Today’s collaboration with Cellar Image of the Day brings us this gruesome yet fascinating image of a whale shark being sliced for its meat.
Daily Mail has the story:
More likely to eat than be eaten, this giant whale shark was caught off the coast of China by hardcore fishermen who managed to harness the ten-metre, eight-tonne whopper.
Link – Remember to check out Cellar IotD for more amazing pictures!
Ali
Egads! Well, at least it looks like they won’t waste any of it. Although I do think it’ll be quite chewy seeing it that the Whale Shark is pretty blubbery.
Sammy
“More likely to eat than be eaten”…
From Wiki: “The whale shark is a filter feeder – one of only three known filter feeding shark species (along with the basking shark and the megamouth shark). It feeds on phytoplankton, macro-algae, plankton, krill and small nektonic life, such as small squid or vertebrates.”
Not quite the blood thirsty killer most people think.
Jimbo
What is the reason for the flaming whatever in orange? Was it his/her idea to do this?
Alex
The statement is still true, Sammy – whale shark is more likely to eat (plankton, that is) than be eaten.
Ali
@Jimbo
It took me a moment to understand what you meant…until I saw…”it” in the background. Hehehe. Yeah that Peachy-Orange person seems to think he/she is…how do you say…”the shit.”
quinnn
I caught a bit of Planet Earth last night and they had a bit on the whale shark and showed it and tuna eating the same bait fish (I think that was what they were). It was amazing to watch them work.
Terry Ortiz
Some more wikipedia-age:
“All four whale sharks were imported from Taiwan, where whale sharks are dubbed as Tofu sharks because of the taste and texture of the flesh.”
Blubbery may not be quite the texture, but whale sharks make me crave daifukumochi.
former reader
and this is supposed to be “neat”. f*ck off with this. i’m outta here.
biltmore
bye bye former reader, like we give a damn …
I wonder how it tastes, as I’ve heard from some people that it doesn’t taste good at all.
d.maile
Hard to believe some people are hung up over this. A whale shark may be called a whale shark for its size, but it’s still a shark, not a whale. I understand how a lot of people feel horrible when they see whales being hunted, etc., but this is still a big fish, and human beings in ocean-harvesting cultures have been eating fish for thousands of years. At least it’s better than straight sport fishing where they don’t make use of what they’ve caught but to mount it on a wall.
Personally, I’d like to know how it tastes.
thecorbinator
Unlike what you might think d.maile most shark species are also endangered. They are also extremely important to the ecosystem since they are at the top of the food-chain and have been for 200 million years. Killing sharks is pretty much the stupidest thing humans have ever done (and yes I. They are not man killers as one might think (5 shark related deaths a year, less than dog related deaths) they are not stupid and we know very little about them because of our fear of them. So maybe there should be a little more shark activists I think.
cl
just curious, but how come there’s no blood when they’re slicing it? one would think that cutting any huge animal, there’s bound to be lots of blood.
katioh
Here’s a link to a site about them- at the very end you will see that Whale sharks are classified as a “vunerable species”
img src=
Aleki
cl… A lot of the time you “bleed” the animal before you cut it up. It’s a lot cleaner that way. I’ve seen Inuits cutting up whales before. It’s actually pretty clean.
steinum heavyaxe
this fills the lack of curiosity of what whales look like anatomically.
this puts me into a worse mood than i was.
it is better to know than not know the practices of other cultures.
Someone
And how is this worse than clearing land that thousand of endangered/threatened species need in order for us to raise more cows, pigs, and other domestic animals. If we would eat just a little less meat, we’d not only be less obese, but also less animals would have to lose their habitat.
billy
i personally think tht we shouldnt do this because if u do this then it totally fucks up the ecosystem it doesnt matter if its a whale shark pr a bull shark. also some od the stuff humans do to sharks are dugusting like cutting of ther fins while they are still alive and putting them back into the water. if it was dolphins having there fins cut of we would a flip out but its sharks so called man killers. they do nothing comperd to wht we do to them there population is down by 75% thts jsut cruel.
billy
thus is disgusting they don’t don anything o us compared to what we do to them there population is down by 75 percent just because we want there fins. after they cut of the fins they throw the live shark into the water. if it was dolphins that we wee cutting to bits everyone would freak but its sharks so no one cares. and by the way eating sharks has been proved to lower sperm counts and make men infertile, also there the top predator top.
Jazzy
hey ive only just seenthis picand i think that its soo cruel. yeah i know they need food in some plsces but that was a armless and beautiful shark, its their choice to kill thaings like that but they done it with no consideration!!!!!!!!!!!! and those on the Daily mail that wrote the top story, the whale shark only eats Plaknton not humans, look up your facts!!!
amy
omg im really annoyed now!AAAAAAAAAH. Its horrible to see those people killin anythin they cn get there hands on all for money
sleepwalker
whale shark meat is very delicious.i eat it on the average of once a month.
however, the only best way to cook it is by grill. by that way, the fat / oil will drip out continuously.
eating more than 200 grams of this meat will give you an uncontrollable fatty drip from your ass.
mari4ka
only in F*kin china. those people kill and eat anything that moves. go f*kin vegitarian or something, not only do they eat sharks and whales what about dogs, cats, birds, insects, tahts where SARS came from. you should know better
mikedero
Come on people it is fish people eat fish every day. I do not hear anyone talking about the rainbow trout they are better looking then a whale shark. people are to damn touchy today. To much of this PC bull crap.
It is a shark not a big deal that thing will feed the whole village for close to a month.
and the whole eat Veggies thing is wrong God made us omnivores (Spelling) we eat both meat and veggies. go hug a tree. By the way Bambi tastes great as well
sharkLOVER
i think thats soo sad.sharks are becoming extinct and people like that are making the problem worse…imbalancing the food chain!
Lana
This is so sad. Sharks are becoming rapidly extinct and that is exactly why. i don’t like sharks seeing as they eat people but that does not give us the right to just go ahead and eat them back!!!!!!!
JohnMC
Crap! Whale sharks are very harmless. They don’t eat humans at all or more so be aggressive at them. They only eat plankton and such like blue whales. Why is it that some people are ignorant about this?
immmaaasharrrkk
Many of the people who are posting comments seem to not realize that the shark was killed for its meat.
Also, animals like rabbits are used to “test” cosmetics. It’s pretty gross and painful to even see…
SvenskPojke
people are so stupid… i want all the animals on this planet to team up and attack, kill and eat all the humans and take over the earth like they have been for millions of years, and have stupid humans left extinct for good.
Brian Glassman
Looks tasty the meat is well defined.
Remember much of American and european culture is towards cherishing animals, and I see a lot of people backing their culture, but the Japanese culture is towards enjoying gods gifts in animals. A polar difference I must say, and many people can not come to terms with that.
I say, Respect other cultures, don’t condone them if you do not know what they are about.
Brian Glassman
P.S. Whale Sharks populations are growing see this article.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2007/s2127363.htm
F*ck
So this is why whale sharks are so rare, few years ago saw a news of a chinese family eating a tger they caught.
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