Stuff You Should Know - Are Dogs a Shark's Favorite Meal?

Episode Date: July 18, 2008

In 2005, The Sun reported that dogs were being used as live bait in the Indian Ocean. Is it possible that dogs are a delicacy to sharks? Take a look at our HowStuffWorks article to learn more about the diet of sharks. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Brought to you by Consumer Guide Automotive. We make our buying easier. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff writer here at HowStuffWorks.com. With me is arguably at least my equal, if not better, fellow staff writer, Charles Bryant. How are you, Chuck? I'm good. I'll take that any day, Josh.

Fantastic. Yeah, any time. Good to be here. Chuck, you got any dogs? I do. I have two very sweet and bad dogs, Lucy and Buckley. Lucy and Buckley? Yeah. I have three dogs, Abby Bowen Maybell, and they're all related and super cute. And I love my dogs, as I'm sure you love your dogs. Sometimes. Well, every once in a while, I wake up from a deep sleep, and I'm covered in sweat and panicking just a little bit at the thought or dream of my dogs being eaten by sharks. Has that ever happened to you? No, that's really weird. It is weird, but it's awful. It's a terrible way to live. Well, you've told me there's a reason behind this.

Yeah, actually. And there was an article in 2005 that came out in 2005 in the British tabloid The Sun. And basically, it was a photo of a dog with a huge fish hook through its nose. And apparently, the dog had been used on the small island in the Indian Ocean as shark bait. So ever since I saw that, I'm thinking our dogs, you know, something that sharks like to eat. Is that true? Is this, is that like a bat boy? No, it is true. I'm not sure if the photo is true. It's still a disturbing photo, but apparently it is true. Right. And frankly, I went on Snopes to double check and Snopes says it looks like it's true.

Wow, that's horrific. But ever since then, I haven't been able to get that image out of my head or at least the image of my dogs being eaten, right? So can you help me put this to rest? Yeah, a little bit. I think one of the reasons that you have this fear is because there's something called Galeophobia, which is a irrational fear of being eaten by a shark yourself. Sure. And I'm projecting or transferring onto my dogs. Probably so. That sounds like me. Yeah, Jung might say that. But one of the reasons I think is because being attacked by a shark is probably one of the most terrifying things, even though it doesn't happen often. You can't imagine, thanks to Steven Spielberg,

anything worse than being dragged under and bitten by something, you know, three times your size. The jaws effect. The jaws effect, which is very real. It definitely is real. But like you said, I mean, there's not a lot of shark attacks, really, for as many people who are walking around, you know, very concerned by being attacked by a shark. There's not that many. There's like 71 shark attacks across all species of sharks in 2007, and only one of those related in fatality, right? Right. And I've got a couple of more stats for you, Josh, that might help put this into

perspective. They're kind of silly, but they're true. Between 1990 and 2006, 12 people in the United States were killed by sharks, and 16 people died from sandhole collapses. Wow. That's true. Boom. Yeah. And in 1987, there were 13 injuries all across the country from shark attacks, and there were more than 1500 injuries from humans biting other humans in New York City alone. I know. That was a terrible year for human bites. It was. 87 was a bad year for that. There's a lot of people who were bitten by someone else.

Right. But you don't walk around the streets of New York afraid that someone's going to bite you, yet every time you're in the ocean, you're probably afraid that a shark's going to bite you. Oh, definitely. Sure. Sure. But I mean, let's put this to rest, right? I'm not so much worried about myself. My concern is really over my dolls. Right. Even though you live nowhere near an ocean. Precisely. We're pretty much landlocked here. Although, you know, there are some sharks that can swim upstream, right? Yeah, bull sharks.

And how far has one ever made it? They swim in rivers to get to other bodies of water, and they can survive in fresh water. They've been spotted as far north as Illinois up the Mississippi River, which is, that's crazy. That's really crazy. And actually, the Chattahoochee is pretty filthy, but I don't know. Maybe a bull shark would try it. Who knows? Maybe. So I actually have to confess, I do know whether or not dogs are a shark's favorite meal. Right.

And the answer is no. Although, that's not to say that a shark won't eat a dog. Right. If the, you know, moment's right, the heat of the moment, it's like a dog. Mistaken identity, most likely. Yeah. Who are you? And I'm going to eat you to find out. There's a, I think, is it the bull shark or the tiger shark that does the bump and bite? The bull shark mainly does the bump and bite, which is just to kind of investigate and see what, if something is edible or, you know, has enough blubber, which is really their favorite thing to eat.

But a bull shark, too, will also eat, like, license plates and shoes. So will a tiger shark. Right. I think bull sharks have been known to eat hippopotamide under the right conditions. Right. And tiger sharks are the vacuum cleaners of the sea that grow them. Yeah. So they'll eat anything. Now, a great, a great white actually tests out whether or not it's its prey, something is its prey, by kind of biting down gently, because all sharks prefer blubber.

Right. Whales have been found that were relatively intact, but eviscerated, but missing all their blubber. Right. And sharks love seals. And if you're attacked by a great white and it's chomping down on you, it's basically just testing to see how much blubber you have. Dogs don't have much blubber, but, like you said, mistaken identity can lead to a bad day for a dog. Yeah, anything could happen. There's plenty more information where this came from.

Our dogs is sharks favorite meal, and you can read it on howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at howstuffworks.com. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed.

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