And back before cable TV, I had an argument going with a New Haven, CT Vegetarian natural food store called “Edge of the Woods”. The only products they sold that weren’t vegetarian were shark cartilage. I’m not a vegetarian, but I was annoyed that somehow sharks had been singled out in this context. I spoke to the manager and was ignored. Left a note for the owner, and got no response. And my conversation with the buyer in the supplement department was informative. She told me that it was okay to kill sharks because sharks were bad.

Say what?

And by way of proof, she told me about the time she’d been swimming off Cape Cod or someplace and had seen a shark. This shark had ignored her, but merely seeing it had frightened her so badly that this was proof to her that sharks were bad.

Think on that less-than-keen thought process next time you see organic wild-crafted wombatflower root tincture for sale at the natural foods outlet.

On the flip side, the market has very nice vegetables at quite reasonable prices…

So hey, one can’t really blame the sensationalist TV shows entirely for the sharks reputations. But when I see Shark Week promos, I think “Oh, there’s the Discovery Channel whoring sharks again. It must be sweeps week.”

My bigger beef is I would like to see a broader diversity of animals featured. Let’s have Cephalopod Week, or, better yet, Ctenophore Week!

Great site.