Andrew is a freelance marine biologist in North Carolina focused on population and conservation genetics in hydrothermal vent communities.
[Editor's Notice - Comments have been suspended on this post. Please visit "Full video of injured shark shows numerous natural injuries" for an update on this controversy]
Last summer, I reviewed National Geographic’s “Expedition Great White” and interviewed the lead scientist. Several researchers and conservationists were concerned about the methods that Dr. Michael Domeier uses to study great white sharks, particularly after one shark was “foul hooked” through the gills. These methods (removing captured great white sharks from the water to study them using a forklift-like structure) make for excellent television, but may be harmful to the sharks. As I reported last year:
“While I regularly take sharks out of the water for my research, I don’t ever mess with anything larger than 5 or 6 feet. In addition to the human safety factor, animals larger than that may be too heavy for their cartilaginous skeletons to support their weight without water’s buoyancy. The white sharks Dr. Domeier removed from the water were 14-18 feet long”
This debate recently resurfaced when a severely injured great white shark was discovered. Some conservationists wondered if this shark was “Junior”, the shark that was foul hooked by Dr. Domeier’s research team.
Is this injured shark "Junior", the shark that was foul-hooked by Dr. Domeier's team? Image taken from FijiSharkDiving.Blogspot.com
Dr. Domeier’s team at the Marine Conservation Science Institute declined to comment for this post, but directed me to a statement they made last week on their website:
“The images clearly show a rather nasty wound on the corner of Junior’s mouth, but what is not explained is that when the entire video is viewed it can be determined that this injury was clearly inflicted by another white shark; it is not a result of the capture and release during tagging. White sharks annually aggregate at both Guadalupe Island and central California, and during these aggregations the sharks are very aggressive towards each other. When they attack one another they typically bite the region from the pectoral fins to the head, often damaging the gill area and head. We have many photos of sharks from Guadalupe Island with similar aggression related injuries; this is natural shark behavior.” (emphasis mine)
A great white shark with a clear bite mark over the gills. Is this what happened to Junior? Photo from MarineCSI.org ED - This is an example of an injury caused by a shark bite, it is not Junior.
Marine CSI’s claims are possible. Little is known about great white social behavior, but many social interactions between sharks (particularly mating behavior) involve biting. It may be nothing more than a coincidence that the exact shark that was injured near the gills two years ago had an injury near the gills a year later. The above photo, which shows an injury near where Junior’s injury was seen, supports that claim. However, Patric Douglas isn’t buying this explanation:
“Why did Marine CSI researchers who have been sitting on these images since 2010 only come forward now to ultimately defend their work and put forward an ad hoc series of unlikely reasons for Juniors current mangled condition?”
Patric and Mike paint a picture of a researcher whose methods accidentally resulted in serious injury to a shark and is now trying to cover up a mistake. Dr. Domeier’s statement suggests that his team did nothing wrong, the shark’s 2010 state is unrelated to a 2009 incident, and that they are the victims of a smear campaign led by rival researchers. Personally, I’m waiting for more information before I make up my mind.
I stand by what I originally said about Dr. Domeier’s research. There is no way to gather certain types of information about great white sharks without removing them from the water, and that information is extremely important for the conservation and management of these animals. Many other sharks were captured and tagged by Dr. Domeier’s team without incident, and the information this project is generating will be used to help protect this species. I support science and scientists, but there are so few great white sharks left that we need to stand up for the animals first. If this research project seriously injured a great white shark and then attempted to cover it up (as Mike and Patric claim), that is unacceptable.
I have contacted the Gulf of the Farallones Marine Sanctuary staff to request the full video that Dr. Domeier claims exonerates his team. If we are permitted to post the video, it may clear up what happened.
A representative from the other great white shark research team declined to comment for this post.
I will keep looking into this incident, and I’ll keep everyone posted as developments arise.
[Editor's Notice - Comments have been suspended on this post. Please visit "Full video of injured shark shows numerous natural injuries" for an update on this controversy]
The insinuation that I attempted to cover up the condition of this shark is completely out of line. First, I was never allowed to have a copy of any of the imagery and therefore have no way to share it with anyone. (Isn’t it odd that I couldn’t have a copy and yet Patric Douglas has one to post on the internet?) Second, I have cooperated openly and fully with the agency (GFNMS)that holds me accountable for the research project, as well as with researchers from NMFS.
Michael L. Domeier, Ph.D.
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Interesting post here Dave. I have read this post and the others you have linked, and while the image of the injured white is somewhat ghastly, I have a hard time believing the injury is a result of the “foul hooking” or that it is even the same shark.
First, if you read the descriptions of the incident where the shark was foul hooked and compare it to the injury picture above, you can see that the lesion is not on the gills at all. It is located in the corner of the jaw. If anything it seems like such an injury would more likely be caused by a hook that was left in the mouth or that had broken off. Support for this can be seen in the relatively common footage of Caribbean reef sharks at various feeding sites, as many of these sharks have hooks lodged in their mouth. I can personally attest to having caught sharks in my own research with other hooks in their mouth and those hooks have caused small lesions.
Second, I understand that the researchers doing the photo ID work with the white sharks are very good at what they do. However, I find a hard time believing that the two sharks in the first picture are the same one. Given the lower quality of the 2nd image, the glare of the water on the animal, and the injury, it is difficult to see the all the markings from the shark above it. But, I am no expert on photo IDs.
While it is unfortuante that this shark has sustained this injury and may or may not survive, I don’t feel as though accusations can be made on who’s fault it is. From watching the show it seemed as though the tagged animals all survived and transmitted signals long after capture and release (you posted such in your original blog). Do questions need to be answered? Yes. Is the technique used completely fail-safe? I’m not sure. Is the research important? Of course.
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Thanks for commenting, Mike.
With respect to the identification of Junior, it is my understanding that it was based on the presence of a tag (not visible in the above image but visible in the rest of the video).
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I’ve been wondering that myself. You really would think the damage would be around the gills as opposed to near where the hook actually should have been. Were there other sharks that had to be released with hooks still in their mouths?
Though that injury looks pretty grim, I’ve personally seen horrifically damaged sharks that were somehow still able to either recover or adapt to the injury. While sampling I found a handful of dogfish with lower jaws that had been split, probably by fish hooks, making them pretty much unable to bite. Other than the jaw injuries they were in good condition and had stomachs full of squid. Maybe dogfish are tougher than average, but sharks are adaptable and can recover from serious injury. Hopefully Junior, or whichever shark this is, can pull through.
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I wonder what studies have been done to understand the effects of tagging. I’m thinking of a recent penguin study that showed tagging raised mortality.
Back in Honduras, I briefly linked up with a group doing photo identification of whale sharks. Many were of the opinion that the old tags were no good, that they would rust and hurt the animal. I’m not the guy to really evaluate that, but I did think the photo ID was very cool.
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The photograph of “Junior” at the top and the injured shark in the third photo seem to be the same animal; the white upward intrusion behind the mouth looks identical in both photos. Also, the lower photograph looks like a shark bite to me.
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The picture kind of makes it hard to tell what really happened to junior but it doesnt look like a bite it looks more like a bunch of bubbled over rash type thing. The picture of the actually shark bite looks nothing like juniors injury which makes me doubt the scientist were gentle to the sharks.
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Let’s clear the air, because there is a ghost of a white shark at stake here and the future of other sharks who may end up in the same condition if we do not come to terms with what has happened at the Farallones.
Patric Douglas vs Mike Domeier
I want to put this to bed first. There’s no secret society that is feeding me images or agendas to “take down” Mike. Anyone who knows me knows that I operate completely independently. They also know that I have been consistently vocal for the past decade when white sharks are harmed, wounded, or threatened. Mike knows this, so let’s get rid of any notion that this is about anything but a seriously diminished white shark.
Junior – Is this the shark?
It is, we have confirmation, and now we can begin the process of finding out what happened to this once robust animal. The Farallones would not provide confirmation, and no one at NOAA would either, so thanks to Mike for that.
Wounds, Bites, and Tumors
This argument line is erroneous. Marine CSI is putting forward the probably correct assumption that another shark bit Junior hence the dramatic weight loss and tumor seen in images from 2010 are the result of that bite, not 2.3 pounds of rusting steel lodged in the sharks esophagus.
The wound on the face may have originated from a lightening bolt, it does not matter. What matters is this sharks complete inability to heal itself. Mike knows full well that white shark possess an almost magical ability to heal. We have seen it at Guadalupe with animals that suffer amazing wounds and come back the next year, bigger, healthier, and with almost imperceptible scars where once ragged wounds dominated the animal.
Junior has clearly lost that ability, and has what looks like a tumor to boot. In all my years looking at white sharks and wounds, I have never seen a wound with a tumor and this kind of dramatic weight loss. So this is completely unique. Demanding video to see if this wound originated with Mike and his team is a false lead, I can tell you now the video will not show a wound on the side of the face.
The focus of this discussion should be on rusting steel in the sharks esophagus and what that might do to an animal over the long term. We’re talking a simply titanic hook over 7000 miles of migration.
I will submit to you the caloric equation that it takes for a Farallones white shark to migrate “over 7000 miles of travel since tagging” was compromised by that rusting hook and this is in fact the reason for Juniors current decrepit state.
Film Crews and Science
I understand the argument that film crews can support science, and fundamentally agree with this in some cases, but the Farallones disaster highlights a lot of problems with this. Even Mike admitted “It’s the type of accident that we had worked hard to avoid, but there was too much confusion regarding new methods devised to comply with all of our permit requirements.” Time was also a factor, as was the amount of money invested in the project, they had to deliver.
Secrecy and Cover Your Ass
The entire Farallones project has been one of back room deals, huge mistakes, media gaffes, and cover your ass. In 2010 the Farallones sent out a long called for “Independent Review”. To read it with a critical eye and to understand who was asked to put their names on the review with 1-2 degrees of separation from Mike and his team, what you have is a joke of an Independent Review:
link to farallones.noaa.gov
Additionally Sanctuary staff became aware of Juniors follow up condition in October of 2010 one month after the review was published, and failed to update the review leaving the public to believe that this animal was still alive and healthy. By that time it was anything but healthy.
I will take Mikes word that he had not seen the images, even when Sanctuary staff had but find it hard to believe.
From the start and the first whispers that something had gone seriously wrong in 2009, all parties circled the wagons and declared that “everything was fine”. That is still the case today and it is frustrating as it is a disservice to Junior the animal that has been seriously diminished. The lack of response from the Sanctuary and those tasked with protecting white sharks is appalling.
Disconnect at the Farallones?
In 2009 NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries enacted a series of white shark viewing and interaction protocols at the Farallone islands that, by any account, were the most restrictive on the planet.
New regulations prohibited “all activities that would attract white sharks anywhere in the Farallones sanctuary. “Attracting” the sharks means any activity that lures or may lure a shark by using food, bait, chum, dyes, decoys (e.g., surfboards or body boards used as decoys), acoustics or any other means.”
Additionally it became illegal to “approach a white shark within 50 meters or 164 feet within two miles of the sanctuary (15 CFR Part 922).”
While sanctuary managers were congratulating themselves on these new rules, they were also green lighting a unbelievable hybrid film and television/shark research project that would allow film crew members (not researchers) to actually bait, hook, and land white sharks within sanctuary waters where a team would then drill into the sharks dorsal fin attaching tracking devices.
One of the team members for this project was in fact a Hollywood actor.
White sharks have enjoyed protected species status in California waters since Jan. 1, 1994. Title 14, California Code of Regulations, Fish and Game Code Section 28.06 on page 25 of the California Sportfishing Regulations states that “white sharks may not be taken under a sport fishing license. Commercial fishing operations may not target white sharks, either.”
The management team at the Farallones made the decision to allow invasive research within the sanctuary in 2008/09. At the same time they were shepherding in additional rules and protocols for viewing and interacting with white sharks that would keep the general public 164 feet away from these same animals.
Sanctuary Superintendent Maria Brown’s staff were also on the film vessel as observers when the first shark was badly hooked in the throat. To release the animal film crew members (not researchers) had to push a pair of industrial bolt cutters through the sharks gills cutting only 10% of the massive hook, the rest was left inside the animal.
Let’s find out how this happened so we can avoid another disaster like this from ever happening again.
Research on sharks is important, but the stakes were too high on this project, and the project was warned repeatedly not to do this and did so at their own peril knowing that if something went wrong there would be serious and unrelenting focus on them.
It has come to pass, so let’s get on with discovery, accounting, and new protocols for a protected species that, by recent estimates, are at just 300+ animals in the entire region.
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I agree with Patric. This is very intrusive procedure. Great White Sharks are highly tuned creatures. Everyone knows they really screwed up that day. They left the massive hook inside him. No one is willing to accept the consequences. To allow them back out there will cause a public outcry — and should.
Here is a description of what they did from another report:
“He used a massive, baited hook to catch a great white shark, drag it for miles to tire it out, lift it onto a platform and spend 20 minutes drawing blood and semen samples and attach a satellite tag to the dorsal fin.
But at the Farallones last November, one of two sharks Domeier caught swallowed the hook. His crew reached into the gills with bolt cutters but they had to leave half of the hook inside the shark.”
These researchers use the excuse that this is going to help us learn more about sharks and conserve them. Let’s hear more about that statement. Other less intrusive tagging teams have determined where sharks go to mate and how far they travel. And how are us humans doing on conserving these patches of the ocean?
I think anyone who has seen these “taggers” in action at the Farallones and seen the photos gets a sense that they are doing it for the media action. Would they do it if they couldn’t be photographed and put on National Geographic?
I agree that this work should not happen in the sanctuary. Even one lost Great White Shark is a tragedy.
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A surveiller soigneusement, si cela est une faute commise, il faut sanctionner…
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Did you actually read the post that I wrote before criticizing my professionalism?
Reporting that there is a controversy is not the same thing as endorsing one side or the other. The piece is intentionally balanced, presenting both sides. I specifically said that I hadn’t made up my mind about it and was waiting for more evidence.
Additionally, I reported in the post that representatives from both research teams declined to comment. In other words, I did get in touch with them.
What agenda do you think I have?
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Yes, as stated in the text, the picture of Junior before and after injury is not the same as the third picture, which is an example of a shark injured by another shark. The third shark picture is not Junior, nor was it ever stated that it is Junior.
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my above comment was posted before I read Patric Douglas’ comment and for that I apologize. Perhaps Patric’s post should have been the original story line. I am glad that my above statements are wrong,and that the facts here are presented clearly. Now that I feel like an idiot for my above comments, I hope that this isn’t the end of the investigation into this project, and if any scientist was responsible for this horrific injury that they are held accountable.
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this is horrible. the poor shark. when are people going to realize that they are torturing poor animals for research and other sick reasons. we’re busy killing the earth. what’s the point of research if there isn’t going to be any generations to follow if we keep on hurting and inflicting pain on the planet.
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It seems people may be missing the big picture. Is the research worth the risk to individual sharks? If it is unacceptable to harm even a single shark, why hasn’t anyone tried to stop all shark research or cage diving? There’s a picture of a horrific wound on a white shark, inflicted when it interacted with a shark cage, and apparently another white shark was killed? It doesn’t seem like a level playing field here.
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It is clear to me that in the first photo that shows Jr “Then and Now” that the injury is some sort of fleshy tumor. The second photo clearly shows a photo of a shark with a bite from another shark.
At first this was not clear and I thought the SECOND photo was Junior’s claimed ‘tumor’. I think other people are making this mistake too. You need to make the photo fo the alleged tumor much more clear and explain the second photo is an example of a shark bite.
Having NOW understood what you mean, it is definitely clear to me that Junior’s ‘wound’ seems to be a violent reaction to something causing this fleshy mass and his emaciated body – it is clearly NOT a shark bite.
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Hi Claudia
I am in full agreement with you. Those twin events with the first being verified and the second not verified happened in Mexico at their Bio-Sphere. Mexican staff were made aware of these events many times did nothing about it, shame on Mexico.
We also know Mexico is broken, so you cannot expect much from those tasked with protecting these animals.
The Farallones are a different matter altogether. It maintains one of the highest standards for white shark protections and regulations with serious enforcement and serious research.
Put simply, this should never have happened here, now it has how do we get the credibility of the sanctuary back?
Mike was very crafty to drag commercial cage diving interests into this, but this is not about a level playing field, or comparing one with the other. In fact based on the nature of both you cannot.
In fact it was pretty ugly for Mike to post that. Like getting involved in a DUI and them blaming your accident on a street sign with some beers on it.
This is about one shark, his/her name is Junior, and right now that animal is in dire condition.
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it’s hard to tell if this is junior. the injury, does, however; look to be more than just another shark bite.but this is just another example of man hurting/killing in the name of scientific research.keep it up mankind, you will be judged on how you treated the animals you were given dominion over.
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I think the research is important, but, with all the attention the sharks are receiving now, good/bad, researchers are becoming , maybe, overly zealous in their work and in some cases careless.
I know during a feeding frenzy, other sharks do get bitten, I only know from what I see on Discovery channel or other documentaries. From what I’ve seen, a great white hunts alone, I don’t know if they hunt in packs, so it is possible they can be accidentally attack by their own. Instead of pointing the fingers at each other, why not all of you get together and find a safer way to conduct your research, which is very educational and very appreciated
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Patric, you agree with me and yet contradict yourself. Clearly you are advocating that all activities that cause harm to individual sharks should be banned, so how can you condemn research but not cage diving? Although I noticed Dr. Domeier pointed out the injuries cage diving have caused, he actually seemed to be defending the industry, or at least he listed some good things about it. Is the fact that you run a cage diving industry making you blind to the big picture?
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Hi Claudia,
Not at all. Bottom line if you injure a shark you should be accountable, that was not the case at Isla Guadalupe, ultimately because Mexico made a decision not to persue those who had damaged the shark.
I am condemning damaged sharks, by commercial entities or by researchers, it makes little difference to me.
Banned no, individuals held to account so the same problems do not resurface again, yes.
Mike was not defending anything with his statements, he was redirecting a conversation about his damaged shark away from the Farallones and to Isla Guadalupe, I want to keep this on track.
The conversation equating commercial to research is erroneous as both are completely different entities with different agendas, and goals.
So, let’s get back to this issue if we can, it’s about Junior, and 2.3 lbs of rusting hook in it’s throat.
I understand you want to defend Mike and keep the spotlight on Isla Guadalupe but it does not serve this particular animal at this time.
If you would like to start a separate thread about cage damaged sharks at Isla Guadalupe you’ll find a willing participant with me.
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After reading everyone’s comments I have a few questions/concerns about the issue. First, I’ve seen the show before and would have never thought any scientist would ever do anything to purposefully harm the shark. So, my question is this: regardless of who/what is responsible for the injury to “Junior” is it something that could kill the animal? Second, I’ve always thought that sharks were caught using hooks through the mouths, not the gills, so isn’t that really dangerous for the shark?
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Wow. Without really knowing much about this the whole thing sounds to me like a huge cluster “you-know-what” all around. Without being able to sort out all this ins and outs of this debacle I will say this. There is a nagging worry creeping into the back of mind when I hear things like “this poor shark” and “torturing” and “this particular animal” and even the fact that this shark has a name contributes a little to this concern. As a museum scientist studying vertebrate animals I get this nagging worry a lot. It seems there are many out there who say harm to a wild animal, especially their favorite wild animal, is never outweighed by scientific knowledge.
Two things. First, virtually any study has an effect on individual animals. The act of observing itself will have some effect and the more we want to know the more individual organisms will feel that effect. Reduce the chance of harming an individual organism to zero and you concomitantly reduce your knowledge of that organism to zero.
Second, conservation is about conserving populations NOT individuals. Every individual organism will die and thus we can not conserve an individual but instead seek to conserve populations. The study of a population can have isolated effects on individuals without any appreciable effects on the population.
I know. I know. White sharks are sensitive populations where each individual matters more to the sustainability of the population than does say an individual fruit fly or even songbird, but, I would venture a guess that even the most careful methodologies will have deleterious effects on the survival of some individual sharks and to learn anything about these animals and thus make informed decisions about their populations we have to be prepared to accept that risk. The problem comes when a picture of that one individual negatively affected by your research makes it onto the internet where maybe some don’t quite get the nuances of field research or population biology.
Did the researchers methods damage this particular shark? I don’t know enough about the situation, and maybe it seems no one knows that for certain. Should we have very cautious protocols, particularly for slow reproducing species like white sharks? Yes. For sure. But restrictions should not be so prohibitive that they limit needed research and we must accept the fact that there will be some individual animals that will be negatively affected by the research as long as that number is not great enough to affect the sustainability of the population. Any research on an animal as difficult to study as a big pelagic shark will invariably carry with it some negative effects on some individual animals. The absolute safest option would be to wall off the populations and content ourselves with knowing virtually nothing about them. I for one wouldn’t want that.
Outrage over scientists hurting sharks while there are fleets of fishing vessels lobbing the fins from sharks and leaving them to sink to the bottom of the sea reminds me a little of the outrage towards museum ornithologists like myself collecting bird specimens for research while at the same time one chats away on their cell phone as the cell towers kill orders of magnitude more birds than in all the museums of the world combined.
Whew. Done. Everyone else is ranting so I figure I could too!
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Word.
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It’s easy to forget that a lot of the sampling methods for any animal are stressful. Fish need to be netted, hooked, stuck with tags, and generally be subject to at least a certain amount of discomfort. The same is true for even critically endangered land animals, which are hit with tranquilizer darts, have tags clamped to their ears, have cameras and tracking devices attached, etc. Gathering data on any animal requires us as scientists to at least temporarily restrain the animal in some way, and occasionally requires lethal sampling. Even with non-lethal sampling, accidents happen. Studying wild animals is not a tickling contest.
This isn’t an excuse for being cavalier with the lives of those animals you’re sampling, and this is why organizations like IACUC exist, to ensure that even in the event that lethal methods are required, the animal at least doesn’t have to suffer. Despite the opinions of certain animal-rights groups, the vast majority of scientists are not callous, sadistic killing machines, and actually take the well-being of their study animals very seriously. I’m sure Dr. Domeier intended for his methods to do as little harm as possible to the sharks during his tagging trips, but again, it’s nature, and you can’t always control how the trip goes. There are certainly some accountability issues in this situation, but I don’t think this should be an indictment on scientific research in general.
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Coming back to this post after all the responses has me just as concerned as Herm and Southern Fried Scientist. I understand that with Photo ID work it is often simpler to “name” an animal instead of just giving it a number, yet it still humanizes. I can’t help but think of a recent post on this blog by WhySharksMatter where he discussed a journal article that focused on the rising number of young researchers that won’t do lethal sampling in shark research.
Now, back to the shark and the image and the shark at hand. It seems as though the the image of the wound is drawing the attention but the emphasis is being placed on the emaciated condition of the animal. That seems like a stretch. The wound on the jaw would NOT have been caused by being hooked in the gills…no way…my experience does not support that. As Patric even stated, the video footage alone shows that the shark was released with no injury in that area!!! As far as the emaciated condition of the animal is concerned, while it is possible that the damage/stress from being caught initially may have caused this, there is little REAL PROOF! It is possible, but it can’t be proven (unless of course you want to catch the shark, sacrifice it, and do a necropsy…but I doubt that will go over too well).
I am not saying that there was not serious damage done to the shark, or that leaving part of the hook in the shark could have a significant impact on the health of the animal…it very well could have. I am willing to bet that if the gahstly injury on the jaw was not there or was less “severe” that any hype or concern would be garnished.
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I think this a strong case of “the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one” or Occam’s razor.
What do we know?
1. In 2008 and early 2009 this was a healthy breeding aged animal. It had no obvious wounds, or deformities, and was fat and happy.
2. In late 2009 this animal was hooked with a 3lb steel hook in the throat. It was fought until exhausted, landed, and a pair of industrial bolt cutters were put through the gills of his animal to cut the eye portion of the hook off leaving 98% of the hook still embedded in the throat and esophagus.
3. In 2010 the same animal returned after a 7000 mile normal migration, emaciated, with a deformed dorsal and huge wound and tumor on the side of the face.
That’s all we know and you are right, unless a necropsy is done we will never know if that steel hook was the cause for the condition.
We also know that all the other animals hooked and released with hooks not left in the body cavity are doing fine, no weight loss, no tumors.
So, Occam’s razor, the most obvious reason for this condition would point to the hook left in the body.
Regardless, I maintain this entire set up was one set for failure. The hybrid nature of the crew, the demands of television production, and sheer amount of money and prestige involved made for great television, but not for safe science.
You don’t get to break a few white shark eggs to make some televised omelettes in this day and age. Or do you?
This is ultimately where I would like to see drastic changes at the Sanctuary, unless there’s a 100% life guarantee, let’s not do this work.
We’ll all get a seriously massaged version of events on Nat Geo Television next month as twin episodes featuring Junior and the Farallones disaster will air.
This whole event reminds me a bit of Steven Kings Pet Cemetery. Sure you want your animal to come back, but sometimes what comes back can prove embarrassing.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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