2013: The Year of the Shark

Published in The Packet

CBC News Newfoundland and Labrador is asking their audience to vote for the most prominent stories of 2013 on their website. I don’t follow the news nearly as much as I should. This is an especially embarrassing fact to admit in a newspaper column. So I spent some time scrolling through the CBC’s list of headlines, trying to get a taste of what I’d missed this year. The headlines represented a multitude of political drama, crime stories, and environmental issues. But my favorite of them all was this gem: Moose Eating Shark Rescued in Newfoundland Harbour.

Surely there has never been a cooler headline. The first three words of it alone bring to mind images of an epic shark and moose battle with gnashing teeth versus clashing antlers. Would this battle occur on land or at sea? Are sharks a viable solution for the island’s overwhelming moose population? And how on earth does a person go about rescuing a shark capable of taking out a moose?

Of course anyone who read the article beyond the headline knows that what happened wasn’t nearly as dramatic as I was envisioning. The shark in question was a Greenland shark, which spends most of its life scavenging for food blindly because parasites feed on its corneas. Poor shark! The article said that Greenland sharks eat rarely, and when they find food, they gorge themselves to suffocation. So this shark didn’t actually attack a moose.  On Nov. 16, the shark found a moose carcass floating in the water, choked on it, and then washed to shore in the harbour by Norris Arm North. Two men yanked the carcass from its throat and pushed the shark back into the water, where the shark took a moment to catch its breath and then went back to its blind scavenger existence. The article left me feeling embarrassment for the pitiful, parasite-ridden shark.

I was surprised to find another shark headline on the CBC list: Great White Shark Equipped with GPS Makes Species’ First Known Visit to Newfoundland. On Oct. 29, Lydia the 2,000 pound, 14-foot white shark took a swim in Placentia Bay, at a time of year when most sharks of her species are heading south. Maybe Lydia has heard how beautiful Canada is in October. As of Dec. 6, Lydia was just south of Newfoundland according to non-profit organization Ocearch. Researchers suspect she’s sticking around for the December and January births of 50,000 Grey Seal pups. The best part of the article was the comments section where irritated Newfoundlanders let it be known that this shark activity was not unusual at all. 

“It is ‘surprising’ that a senior scientist from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries is not aware that the waters off southern Newfoundland are at their warmest this time of year due to the clockwise rotation of Atlantic currents,” one commenter said. “Perhaps he should take the time to call someone in Marystown.”

“Careful,” said another commenter. “All that work by PETA to save the seal and this seal eater just moved in. This ought a get their attention.”

Voting for the CBC’s top stories of 2013 in Newfoundland and Labrador ends on Dec. 18. There are many pressing political and economical headlines to vote for on the list, but I am a sucker for the sharks.