Althouse: "For a great white shark, a seal is a big juicy steak with a slice of chocolate cake. A person is an old piece of celery that’s been sitting on the counter all day."

May 12, 2017

"For a great white shark, a seal is a big juicy steak with a slice of chocolate cake. A person is an old piece of celery that’s been sitting on the counter all day."

Said the nature writer, quoted at the end of the WaPo article "‘You are paddleboarding next to approximately 15 great white sharks,’ chopper tells Calif. beachgoers."

All right then. This gets my "things that could have been worse" tag.

50 comments:

n.n said...: It's a shark eat seal eat flounder world.; 5/12/17, 6:24 PM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: I grew up less than a mile from where the video was taken. We frolicked in the surf without ever worrying about Jaws. It's only in the last ten years or so that the whites have been showing up in some numbers, and the proximate cause is the huge expansion in the population of sea lions. The sea lions are pests in themselves, sometimes taking over docks and even tied-up boats, since their numbers are too great for available haul-out areas. They also decimate fish stocks. There's not a great deal of comfort after you've been spat out by a white shark to know that he would have preferred sea lion.; 5/12/17, 6:26 PM
rcocean said...: When the Indianapolis went down they ate about 500 stalks of celery. They don't mind a piece of celery, now and then.; 5/12/17, 6:37 PM
mockturtle said...: Some vegan sharks like celery.; 5/12/17, 7:20 PM
David said...: "They're moving in herds. They do move in herds."; 5/12/17, 7:25 PM
Trumpit said...: Sharks are in decline and in trouble due to human activity worldwide. Asians systematically kill them for their fins to make soup, and throw the animal back in the sea to drown to death. All for a bowl of soup.

Humans are the worst thing to happen to life on this planet. Just look at the president if you want to see an ugly, unfit animal. He and Betsy DeVoss ought to skinny dip with a school of Great Whites - a couple of slices of carrot cake - throw in
Ben Carson for the chocolate souffle.

Before you leave a nasty comment, recall that Trump's sons hunt everything from prairie dogs to endangered species. I'm not the bad one, they are.; 5/12/17, 7:33 PM
ndspinelli said...: Trumpit paddleboards in his parent's above ground pool.; 5/12/17, 7:43 PM
Charlie Eklund said...: Who says there's never a cop around when you need one?; 5/12/17, 7:45 PM
ndspinelli said...: Trumpit, we have started a GoFundMe page to assist you in leaving this planet so animals can live. How do you choose to leave?; 5/12/17, 7:45 PM
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...: That's why said "nature writer" could never have written Jaws.; 5/12/17, 7:49 PM
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...: He and Betsy DeVoss ought to skinny dip with a school of Great Whites

You know, I am second to none in my disgust with Hillary Clinton, and I never liked Obama and thought he was terribly misguided, but I never wanted either one of them dead.; 5/12/17, 7:51 PM
Trumpit said...: Somehow, a sparrow got into my house this morning. I don't leave my windows open usually, but she got in somehow. Then she tried to fly through my sliding glass door and could have seriously injured herself. She flew off. I hope she is okay.; 5/12/17, 7:55 PM
Trumpit said...: Trump, Devoss, & Carson's highest and best use is as a meal for a for a hungry shark. Mitch McConnell would cause serious indigestion due to his rancidity.; 5/12/17, 8:01 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: Whoopie! Prairie Dogs!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J0GWkgeNP8#t=13.119092; 5/12/17, 8:03 PM
Comanche Voter said...: Celery? A white shark doesn't even want remoulade sauce with that.; 5/12/17, 8:13 PM
The Godfather said...: To all the sane commenters: If you ignore Trumpit, she'll eventually go away.; 5/12/17, 8:25 PM
YoungHegelian said...: Well, some of us would like to think of ourselves as celery slathered in peanut butter to a Great White.; 5/12/17, 8:36 PM
Jason said...: CELERY!? YOU HAD TO BRING CELERY!?!; 5/12/17, 8:51 PM
rhhardin said...: The Shallows (Blake Lively, 2016) is the latest tits and shark film. The shark is the heavy.; 5/12/17, 8:57 PM
Paul said...: Marine explorer Jacques Cousteau was of the opinion that sharks don't, on purpose, eat people.

Nice idea but there as just so many documented shark attacks and eating of people (by the hundreds sometimes) that it's just silly to say they don't.

Same for Lions, Tigers, Crocodiles, Leopards, etc... There is just no reason to think they don't consider us food IF they think they can take us.; 5/12/17, 9:16 PM
JohnAnnArbor said...: "Sherman's Lagoon" is a comic strip where the main character is Sherman, a great white shark in Polynesia, at a tourist spot. He often snacks on them. All the characters call them hairless beach apes. Which sounds speciesist.; 5/12/17, 9:17 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: The problem is that sometimes you eat steak and cake but sometimes you eat celery.; 5/12/17, 9:20 PM
robother said...: Don't paddle boards and surf boards resemble seals to a shark from below? Maybe they spit out your arm or leg upon discovering its celery, but I assume you bleed out before anyone can rescue you.; 5/12/17, 9:34 PM
Gahrie said...: Humans are the worst thing to happen to life on this planet

The core of Leftist thought.

They don't usually reveal themselves so openly..but when you get down to the core....; 5/12/17, 9:52 PM
Original Mike said...: But I eat old pieces of celery that have sat on the counter all day ...; 5/12/17, 9:55 PM
Gahrie said...: My cat killed a gopher today. I haven't decided between summary execution (I'll miss her) or to hold a trial yet. I haven't worked out the logistics...the jury (my cats peers) might end up killing some of the witnesses.; 5/12/17, 9:57 PM
wildswan said...: The core of leftist thought is celery. The right is steak, baked potato, salad, Dove bar (dark chocolate with raspberry), coffee.; 5/12/17, 9:58 PM
mockturtle said...: Godfather advises: To all the sane commenters: If you ignore Trumpit, she'll eventually go away. I agree. She is suspiciously Inga-like.; 5/12/17, 10:19 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Just think how much worse the dinosaur extinction would have been if we had been around to show Mother Nature how to really wipe out thousands of species? And the ice age? If people had been there we could have made it last 100,000 years longer. Yeah. You think the moon is a harsh mistress? Female humans can really bring it. Right, Trumpit?; 5/12/17, 10:47 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Trumpit has convinced me we need to rid the world of humans. You go first and I'll off myself last, OK?; 5/12/17, 10:53 PM
chickelit said...: Why is celery the garnish in bloody mary's?; 5/12/17, 10:54 PM
Gahrie said...: Why is celery the garnish in bloody mary's?

Penance for the alcohol.; 5/12/17, 10:56 PM
AllenS said...: Most of the time sharks won't eat people. They quit after taking an arm or a leg.; 5/12/17, 10:59 PM
Original Mike said...: Blogger chickelit said..."Why is celery the garnish in bloody mary's?"

Celery? At the Sayner Pub the garnish is cheese and sausage. As it should be.; 5/12/17, 11:02 PM
David Begley said...: You can't eat buffalo wings without celery. Essential.; 5/12/17, 11:56 PM
mockturtle said...: Is celery really a food?; 5/12/17, 11:59 PM
eddie willers said...: Drunk night at Althouse is not a pretty sight.

Once and Trumpit should be given the boot.; 5/13/17, 12:02 AM
chickelit said...: Mockturtle askes: Is celery really a food?

I've read that it takes more energy to chew, swallow, and "process" it than it gives back.

So, no.; 5/13/17, 12:15 AM
wwww said...: Don't paddle boards and surf boards resemble seals to a shark from below? Maybe they spit out your arm or leg upon discovering its celery, but I assume you bleed out before anyone can rescue you.

yeah this! Great Whites don't have good eyesight and we look a lot like seals splashing about on the waves. They usually spit us back out again, but one bite from a Great White is a mighty big problem.; 5/13/17, 12:35 AM
wholelottasplainin said...: When I grew up in Mass., the advice was, don't wear long pants with tiny whale motifs on them to the beach.

Shorts with the same designs were OK, though.

Something to do with shark eyesight, or maybe.. their aesthetics?; 5/13/17, 12:48 AM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, you gave this post a "things could have been worse" tag based on the words of one nature writer. But what makes you think Sy Montgomery is any special expert on sharks? He's written a children's book about a particular ichthyologist who studies sharks, but does that make him an expert himself? What we know is that great white sharks preferentially eat ocean-going mammals, and thanks to paddle boards that category includes h. sapiens.; 5/13/17, 3:46 AM
Video Portal said...: nice blog i like it its soo amazing blog i like it keep watching our work eco slim; 5/13/17, 3:48 AM
Big Mike said...: Following up on what wwww wrote, there are plenty of land predators that take a large bite out of their prey and wait for it to weaken from loss of blood before moving in for the kill. I've read a book by a paleontologist who suspects that T. Rex hunted that way too,
not that we'll ever know for sure. At any rate that seems to be the attack mode for great white sharks according to other ichthyologists (meaning not Montgomery), which imay be why so many humans survive if rescuers can get the victim out of the water quickly.; 5/13/17, 3:59 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: "Then she tried to fly through my sliding glass door and could have seriously injured herself."

Obviously a liberal. Unable to adjust to the real world, so came looking for a handout.; 5/13/17, 7:02 AM
Portlandmermaid said...: Celery wasn't always considered so lowly. I have a couple of heirloom celery vases that date back to the early 1900's when celery was an expensive luxury. Celery stalks were cleaned and put in the tall vases and presented as a symbol of wealth.; 5/13/17, 9:18 AM
Portlandmermaid said...: I took a paddle boarding class last year and found it tricky to stay balanced on the board. I'd have wobbled off into the shark-filled water had I heard that announcement.; 5/13/17, 9:20 AM
madAsHell said...: Is celery really a food?

Only when it is slathered in peanut butter.; 5/13/17, 9:30 AM
mockturtle said...: Portlandmermaid observes: Celery wasn't always considered so lowly. I have a couple of heirloom celery vases that date back to the early 1900's when celery was an expensive luxury. Celery stalks were cleaned and put in the tall vases and presented as a symbol of wealth.

But they had the good sense not to eat the stuff!; 5/13/17, 10:16 AM
Trumpit said...: "Godfather advises: To all the sane commenters: If you ignore Trumpit, she'll eventually go away. I agree. She is suspiciously Inga-like." - mockturtle

Why should I be ignored and not you, mockturtle?; 5/13/17, 2:30 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: "Why should I be ignored and not you, mockturtle?"

QED; 5/13/17, 11:42 PM