Giant Shark Washed Up on Beach–A Portent?

We aren’t used to seeing this

The great Roman historian Livy would have had a field day with this. He was big on portents and prodigies–weird and strange events in nature which, he thought, might be messages from the gods… if only you knew how to read them. Two-headed calves and stuff like that.

A 24-foot basking shark–and they can get bigger than that–was recently washed up on a Scottish beach and had to be removed with a forklift (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/giant-24ft-shark-washes-up-on-uk-beach-as-huge-fish-is-forklifted/ar-BB1phHa7). The fish might have died in an unfortunate encounter with a rope.

Don’t be scared. For all their colossal size, basking sharks are harmless plankton eaters. Years ago there was a basking shark fishery–their hides were used to make leather, oil was taken from the liver–but that’s over: basking sharks are an endangered species. We used to have a shark leather company right here in New Jersey. Ocean Leather, it was called.

We don’t believe in portents anymore. But if we did, this would be pretty high on the list.