean punches before a red-faced teacher broke it up). Logic told me that it was not a fist fight on a public beach, wait a minute, we are talking Tybee here....just kidding. My son said, while pointing at a thrashing object on the ground, "What is that Mama?". We could see something twisting on the sand. Sharp, angry, jerky movements. As we cautiously approached, a man sporting a spectacular mullet (the hair-do, not the fish) reached down and grasped a 5 foot gray shark's tail. It was so surreal, disturbing, but quite beautiful to see a shark on the sand. Not lying on his side either. He or She was on their belly, dorsal fin proudly upright, mouth open and whipping around in a heroic attempt to bite the redneck's beefy hand that so firmly and offensively grasped it's tail. The redneck jumped back from the snapping mouth (to my chagrin...I was sorta hopin' the shark would get a nip in, teach that jerk a lesson). That's when I noticed something glinting in the sun in the man's hand. A knife. "Oh No" I thought. Then a soft-spoken gentlemen with a sadness in his voice said "You better take your little one away, I believe they are going to kill it". I thought about asking them not to (there were actually 2 rednecks involved and EACH of them had a knife) but then the knives, red-faces, mullets, and beer bellies set off internal alarm bells in my head and I thought better of it and while sheilding my sweet boy's eyes, we hurried away. I threw one last glance back to see the knife sticking up from the top of the creature's smooth head, buried up to the hilt, and the shark thrashing like mad in a death throe on the sand. There were many children on the beach that day who saw this disgraceful thing happen. I even saw the lifeguards motor past with indifferent glances at the spectacle. It was disturbing to me as an adult, I would imagine most children would find it so also. I sincerely hope those jerks made good use of their kill (fed a hungry mouth?). I tried to explain to my son but he just kept saying "Why'd they kill it?"...at least he didn't see them stab it to death. It put a bit of a damper on an otherwise pleasant day and as we munched our cream cheese and jelly sandwiches later on in the day, I was sure glad their was no meat in that sandwich.
My favorite little boy and I were strolling along the beach last week when, in the distance, a crowd was gathering... The crowd grew larger as more on-lookers gathered in a circle. It was approaching "high-school-fist-fight" proportions (remember the days when a school fight was the highlight of the day? No worries about getting shot or stabbed, just a few clean punches before a red-faced teacher broke it up). Logic told me that it was not a fist fight on a public beach, wait a minute, we are talking Tybee here....just kidding. My son said, while pointing at a thrashing object on the ground, "What is that Mama?". We could see something twisting on the sand. Sharp, angry, jerky movements. As we cautiously approached, a man sporting a spectacular mullet (the hair-do, not the fish) reached down and grasped a 5 foot gray shark's tail. It was so surreal, disturbing, but quite beautiful to see a shark on the sand. Not lying on his side either. He or She was on their belly, dorsal fin proudly upright, mouth open and whipping around in a heroic attempt to bite the redneck's beefy hand that so firmly and offensively grasped it's tail. The redneck jumped back from the snapping mouth (to my chagrin...I was sorta hopin' the shark would get a nip in, teach that jerk a lesson). That's when I noticed something glinting in the sun in the man's hand. A knife. "Oh No" I thought. Then a soft-spoken gentlemen with a sadness in his voice said "You better take your little one away, I believe they are going to kill it". I thought about asking them not to (there were actually 2 rednecks involved and EACH of them had a knife) but then the knives, red-faces, mullets, and beer bellies set off internal alarm bells in my head and I thought better of it and while sheilding my sweet boy's eyes, we hurried away. I threw one last glance back to see the knife sticking up from the top of the creature's smooth head, buried up to the hilt, and the shark thrashing like mad in a death throe on the sand. There were many children on the beach that day who saw this disgraceful thing happen. I even saw the lifeguards motor past with indifferent glances at the spectacle. It was disturbing to me as an adult, I would imagine most children would find it so also. I sincerely hope those jerks made good use of their kill (fed a hungry mouth?). I tried to explain to my son but he just kept saying "Why'd they kill it?"...at least he didn't see them stab it to death. It put a bit of a damper on an otherwise pleasant day and as we munched our cream cheese and jelly sandwiches later on in the day, I was sure glad their was no meat in that sandwich.
