It's a shame people think of sharks as such dangerous killers when in fact, humans are responsible for far more human and shark deaths than sharks. That's something for you to think about next time you go swimming.

You can have a virtual pet shark. You can have an inflatable pet shark which swims along in the air. You can have a pet robot shark which swims in water too. Or, you can own an exotic pet and set up a real aquarium with real, living, sharks. Of course, only the very big aquariums in zoos and other displays for the public or inside a corporate office with an unlimited budget, will have large sharks. However, a large shark isn't really a pet. An animal that could eat it's owner (due to a lack of inhibitions or respect for our place in the food chain) is not a pet. Not really.

A nice thing about keeping a pet shark, or several of them, is just watching them swim around. Some how it is very relaxing (almost like meditating) to watch fish swim around. They don't seem to be doing much. It's all fairly repetitive. If you keep a pet shark all they can really do is swim circles around whatever space they have. Swimming laps over and over and over. It must be an awfully dull life for them.

I don't like seeing the small sharks for sale in pet stores. I wonder how many of them die before they are sold to anyone. I'm sure the pet store just keep them to attract shoppers on the weekends they schedule feeding time for the shark(s).

I don't really think sharks should be pets, kept in a tank of water. I don't think any tank is really big enough - unless it's massive enough to create a whole marine or ocean type of environment. There is something ugly about seeing a shark bump into the side of a glass fish tank. So, I'm only keeping the virtual shark pet. Virtual shark pets miss you when you travel and will be there when you get back, still alive (or you can just restart your game).

In my own way, I am a shark collector.

I don’t keep stuffed sharks, whether real sharks or cotton stuffed. I don’t really have much at all to show for my shark collection. Not any more at least.

It still bugs me that my brother threw away the shark book I had been given for a long ago birthday. The book was published in 1976, full of paintings of sharks done by Richard Ellis.

I’d been thinking about the book this week, but I couldn’t remember the name of the book or the painter/ author. So I began digging online. I found it.

My Mother thought it was weird to have an interest in sharks, a predatory animal from the ocean. She tried to talk to me about it and talk me out of it. I knew I didn’t have a weird interest. I’m not planning to swimming with sharks, I don’t think about trying to make friends or pet sharks or hunt them or anything else really. I like to look at the sharks, in the photographs and paintings.

I think I like their sleek lines against the backdrop of the ocean. The ocean Richard Ellis paints is quiet, sparkling and bouncing with light hitting the water and the smooth looking shark coasting through the water. I also like the photos of sharks in the waves and crashing ocean. Yes, we know they are dangerous, but there’s more to them. They are a quiet, skilled predator, at home in their universe.

Have you had a book which sticks in your mind due to the loss of the book? Is it worthwhile buying the book again, even if it isn’t about collecting it as much as being able to see and read it again?

I thought about getting another copy of the book. But, it seems unfair when I did have one. So, I decided to leave it. A book unopened, sort of. However, if I see the book somewhere else, like a thrift store, I might get it. This is an emotional decision rather than anything base on logic. Don’t judge me, as they say when they know they have given the appearance of being loopy.

So, at the moment, my shark collection is all online. Available to be shared with anyone who follows the link on Snip.it. (Note: Snip.it closed their service).