I had read many times, that when the earth was created, in this part of the
world just existed water. For very many millions of years, existed
just huge animals, which lived on earth and in the water. When I first visited
the Natural History Museum in New York, I went of course, to see the Dinosaur
Hall, it was huge one… but what impressed me, was the jaws of the prehistoric
shark… my blood just was frozen, right away! My eyes could not believe
it… it was placed just at the end of the Hall, right in the middle. You
could see at the right, the Brachiosaurus, Iguanodonts and the Tyrannosaurus
Rex at the left, (although I´ve read, their teeth, were just not designed
by nature to eat grass...!) for me just existed the jaws of these
prehistoric shark.
I started to move towards the jaws, I didn´t even see, what it was placed
left or right, the jaws had such an attraction on me, that when I was under the
hanging jaws, I could see their real magnitude... I´m glad, that times
are over… Anyway, from right to left, it was nearly four meters wide, and
the open jaw, nearly two meter high - a man could have been easily swallowed,
without even been beaten.
One of their teeth, could measure 0,25
centimetres wide, and 20 in high, in a triangle
form..and they were real, real sharp. I hope my mind
don´t exaggerate the measures, but I´m quite sure, I really got the
right side, since I look at them, with my both eyes. It´s been said, that
these kind of sharks existed nearly 450 millions years ago. Just to see the
remains, could have taken the living lights out of you.
Nowadays, sharks still live in our oceans, remarkable dangerous creatures. The
first time I dived, was in the waters near of Cancún. The mexican divers took us, to the “Coral Garden”,
incredible place. One could see over 30 meters under water. We were nearly 15 meters under the
water. One of the places the Mexicans offered us, in order to make just a short
visit, was an underwater cave… where sharks supposed to be
sleeping… (and I´d the feeling, they
wanted to see how courageous, people were… I don´t mind them being
“machos” at all, that means, they just
wanted to demonstrate, how braved they were, therefore they said to us:
“that we also may pat them on the head! I mean the sharks… since
they were sleeping, eh! Can you imagine my answer? I can tell you, already,
“I didn´t accept that offer, at all. Noway.” We should not
lose one more word on it. Corals fine!, Barracudas
fine! Piranhas… That´s another kind of funny
creatures… we´ll talk about them another time.
We continue with the sharks stories… long, long, long ago, at the
Centralamerican isthmus, the coast of Nicaragua didn´t have the
actual shape. Now, where we see the big lakes of Managua
and Nicaragua,
it was said to be part of the sea. As you may know, the earth is composed of
several plates which covered the earth and all the surface of the continents,
mountains and the sea bed are all located on the plates. Sometimes they move in
very heavy way and collided one another and that provokes or
cause the earthquakes… and also the appearance of new mountains,
volcanoes and so on. Anyhow, it seems that the coast of Nicaragua at the
Pacific side, was also shoved up, so that some part of the sea was kept inside
the land masses, this lakes have no salt water; this lakes are fresh water
lakes. Normally salty lakes are built from residual minerals form the mountains
which are brought in the waters of rivers to lower lands. The saltiest lake is
of course, the Dead Sea, in Israel.
The most incredible thing is that in the lakes live –I still hoped- the
only fresh water sharks on earth. There are not fresh water sharks anywhere
else. Isn´t that funny!
As you also know, mankind is the only dangerous creature, who doesn´t
really care for the survival of other creatures. Men take any other kind of
life for granted, for their economical advantage. In one opportunity I was
speaking with a Swiss man, he was director of the philharmonic orchestra in Bern, and he was married
to a nicaraguan girl. He happened to be travelling as
me in the same plane and he told me, this story: "nicaraguans,
may have already finished with the life of these incredible sharks… he
had heard, that they´d processed them into “fish flour”.
I couldn´t believe my ears! What a hell is going on? We have to take care
of our nature and and creatures. We have not the right to finish them. Once I
read in a book… that the creatures on earth were created with love and
much, much earlier than mankind. Men on earth, supposed has a gift from the
gods, and that is “the ability to think”, so we must used it
“to do good and be kind with all
creatures”, and take care of what we have.
Nowadays, I´ve heard, that in the coast of El Salvador, Korean firms have
come to the country, since they want "sharksfins"... this is
something very precious paid, in their country... some people saw, when they
made an excursion, in the zone of the Golf of Fonseca, near Nicaragua, they saw
hundreds of shark fins drying in the sun... this is a cruelty, since the
fishers just cut the fins and let the shark alive and throw them into the
water... they can not swim anymore and drawn... this is something for "Green
Peace"... we need to save the sharks, they are the police of the oceans,
and if they are not there anymore, we will have problems... respect life, respect life, respect life...
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