Killing of shark is the best reason to establish the Northeastern Ecological Corridor (Puerto Rico)
"After notifying its presence, there were persons who tried to fish it with harpoons, throwing bait and hooks...."
-El Nuevo Dia (July 27, 2007)
It was reported in the news that yesterday a shark, which accidentally had swam into a small estuary within a hotel complex (Dorado del Mar) was assassinated by persons at the site. The curios aspect of the incident was that the small shark of six feet had not attacked anyone, and probably had a difficult time in finding the exist, as tends to occur in these cases with creatures of the sea. Or perhaps it was because, at not having paid the price of entry to the hotel, the owner was jealously making known his right to private property. In other words, although humans do not habit the sea given that this is not their natural habitat, we took the life away from a "creature of God" that was merely taking a stroll in his own backyard. Thinking that we were killing "Jaws", we were hysterically killing a small tadpole.
The incident compellingly presents the best reason for establishing the Northeastern Ecological Corridor (NEC) in demonstrating the conflict that tends to exist between human beings and the natural world, with ALL of the creature that habit within it, from the "bad" ones (predators) to the "good" ones (prey).
Unfortunately, we tend to look at our human rights as "universal rights" that can be superimposed over the rest of the living creatures of the world, clearly demonstrated by the incident. In no actual legislation, do we establish the "animal rights" at the same legal parity as those "human rights" we award ourself in the constitution or existing civil rights. This implies that, at any moment of direct conflict between man and animal, the inevitable result will the the elimination of the animal in favor of the human being. The juridical-circunstancial "right to property" comes into direct conflict with the moral-universal "right to life", and the juridical-legal bases of our society need to be re-written as part of the solution to the environmental crises we today confront.
There are numerous examples that regularly come out in the news. A few years ago, a child at a zoo fell into a polar bear's cage, perhaps having gone too close thinking he was in the presence of one of the digitized 'good bears' that typically appear in the Coca-Cola commercials. The bear kills the child and, as a result, he was "put to sleep", as tends to occur in the se cases. But, we could ask, "whose fault was it?". Was it the parents' fault for not having more jealously watched over their son? Was it that of the Coca-Cola commercial who very falsely mischaracterized the natural behavior of bears? Was it the zoo's fault for, upon brining the bear from the Arctic North, displaced it from its natural habitat? Or was the it bear's fault, who completely acted upon his natural-genetic instincts and who did not happen to be in the place out of his own free will? Whomever the fault lands upon, it is patently clear that the responsibility in the case was adjudicated to the entity that least had it. The same with our dear shark.
It is precisely for this reason that Puerto Rico, and all of the nations of the world, need to have large quantities of "free" and "sacred" spaces for nature, in which the human presence is defined as that of a guest in another's home, rather than what typically occurs when we actually perceive animals as bothersome parasites. All animals have as much right to life as do humans, and all of the secondary legal rights that follow from this principle. Such was the basis of John Muir's "preservationist" vision, founder of the Sierra Club in the United States. Muir successfully achieved the creation of majestic national parks of that nation, and we should follow his example. Without free spaces, such as that which would be created by the Northeastern Ecological Corridor (NEC), animals will be unable to exercise this natural right.
Otherwise, the probable tendency will be their eventual extinction, as we commonly witnessed throughout the twentieth century. It is a problem which is occurring in all parts of the world, and not just in our small "enchanted island" which is Puerto Rico.