FOSTER COLUMN: They Use Live Dogs for Shark Bait and Other Tidbits

For years, I resisted joining the online social networking site Facebook. Such a public site isn’t usually a good idea for newspaper editors and other people who don’t want to be found, including those relocated through federal witness-protection programs.
But on April Fool’s Day, I took the face-first plunge into Facebook. I really had no choice. That’s because Publisher Carl Esposito and I had just scored this sweet fellowship through the University of Southern California’s Knight Digital Media Center. The catch was the fellowship is called “Using Social Media to Build Audience.”
“How’d you like two days in the City of Angels in July?” I asked Carl in February. “I’m talking Manhattan Beach, Hollywood Boulevard, the Left Coast.”
“Sure,” he said. “What’s the catch?”
“We have to learn about something called social media,” I explained. “And we have to go through three months of webinars [online seminars].”
“You’re talking Facebook,” Carl said back.
“I ain’t doing Facebook unless we land this fellowship,” I said.
So I filled out several application letters and peppered each with the word “Appalachian” because I figured in Los Angeles, we mountainfolk would be considered exotic. And in the name of diversity, we might just win this thing.
And by jiminy, we did. Of the 10 newspapers selected nationally for this fellowship, the Bristol Herald Courier is among the smallest. We join the Sacramento and Modesto Bees, Charlotte Observer, Philadelphia Daily News to name a few.
Thus, my Facebook page was launched and I’ve already cracked 200 friends, all of whom get access to my Facebook page. Unless I decide to defriend them, or they me.
And I know what some of you are thinking: How in the hell did I ever make 200 friends? I didn’t. There’s about 20 friends, as well as several staffers here who believe, rightly, that they had to accept my friend invitation because I can be punitive occasionally, and 170 other people I’ve worked with so long ago that they’d forgotten all the valid reasons not to “friend” me.
I’ve also heard from several high school classmates I hadn’t seen since high school, but I’m not going to date myself by telling you the year I graduated. I will tell you I had a ’fro like Linc from Mod Squad and possibly a leisure suit in the closet. I have not heard from the three girls who dumped me in high school. I’m awaiting their apologies.
Now, those of you on Facebook know how addictive this site can be. It’s not just the reconnections with old chums but the fun activities and the knowledge you otherwise would not gain.
For example, I did not know that on the tiny, French-controlled island of Réunion, off Africa’s eastern coast, fishermen were using live dogs as shark bait. That’s right, there is a Facebook group called “Stop dogs being used as shark bait!!” There’s a photo of what looks like an Irish setter with a huge hook threaded through his top lip. Here’s what the group’s site says:
Live and dead dogs and cats are being used as shark bait by amateur fishers on the French-controlled island of Réunion, according to animal-welfare organizations and local authorities. The small volcanic island off Africa’s east coast is bursting with stray dogs – upward of 150,000, says Reha Hutin, president of the Paris-based Foundation 30 Millions d’Amis (the Thirty Million Friends Foundation). Hutin sent a film crew to Réunion this summer to obtain proof that live animals were being used as shark bait. The goal was to expose the practice on the animal rights group’s weekly television show. It didn’t take long for the film crew to find three separate cases, she said. A videotape and photographs show the dogs with multiple hooks sunk deep into their paws and snouts. “From then on everyone started to take the whole story seriously and realized it was true,” Hutin said. 
“Stop dogs being used as shark bait!!” now has 47,107 members – mostly animal-rights folks. But using my considerable investigative skills (OK, I spent 30 seconds on snopes.com), I learned that this story largely is a hoax. A few dead dogs were used by a few rogue fishermen in this part of the world. There is no widespread chumming for sharks with Fido.
There’s another Facebook group called “Help Stop the Use of Live Puppies For Shark Bait” and a bunch of other groups, including these comical ones: “Keep using dogs as live Shark Bait,” “Don’t use dogs as live shark bait ! … use cats !” and “stop using homeless people as shark bait.” The latter group only has 83 members though.
I think I’m going to start a Facebook group called “Stop Using Live Newspaper Editors as Shark Bait.” Then we’ll see how long it takes for thousands of people to join a new group called “Please Use Live Newspaper Editors for Shark Bait.” Not long, I bet.

J. Todd Foster is managing editor of the Bristol Herald Courier and can be reached at or (276) 645-2513. Follow him on the social networking site Twitter at jtoddbhc. You don’t even need to be his friend.