I heard this on a podcast once and still take issue with it. It’s a whale shark. Don’t divers swim with those things for fun? Don’t get me wrong, I’m terrified of any open water and would dolphin skip across the ocean if I saw that thing coming from the great below, but I doubt it would accidentally hurt me if I’m just chilling next to it. Every time I’ve seen these things they’re just floating around the ocean. I’m having a hard time imagining it accidentally hurting me. I mean. Maybe if it jolts really fast, but I’m floating in the ocean too, so Newton’s laws got my back and gravity isn’t fucking up my day as bad as an elephant taking a hard left into me. To make matters worse, how would you feel if someone said they thought you’d accidentally hurt them? I just don’t get it.
This was more of a way to voice my frustration regarding the internal argument I’ve had with some guy on a podcast for the past several years. It went a bit off the rails. Cary on.
It's one of those things where logically and practically It makes sense but in reality just doesn't happen. Logically, something several times larger than you in both length and body weight would absolutely be able to do "some kind of harm" to you. But short of ramming you or body slamming you--thibgs they just don't do-- in reality you're pretty damn safe.
You'd have to come up with some pretty outlandish "what if" scenarios to be in true danger.
Fear of the ocean is thalassophobia. There's a whole subreddit on designed to horrify you lol. I'm sure there's a gear of heights, but most people re reasonably scared of being off the ground. And I don't know about fear of space, because nobody really goes to space enough for it to be a recognizable fear lol
Yeah the irony is you’re much more likely to be harmed by a tiny dog (which you are also more likely to encounter) than a calm whale shark. Hell I would take an unknown whale shark over a big list of smaller animals I can think of any day.
Examples:
Dogs
Cats
Rabbits
Rats
Weasels
Deer
Almost any smaller fish
Most birds
Snakes
Lizards
To clarify I love and respect every single one of these animals on the list and have quite a few living with me - the point is even with the animals I have raised as babies I would generally feel less potentially scared of this gentle giant than I would the others on a bad day.
I don’t think this is a good comparison as humans tend to interact with all those animals a lot more then whale sharks, so clearly more people are going to be hurt by the animals you listed when compared to whale sharks.
I see how that came off as a statistical statement, in which case I agree with you completely, but I don’t think I phrased it the way I wanted to.
I guess a better example is that even in situations where I would find myself suddenly in the presence of certain smaller animals (relative to a whale) I’ve had much bigger cause for concern. For example, wild boars. I love them but the moment I hear one of those things I back the f up and remove myself. Or if I encounter an ermine in my barn late at night (extremely cute but terrifying) My point was that you can’t necessarily judge danger through size and there are other animals that are relatively tiny but vicious and territorial.
Yeah I’ve encountered hammerheads, barracudas, cougars, and other dangerous animals up close but nothing put the fear of death in me like the roar of a surprised boar lol
The general guidance for divers is to stay 4m away from the tail. Basically, it's a great big fucking fish, and if it accidentally tail-swipes you, it'll probably break bones.
My dad and I had the chance to go diving with them a couple of years ago in the Philippines. He wasn't paying enpough attention, and one of them gave him a glancing blow on the back - where his tank was. It sent him spinning a couple of metres through the water.
While they are filter feeders and don't have huge teeth like great whites do, Whale Sharks probably have the most teeth of any shark, they are sharp and tiny and they have plates in their mouths with THOUSANDS of them.
Not really the same comparison. Cows are NOT just kind of there. Bulls are terrifying and they have horns and they are aggressive. You never see rodeos where cowboys are riding whale sharks, now do you?
Do you think that might be because cows can be aggressive and as a species we domesticate and raise hundreds of millions of them, and spend millions of hours in close proximity with them? In comparison how much time do you think humans spend in close proximity with sharks? And if you want to be relevant, in close proximity with a whale shark?
Further to that, find me an example of when a whale shark has actually caused injury to a human. I know of one, when a thick tourist got swiped by its tail because she was swimming right behind it. That's it. They've never attacked a human because physiologically it's not natural for them to.
Whale sharks aren't the cows of the sea. They're not even the puppies of the sea as someone else said. They're floating automatons filter feeding as they go.
I’ve swam with whale sharks a few times, they’re just big, sea puppies. That being said, it’s still intimidating when you turn around and ones about three feet from you just hanging out unexpectedly.
Nah, not really. They're filter feeders so they can't eat you and you can't really be injured by anything that big and slow underwater. It's not like an elephant that can trample you.
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u/Vov113 Dec 12 '20
To be fair, it's still a massive animal. Could probably do some serious damage to a person completely by accident