If you had to put yourself in the shoes of a lemon shark pulled from your habitat, would you scream for a photo with your captor or bite him?
One Florida lemon shark found itself in such a situation and, according to ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea), “the shark bit back.”
They shared videos of the incident on TikTok.
Surprised and without autonomy in a catch-and-release situation, the lemon shark surrounded by the hands of two men posing for a picture and gave one a strong chomp to the leg. An ABC News (@ABCNews) YouTube video quotes the man who was bitten: “You don’t know what a wild animal is going to do, you know? So, it happens. We’re in its territory.”
Interestingly, he could make this observation only after being attacked. If he had considered that wild animals like sharks have instincts for preservation, he might not have ended up with an injured leg and a hospital bill.
When put in a compromising situation, all animals are likely to fight. When bison feel threatened, they may charge people into their personal space. Bears, too, will attack when approached.
Lemon sharks are no different. Animals at their core care about one thing: survival. If any person interferes with this, the person may end up injured or dead.
Unfortunately, when animals attack, they are sometimes euthanized. The lemon shark in question was not put down, but the shark and its community are under fire.
According to the Save Our Seas Foundation, lemon sharks — social and yellow-brown in color — are near-threatened due to overfishing and habitat loss.
As apex predators, sharks maintain balance and biodiversity in their ecosystems, and to do so, they must eat. Fishing, however, can throw off this balance, displacing the apex predators as “top dog” and leaving sharks with less food to eat.
Sharks and their prey are both overfished, which has created an imbalance in the ecosystem that reaches all the way to humans. We depend on healthy ecosystems to support our eating habits, but when we take too much, we end up hurting ourselves.
As mere creatures who share this planet with countless others, we humans must leave wild animals alone.
Commenters on the TikTok video were Team Shark.
“Sharks are not toys,” said one. “I hope the shark is ok.”
“It’s almost as if this was completely inevitable,” commented another.
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