There is now a paradox that causes the seas to hold its breath: a vegetarian shark. Visualize it: that legendary dorsal fin cutting across the water, that streamlined torpedo body fashioned by millennia of predatory evolution, those lines of serrated teeth meant to rip through flesh and bone.
One too many battling fish, one indigestion too many, and our shark had an epiphany somewhere in the darkness. Or maybe it was ethical, a moment of eye contact with a sea turtle, a flash of recognition, a sudden understanding that those panicked creatures fleeing its shadow had inner lives, families, fears. Serious ideas for a fish brain; yet who are we to remark? What travels via a mind that has sailed oceans from the time of the dinosaurs?
Naturally, the scientists are perplexed. They have proposed theories, studied for parasites, and written papers. Sometimes, though, a shark just wants a salad in the great blue mystery of the ocean.