When it comes to demonizing humanity and idealizing nature, greenies routinely go to extreme and shameless lengths. Recently, for example, they said that a dolphin was killed in the shark cull. Turned out there was no truth to this claim.

As well as being typical of how shark huggers are so fast and loose with the truth this assertion brought to mind one of their wider aims. That is to convince the wider public that these gruesome carnivorous fish are as deserving of respect and affection as highly intelligent mammalian cetaceans.

To this end, they are keen to discredit the widely held perception of sharks as relentless, primitive predators and replace it with the view that they are regal beasts gracefully cruising through the depths, maintaining the health of our oceans. They believe that by mindlessly invoking this characterization over and over, Aussies will eventually come to perceive sharks as the new whales and dolphins, and be appalled at their slaughter.

Well, it's clearly worked on some people, such as the writer of this article about a tiger shark that wound up with a hook through its head. He describes the image of the expired animal as "harrowing". Okay, it's not pretty, but "harrowing"? It's what happens to millions of fish every day. And are those cases deemed newsworthy? Of course not. (Interesting also that placards depicting Premier Colin Barnett hanging from a hook are simply shown and not described as sick, disturbing, or creepy. Yet that is exactly what they are.)

Sure, there are many impressionable types in the media. But most people are more emotionally mature. Odds are that they will stubbornly refuse to be manipulated and will quietly retain their support for Barnett's sensible shark mitigation policies.