Very often I consider in private how idiosyncratic Island people and culture are. The shark tournament held in Oak Bluffs every year is a case in point. How can Island people, surrounded and sustained by the ocean itself, how in the world we can sponsor a shark-killing tournament with bloody carcasses for all the world to see this waste of good fish flesh and this spectacle of killing the big watch dogs of the seas?

This summer two festivals will be held. One will extol the great price sharks can bring though gambling and the other will honor the preservation of the magnificent animals. Both should teach us some lessons in conservation, but will they?

At an Oak Bluffs selectmen’s meeting this spring I brought up the fact that certain lines and hooks and ways of catching sharks could be a part of a catch-and-release event where the wonderful animals are not hurt as much by certain lines and hooks. One selectman answered me affirmatively and now I am wondering a few short weeks before the tournament if any of these measures to save the sharks from certain death and destruction have been implemented? It was also suggested that the word monster be omitted in advertising for the blood bath, but — this word is still touted in the news. We all know by now through education that sharks are not monsters and yet our selectmen made no changes with the preliminary advertising. I am letting the people know that attempts to make the shark fiasco a little more humane were suggested to Oak Bluffs selectmen but never followed. Words and meetings can bring change, but apparently the Oak Bluffs selectmen, like the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, discount citizen participation in their meetings. Have our votes and opinions become so much useless fodder in our Martha’s Vineyard representative forums? Well, if so, then a grand old American view of democracy has been abolished right here on quaint Martha’s Vineyard.

Roberta Mendlovitz
Vineyard Haven