Twas a Fool Who Said There Is No Such Thing As A Dumb Question

I went to a talk last night by a National Geographic underwater photographer. He spoke and showed his work for an hour and a half. It was riveting!

He talked about his experiences diving, about his desire to protect the underwater world - to save the coral, to change people’s opinions on ‘sharks as monsters’, to end over-fishing.

He told us about the day a whale swam with him for 2 hours - so long that he had to kneel on the bottom for a rest at one point. A point where he was sure the whale would just swim off, but instead the whale stopped patiently and stared at him with a big sympathetic eye - as though he knew that the tiny creature's awkward appendages were all wrong for swimming.

He talked about the diversity of the ocean around Japan, about the behaviour of Manatees when no one else is looking…about the mating rituals of squid and the helpless Harp Seal pups that he was the first photographer to shoot from outside of a helicopter.

After his talk he opened up the floor to questions.

A few people got up asked a few questions that pertained to the subject matter and the man they were staring at. Questions such as, "What advice would you have for someone wanting to work for National Geographic?" or "Which of your photographs do you think had the most impact?" or even "What are some of the scariest moments you faced while diving?"

Then a woman stood up and said, “I go to Hawaii with my husband. We love it there and go often. We like to swim and would like to go in the ocean, but I’m so afraid when I’m snorkelling or swimming of those scary Tiger Sharks, like the ones you mentioned earlier. Ewwwwww. So I was wondering, what advice or tips you had for scaring off those, ewwww, scary sharks? Like maybe colour of my bathing suit?...blah,blah,blah...I know the hotels dump their garbage and food scraps in the water, which would attract sharks...blah,blah,blah...I'm a lawyer, do you think the sharks would give me professional consideration?”



Seriously?


Yup. Seriously.



He said, “MmmmHmmm. Well, if you are in an area where you know hotels are dumping food and garbage and you know sharks will be attracted to that, I’d recommend you don’t snorkel there.”



You wouldn’t think someone from the National Geographic would interfere with Darwin's Natural Selection, but I guess he had a certain obligation being asked directly in a public forum...





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