Oak Bluffs Has a Choice: Please Vote Yes on Question 2

In less than two weeks’ time, the town of Oak Bluffs will hold its annual meeting. One measure to be discussed and voted at the town meeting and on the ballot concerns the annual Monster Shark Tournament, promoted and run by Steve James, impresario of the Boston Big Game Fishing Club.

For years there has been concerned opposition to the shark tournament on both humanitarian and legal grounds.  In in 2008 the Humane Society of the United States investigated and found over 1 million dollars possibly illegal gambling associated with the tournament and sent a letter of protest to Martha Coakley, the Attorney General. No action was taken. Here is a link to that letter.

http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/wildlife/sharks/attorney-general-letter.pdf

Even more recently as the number of tournament boats has continued to decline and the party boats and hangers on have swelled to intolerable numbers, the town has become a place to get drunk and act out. I won’t detail the accounts of public urination and even worse. You’ve already read about them.

In the words of the chair of the board of selectmen, “"We do not want to have a fiasco this summer like we had last summer."  But why would this year be any different?

In 2012 Steve Maxner organized a group of musicians who felt strongly about the shark tournament to write, record a CD and perform a concert of songs opposing this annual event in Oak Bluffs. It was an amazing musical event, bringing the island’s top musical talent to the stage in support of the effort to save the sharks.

This year a group of Oak Bluffs residents, led by Debbie Dean, collected enough signatures (436) to get a non-binding measure, Question 2, before the town meeting calling for the tournament to change to catch-and-release. Though the measure is non-binding, the group hopes the selectmen will hear the increasing numbers of Oak Bluffs voices in opposition.

What is Xoc?

Xoc (pronounced Shok) is an entertaining crime novel about the annual shark tournament. Sharks are killed. People are killed. And, as usual, it’s all for the money. In Xoc, you get a lot of intrigue, some interesting characters and plenty of suspenseful entertainment along the way.

Basically, it’s the story of a young man named Sam returning from serving several years in Afghanistan as a “special ops” Marine. He comes to the Vineyard to get a fresh perspective on life, and on himself as a person. Sam gets a job working for his uncle Ted who is the harbormaster of Cottage City. It's mid-summer, July. He runs smack dab into the shark tournament and into a very savvy woman named Emma who is dead set against the killing of sharks.

You can read the first 24 chapters of Xoc here:  http://xocmv.wordpress.com/  New episodes are posted every Tuesday and Thursday.

Why am I publishing a serial novel about the shark tournament?

The shark tournament is an appalling event and, though many people are clearly offended by it, the town government seems to have an absurd sense that it benefits the town. Not only does it not benefit the town financially, except for a few interested parties, it makes a mockery of the horrifying global slaughter of sharks – 100 million a year – mostly for their fins. Somebody had to speak out.

Maybe it’s hard to grasp the number 100 million. Okay, and what’s a few more if it brings money to a few in the town?

It matters. It is salt in the wound, insult added to injury. It is abuse of our place in the ecosystem. Is that how we want the world and our children to view Oak Bluffs?  It’s a blemish on the beauty of the island and our love of nature.

It's my hope that the people who read my novel Xoc will join that increasing number in opposition until the town has no choice but to bring this appalling spectacle to an end. Please vote Yes on Question 2. And read Xoc.

http://xocmv.wordpress.com/