• Midnitte@beehaw.org
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    2 hours ago

    We also kill millions of sharks per year, while they’re responsible for maybe 10 human deaths per year (worldwide).

  • im_fine_sandy@nord.pub
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    5 hours ago

    Actually marinas like the one pictured or “canal estates” often create environments that become “infested” with pests and predators. Some of which for example contain bull sharks in plague proportions. Yes sharks live in the ocean but anyone living next to a canal teaming with them would conclude that there is an “investation”.

    Bull sharks are unique in that they can somehow retain salt from ocean / salt / brackish water which allows them to operate in fresh water. They’re also more aggressive than other species, or perhaps just more likely to grab at movement in murky river water.

    I remember watching a documentary suggesting that bull shark attacks might have been the inspiration for the Jaws series, after a spate of attacks in estuaries in the US in the years prior.

    Jeremy Wade on River Monsters TV series also had an episode about them.

  • Danarchy@lemmy.nz
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    4 hours ago

    This is why festivals are called that all teeming with wretched humans and their various parasites

  • rumba@lemmy.zip
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    6 hours ago

    infest verb in·​fest in-ˈfest infested; infesting; infests Synonyms of infest transitive verb

    1 : to spread or swarm in or over in a troublesome manner shark-infested waters

    2 : to live in or on as a parasite

  • RobotToaster@mander.xyz
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    7 hours ago

    I’m taking this far too seriously for a meme, but I already looked it up out of curiosity so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

    To inhabit a place in unpleasantly large numbers; to plague, harass.

    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/infest

    Interestingly (at least to me) it looks like it’s related to "manifest’.

      • gjoel@programming.dev
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        7 hours ago

        No, sharks rarely infest gated communities. The point was that infestations usually consist of animals that live in the place they are undesired.

        • SnoopSqueak@lemmy.today
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          7 hours ago

          No, the point is that indigenous populations are not infesting their own natural habitats.

          For example, “Native Americans” did not “infest” the United States. White people did.

          • gjoel@programming.dev
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            7 hours ago

            That’s a different point though. If you have a termite infestation, you might say that they’re invasive to the house and it’s not their natural element. However you might also say that they live there, which is equally true.

            • SnoopSqueak@lemmy.today
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              8 minutes ago

              If you have a termite infestation, you might say that they’re invasive to the house and it’s not their natural element. However you might also say that they live there, which is equally true.

              But the post is about sharks in the ocean. It is their natural habitat, they live there, but because they’re sometimes inconvenient to humans, humans sometimes use the phrase “shark-infested waters”, which can be damaging because it frames disrupting the ecosystem as some kind of defensive act.

          • bobo@lemmy.ml
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            6 hours ago

            For example, “Native Americans” did not “infest” the United States. White people did.

            Do you imagine the various indigenous populations of Americas popped out of the ground like mushrooms? They’re pretty far from their “natural habitat” in the plains of sub-saharan Africa… Or is that too far back in history and their “natural habitat” is in Siberia and Polynesia?

            • SnoopSqueak@lemmy.today
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              11 minutes ago

              It’s not that they came from nowhere, but rather that they aren’t pests. Invaders slaughtered them and colonized the country, and in modern times are actively destroying ecosystems and the environment.

    • Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 hours ago

      Aren’t infestations about something that wasn’t there before and doesn’t actually belong there?