A ferret bit me once but I still like them
Animals animals animals animals animals animals animals
Shark Week on TLC. Watched an amazing show last night about a man who was obsessed with swimming with sharks, and who practiced "tonic immobility" with them. He would take their snouts in his hands and press on the sides of their heads in a certain place and they would lapse into immobility, like a comatose state. Then he would hold them while they sank toward the bottom together...then he'd let go and they'd wake up and swim off, fine. Some of them seemed to like it and would come back for him to touch them again. He dove over and over in different places with different kinds of sharks. His goal was to prove something about their nature, to contribute to saving them. Most amazing was a huge great white who allowed him to take hold of her top fin and then carefully pulled him along with her as she swam...for about 75 feet. It has never been done or photographed before. She "volunteered" to do this, and it was in her control, not his. (He had learned the "going tonic" thing on the assumption that would be the safest way for humans to learn to interact with sharks. But the ending suggested that perhaps their own curiosity and some willingness on their part to interact, be touched, etc...showed that even more amazing things could happen.) Naturally, we should leave them alone...and for godssake stop butchering them alive to make shark fin soup. (Whoops, wrong thread...that's a thing I dislike.)
What surprised me most was how many of the sharks were curious and would swim up to him and turn so he could touch their sides, stroke them, etc. And he worked with several species that have attacked humans (mistaking them for prey, as a shark's bite is how they "taste"...the equivalent of our taking a sip of something). Yoickers, but I loved seeing their intelligent and curious side.
Hops
