What's This Shark Guy Talking About Veganism For?
What’s this shark guy talking about veganism for? This will be an unpopular video for many people...we don't like change and we don't like to have a way of life called into question. But some discoveries I've made on my journey are worth at least contemplating.
Watch the video below
I’ve been speaking about the merits of veganism a lot lately (on my non shark account) so maybe I should stop and explain how I, a person who ate meat his entire life and was raised in an agricultural community in the midwest, came to be vegan. What’s this have to do with being a shark advocate and does practicing a vegan lifestyle actually affect the fate of sharks?
“Out of sight, out of mind,” is a recurring theme in my work, and it certainly applies here. You can hear people talk about an issue all day long and it may still never really register until you’ve witnessed the issue in question playing out... and even then we have the capacity to turn a blind eye. But bearing witness repeatedly makes reality hard to ignore.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” is a recurring theme in my work, and it certainly applies here. You can hear people talk about an issue all day long and it may still never really register until you’ve witnessed the issue in question playing out... and even then we have the capacity to turn a blind eye. But bearing witness repeatedly makes reality hard to ignore.
Oh, the lies we live
Hearing a statistic such as “ten pounds of murdered animals are discarded for every one pound of targeted animal harvested” is one thing. Witnessing the by catch float down onto your head is another.
Hearing about the destructive practice of long lining and trawling is one thing. Watching a seemingly endless supply of corpses unloaded while you try to eat a seafood sandwich is another.
Both of those examples are taken from real life experiences. I was working as a safety diver on a CBC documentary in the Dry Tortugas when our boat came upon a shrimping boat. It was 2006, I was young and naive and admittedly watched the spectacle unfold with clueless curiosity than horror. Our captain knew the shrimp boat would have by catch, and using that to our advantage to make sure we had sharks to film, we pulled up and offered them beer in exchange for them dumping their by catch overboard while we were in the water. Of course, they thought we were crazy, saying “You’re gonna be in the water? Don’t you know there will be sharks!?” It worked like a charm and all kinds of animals showed up for the feast of discarded by catch…even sea turtles. I didn’t want to think about it at the time, but I can tell you now, without a doubt, I saw at least one sea turtle on the deck of that shrimp boat. Who was I to question these hard working “salt of the earth” men who were just “making a living” as “good ol’ fishermen”?
My God, the horrors that take place on this planet using each of those phrases to mask the truth of what is actually rape for profit.
Hearing about the destructive practice of long lining and trawling is one thing. Watching a seemingly endless supply of corpses unloaded while you try to eat a seafood sandwich is another.
Both of those examples are taken from real life experiences. I was working as a safety diver on a CBC documentary in the Dry Tortugas when our boat came upon a shrimping boat. It was 2006, I was young and naive and admittedly watched the spectacle unfold with clueless curiosity than horror. Our captain knew the shrimp boat would have by catch, and using that to our advantage to make sure we had sharks to film, we pulled up and offered them beer in exchange for them dumping their by catch overboard while we were in the water. Of course, they thought we were crazy, saying “You’re gonna be in the water? Don’t you know there will be sharks!?” It worked like a charm and all kinds of animals showed up for the feast of discarded by catch…even sea turtles. I didn’t want to think about it at the time, but I can tell you now, without a doubt, I saw at least one sea turtle on the deck of that shrimp boat. Who was I to question these hard working “salt of the earth” men who were just “making a living” as “good ol’ fishermen”?
My God, the horrors that take place on this planet using each of those phrases to mask the truth of what is actually rape for profit.
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These images are only as unrelated as you tell yourself they are
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Fast forward to 2013 when I visited Cape Cod to document OCEARCH’s first big campaign there. I was taking a break on the dock of Chatham Harbor having a seafood sandwich when the boats started dumping loads of sharks as if I were watching trucks unload sand. Following the sharks were seemingly endless amounts of skates and rays. I made the film ‘Balance’ on this same trip, discussing the role of white sharks in the ocean. In Cape Cod the grey seal population had been successfully recovering (since law prevented us from sending them into extinction.) With the return of the food source came the return of the natural hunters, white sharks (the signs of a recovering food chain were becoming clear by 2009) and it was amazing to see nature’s response of to trying to keep one population in check by the reintroduction of another. Many fishermen weren’t too happy about the seals, who also wanted to eat fish. I couldn’t help but be stuck by the irony and hypocrisy of the very vocal fishermen who were demanding a cull of the seals as I watched the horror of what we call sustainable fishing unfold before my eyes.
As if on cue, a seal popped his head up in the harbor as the fish were unloaded…his face almost seemed to say, “Can you leave any for me?” Or maybe he was asking for help since a combination of fishing line and rope were cutting deep into his throat.
As if on cue, a seal popped his head up in the harbor as the fish were unloaded…his face almost seemed to say, “Can you leave any for me?” Or maybe he was asking for help since a combination of fishing line and rope were cutting deep into his throat.
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So it began with seafood. But giving up the food I was raised on?! Beef, chicken, pork!? No way was I giving that up. It was a "way of life". Based on the diet of my upbringing, as far as I was concerned, if I hadn't eaten meat I hadn't eaten.
And thus the next lesson. Change is hard. We don't like it and rarely are we forced into it. Learning that something you believed to be true is not true is is also difficult, and quite frankly many of us reject that lesson and choose to believe a lie instead.
So begins the spiral of convenient excuses. "Those" animals don't mind. "Those" animals don't suffer. The animals I eat don't come from "those" places or "those" conditions. "Hey, I've got to eat, we are meant to eat meat, it's in our very nature". Perhaps the most disturbing is, "I've tried to be vegan, but it was boring, I like the flavor too much." So...the entertainment value of something hitting our taste buds justifies suffering on a scale that most of us won't even look at it.
And thus the next lesson. Change is hard. We don't like it and rarely are we forced into it. Learning that something you believed to be true is not true is is also difficult, and quite frankly many of us reject that lesson and choose to believe a lie instead.
So begins the spiral of convenient excuses. "Those" animals don't mind. "Those" animals don't suffer. The animals I eat don't come from "those" places or "those" conditions. "Hey, I've got to eat, we are meant to eat meat, it's in our very nature". Perhaps the most disturbing is, "I've tried to be vegan, but it was boring, I like the flavor too much." So...the entertainment value of something hitting our taste buds justifies suffering on a scale that most of us won't even look at it.
Fine. Don't give up meat to reduce suffering. How about for the lions? How about for the sharks? How about to avoid the continuing loss of species due to habitat destruction? We shark advocates are appalled by the practice of shark finning, both due to its cruelty and its potential to send several species of shark into extinction. Yet our appetite for livestock has ALREADY sent terrestrial animals into extinction. It has. Period. And it's still happening.
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Fine. Don't give up meat to reduce suffering. How about for the lions? How about for the sharks? How about to avoid the continuing loss of species due to habitat destruction? We shark advocates are appalled by the practice of shark finning, both due to its cruelty and its potential to send several species of shark into extinction. Yet our appetite for livestock has ALREADY sent terrestrial animals into extinction. It has. Period. And it's still happening.
You can stop telling me we "need" meat now.
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But we have to eat, right? Yes, we do. But we don't have to eat suffering. We don't have to digest misery. We don't have to enjoy a banquet of extinction. We don't. I'm living proof. I couldn't be here typing, much less improving. For those of you getting upset because this is making too much sense and you're switching your defense to one of an emotional arsenal and starting to call me a "vegan pussy" or something like that, come on by and learn fist-hand just how weak a vegetable-powered punch is. You're wrong. I was wrong. I just didn't want to be wrong, like you.
Or go argue your "meat-based-protein is needed for muscle" case to a mountain gorilla (vegetarian) or an elephant (vegetarian). |
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The argument for feeding the hungry is non-applicable once you realize we can survive and even benefit without consuming meat. Not that the hungry issue really applied anyway. None of your farmer friends nor mine are going to bed at night thinking, "How will I feed the hungry?!" Please. They are weighing profit margins against self-imposed financial obligations, not needs. Even if farmers were the angels we once pictured them to be, the reality of harvested food is that most of it is wasted. Out the back door of a restaurant or grocery store, thrown over as by catch, spoiled before reaching the store, or thrown out by you in your own home when you ended up not eating it on time. We're all guilty of it, but stop talking about the need for food as though we're battling our own starvation when we're tossing out food that actual hungry people would fight for.
The majority of us were raised to engage in social activities that centered around the cooking of an animal. I never thought twice about it. It's what I knew. Barbecues, holiday meals, all those amazing things that hold such great memories. They were a way of life. It was traditional. It was cultural. Who wants to give up that? That's a good argument. It's the same argument used to consume shark fin soup.
The majority of us were raised to engage in social activities that centered around the cooking of an animal. I never thought twice about it. It's what I knew. Barbecues, holiday meals, all those amazing things that hold such great memories. They were a way of life. It was traditional. It was cultural. Who wants to give up that? That's a good argument. It's the same argument used to consume shark fin soup.
But you say, "I've gotta make a living right? You want me to just give up my job?!" My response is also a question. "Have you ever considered your existence outside the confines of just earning a paycheck? Is there not, perhaps, a greater purpose and perhaps even a career to go with it that has a greater reward than being an active contributor to the demise of the planet and inflicting suffering on living creatures?"
It may sound like a science fiction film, but our appetite for flesh is sending us on a path where the earth will consist of us and our factory produced meat, and nothing else. Congratulations to us all, what a world that will be. Complete domination by humans, with no annoying predators like tigers or great white sharks to deal with. No turtles, no whales, no elephants, no bears, no bison...No blue, no green. We won.
It may sound like a science fiction film, but our appetite for flesh is sending us on a path where the earth will consist of us and our factory produced meat, and nothing else. Congratulations to us all, what a world that will be. Complete domination by humans, with no annoying predators like tigers or great white sharks to deal with. No turtles, no whales, no elephants, no bears, no bison...No blue, no green. We won.
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The first videos from the "Best Case Scenarios" series are below
