This story from the BBC got me really angry: angry at the people who killed the shark, and angry at the BBC journalist who seems to know absolutely nothing about sharks.

The people in the boat claim that the shark was already dead when they found it floating in the water, and so they decided to use is as bait to fish for another shark. This is clearly a lie, since sharks do not float when dead; unlike bony fish, sharks have no swim bladder to control their buoyancy, and must swim to keep afloat. When sharks die, or when their fins are harvested for sharks fin, they always sink to the bottom of the ocean. The other claim that is an obvious lie is that they were dragging the shark behind their boat, using it as bait to catch another shark; the dead shark was simply too big to use as bait (unless they were trying to catch Jaws) and the boat was going too fast for a shark to be able to take the bait.

I had expected that the journalist assigned to cover this story would know some basic facts about sharks, and be able to pint this out in the short text accompanying the video report, but I guess I was being overoptimistic.

Given that many species of shark are now endangered, this kind of pointless cruelty and needless slaughter should not be tolerated. I hope that the investigation results in the "fishermen" being prosecuted.