Originally published at: Watch a shark attack a stingray at an aquarium, all to the delight of the children watching | Boing Boing
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At one point a woman says “it’s lunchtime”. Indeed it is.
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That shark seems to have discovered the same thing I did when I tried cow-nose ray – the species in the video – they’re damn tough.
FWIW, a long slow braise, like in a curry, was the secret to tenderize it and turned out quite nice. Pretty bland meat though. I read a chef describe it as “sauce friendly” in a not-nice way.
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Did they start piping this song in over the intercom?
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These are perfect learning moments. Wild animals are wild animals, even in captivity and their behavior can not be completely predicted.
Once, while sitting at a park, during the great local coyote panic that was before COVID, we used to go to a park and watch a lone coyote go through at sunset and scavenge. At sunset a lone coyote would come to the park and scavenge and hang out, driving people away in fear. A local took to admonishing me for bringing my kid around to watch a terrible and deadly animal from a distance. The coyote would often sit on the grass after making her rounds and then dart across the grass, look around and then dissapear into the shrubs. One day, while watching the beast, to the horror of the woman as she was threatening and admonishing me on my parenting skills, the coyote caught a gopher, and ran into the bushes. The woman behind us screamed, and after a beat my kid turns to her and said, with a slightly up beat tone, “circle of life.”
That person eventually went from threatening to call the police and CPA to actually doing it. The day the police showed up my daughter was scared, thinking they were going to take me away. After asking me questions, taking my name down, etc. they said they would talk to the person, who bolted from the park. She apparently had been calling for days and they had to check up on her complaint. I explained to my daughter that the two most dangerous things at the park were the cars in the parking lot and the street, and some of the adults that were there too.
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They called the cops because you let your kid watch a coyote eat a gopher? WTF!
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Though that didn’t stop local fishermen from trying to rebrand the species “Chesapeake Ray” after the local oyster population collapsed.
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“O death, where is thy sting?”
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Funny enough, that effort had a role in influencing me to actually land and keep one to try for the first time. I’d been peripherally aware of the overpopulation problem with cow-nose rays for a while but had been raised to think of them as trash fish – basically unsuitable for consumption. So, instead of just unhooking and releasing as I’d done my whole life, I kept one. Beautiful meat – it has fibers that run from the body to the wingtips in two colors (the usual light/white and dark/red) that form beautiful patterns if cut across the grain. Unfortunately, it has the texture of rubbery pork with most cooking methods.
As to the article you link, the ray I kept and cooked was caught a stone’s throw from Stingray Point.
I’m shocked (not shocked) it didn’t catch on. Pun intended.
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suggests that hammerheads are particularly known for feeding on stingrays. I wonder why they were in the same tank together. (I feel like I saw another ray or two in the background as well.)
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I think this post was really more about testing if a 4-year old video can go viral again ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
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Not really circle of life as much as bad husbandry.
But then I wonder why I feel worse for the animal that was for show but instead got eaten, but less saddened by the thousands of animals that will be caught/bred as food for this one animal?
I cant rationalize it, my only advice for myself is not to support a zoo.
Pardon the long reply.
I think she had called the police for days. I think she was a “Karen” before the term had been coined, but I may have not known of the term “Karen” back then. My first interaction with her was because she felt I didn’t belong sitting at the park, my kid was playing and she demanded that I leave if I didn’t tell her exactly what kid was mine. She didn’t see the stroller next to me and assured her I had a kid, but I wasn’t going to bow to her request. My kid came running up because this woman raised her voice, and because my kid was thirsty. She then clarified that she was just making sure the park was safe and warned me about the coyote. She preceded to tell every parent to leave because there was dangerous animal about. Most parents left, we didn’t. I think she was the one that put up signs all over the park warning about the deadly coyote. The next day she commented that I didn’t look like my kid, as my kid has curly blond hair and was fair skinned, and wondered where my spouse was and from this point onward I was done with her. I got the warring again about the coyote and some vague verbiage that it was weird that my kid didn’t look like me (I am assuming she though I kidnapped my kid), and she was seriously worried. That day the coyote showed up, and my kid and I watched from the edge of the grass, after telling the woman that we would be fine. I returned with my kid, primarily to see the coyote, but also to make a point that fear mongering wasn’t going to work on me and there were more important things to be worried about, like cars in the parking lot and street- places kids kept smushed every day. We were both at logger heads concerning the issue. I wasn’t going to be driven off, nor was I going to give her even a bit of satisfaction that she was even a little correct. Yes, a coyote could eat my kid and grab them from the play structure, but so could an adult- and that was more likely. So she escalated things. And truly that was terrifying. I called my spouse to ask for some advice, and talked down, as I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I left after the coyote left, or left when it was evident that the coyote wasn’t going to show up, it also turned out that I had left before the police could arrive days before. So when they did turn up, and saw that we were safe, we had a spotting scope, and I wasn’t doing what ever she claimed I was doing I was in the clear. I think my daughter crying when they finally made contact with us moved the police to talk to her about miss using 911, or making false claims. I do not begrudge the police for showing up when somebody screams child endangerment, and to their credit, beyond taking my information down, nothing happened. It may have helped that one of the cops was female and one male, and they did apologize for having upset my kid.
On the plus side, she attempted to make rounds shouting about the scary coyote and she avoided me, and thus cut her rounds short and stayed away from the play structure. Win! One parent told me she was a fairly well known local. My spouse and I were just talking about those particular events. The coyote eventually disappeared, and was apparently captured and released. The coyote returned for a short bit after a break and, and rumor was she was found dead, shot. That was just a rumor, unsubstantiated. The coyote’s behavior was truly odd, as it was not particularly wary of people, though it never got close to anybody. We learned when the coyote was approaching, because the local band of crows had a particular call and would gather above the tree line, as the coyote sometimes pulled open trash bags, and they were perfect opportunists.
I go out of my way to let my kids see fantastic things in nature. Earlier this year we drove out to see a whale that had died and washed up on shore. The sense of scale, even at a distance was amazing. My kids, still pretty young, ended up being interviewed for a sound bite on the local news.
But I digress- TLDR, No, she called the police, likely over several days, because I didn’t heed her warnings and get scared about a coyote visiting the park at sun set on a regular basis. Also because, at the time, my kid and I looked different to her. I think she was a bigot and fear monger- but that’s my opinion.
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That sucks.
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Sorry for your shitty experience with the Karen. But a cool experience with both the coyote and crows.
Both of them are exceptionally wily. They know how to observe potential danger and stay out of reach of it. In the case of suburban coyotes, they keep away from people, but aren’t so timid to be scared of them at a distance. I know there is at least one that roams around my apt complex, but I have only seen it twice. It might be why the feral cat population has dropped off.
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When the police showed up days later, did they come to the park or your house?
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This really digresses from the original BoingBoing thread. It was at the park. I assume she called, as that was her threat but she could have easily flagged down the officers that patrol the area, as there are intermittent homeless encampments in that area, a few parks, and a fantastic set of speed reductions along that road that I am sure must generate tickets. Also, depending on the season and time of day, there can be a lot of people, including people drinking.
I really think that she believed that I was endangering my kid or that my kid wasn’t really mine, or some combination of the two. She also didn’t like that I pushed back at her assertions. The officers were stand offish, did not separate my kid and I, but did take down my name and some other info. They said they had tried to find us earlier (had to be a another day, but we had left) and had to make contact, let me know about the park closing time, asked if I had seen the coyote, asked about our nature scope, assured my kid that everything was fine, and apologized that they didn’t have any stickers- as what kid doesn’t like stickers. I think they knew they were walking into a non story, and I also am glad they talked fear mongering person, because she left me alone from that point onward.
The officers also asked why my kid had bells on their ankle- and I said, “flight risk”. And they chucked at that.
The whole thing was weird and was irritating, and to bring it back to the original post topic, it was a real world teaching moment for my kid and I- nature is nature, and some people can be terrible.
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I’m surprised to see such a “Rome is burning,” animal “gladiators” thing on BoingBoing, esp involving a 4-y-old vid.
[shakes head, sighs]
Only in Jersey…
