Some very disturbing footage has emerged from a fishing boat off the coast of Greenland recently. The footage shows two young fishermen happily chopping off the tail of a harmless species of shark before releasing it back to the ocean. They shouted “Good luck trying to swim, you punk!” as they did it and laughed for the camera. Jason Momoa, yes The Aquaman, has made a comment addressing the issue and his response has since gone viral.
The poor shark that was disgraced has been identified as a Greenland Shark, which is the world longest living vertebrate species living over 400 years. These large and gentle sharks do not attack humans and are currently listed as “near threatened” on the conservation scale.
This is Jason Momoa’s response on Twitter. You can immediately tell his response is from the heart and really upset him. The attention brought the video to the authorities who are now investigating the case. Aquaman himself, Jason Momoa, did not hold back in expressing his disgust in the pair of fishermen. “What you did was evil PURE EVIL. You will get what the shark got”
It looks like the shark was trapped in a commercial fishing net belonging to an Icelandic boat. Instead of these two helping the shark, the Icelandic men decided to torture the incredible animal while filming themselves laughing at its inherent demise.
The disturbed fishermen have received a barrage of abuse on social media and might be facing legal consequences for their actions. They could receive a hefty fine or even jail time if found guilty under Iceland’s animal cruelty laws. There is confusion if wild fish are included under that legislation. “If no law covers this then they cannot be punished”.“This is a difficult matter because when the laws were drafted certain species of animals were excluded, including all the wild fish. So it’s a gray area legally to see if this is punitive or not.” Many people believe that the law only applies to traditional hunting and fishing, of which this case is neither.
The owners of the fishing boat immediately fired the fishermen and strongly condemned the incident. “We owners and shipowners Bíldseyar SH 65 disgrace and condemn the horrendous event that occurred in a video that accompanies DV’s news today… So far, we have tried to adopt good working practices and responsible handling of the resource and the environment in general. This event is completely unjustifiable and those who were there for work have no claim. We have no choice but to reject further work by people who demonstrate such behavior.”
Here is the full video of the fishermen. WARNING: the video is incredibly disturbing.
There is no excuse for the actions of these two. The fact that they laugh about it proves their intentions. As much as I hate to see this, it needs to be seen to be made aware that this is happening. The sad fact is that this happens a lot around the globe and many people don’t realize what’s happening. Over time these actions begin to affect many other vital pieces of marine ecosystems. The blatant disregard of life is disturbing and I hope they are prosecuted and made an example of.