Job of the Day: Mermaid

A “professional mermaid” and conservation activist, originally from Australia (that makes sense somehow, doesn’t it?) and now living in LA, is using her talents — including an ability to hold her breath for two minutes — to draw attention to the plight of sharks. Through video, of course.

Fraser consorts with enormous tiger sharks — commonly said to be the second-most dangerous shark around — while wearing a dark wig, bikini and tiger shark-style body paint that she says was designed to help her blend in with the 15-foot-long animals, so they wouldn’t mistake her for a fish. (Usually, she’s blonde and wears a mermaid tail.) … Fraser — whose documentary, “Tears Of A Mermaid,” is due to be released in 2015 — says that, mermaid costumes and all that aside, she’s just being realistic in showing the ancient fishes as they are: able to happily coexist with people, so long as those people are careful. Tiger sharks may “enjoy the interaction and touch of humans,” she said, but “we are under no illusions that a simple mistake by startling or arousing the curiosity of a shark can result in a fatal bite. Not because the sharks want to hurt us, but because they don’t have hands, and they investigate with teeth.”

No biggie, they just INVESTIGATE WITH TEETH. She missed a great opportunity to riff on Kevin Costner and call her doc “Dances with Sharks” but okay. She’s still got herself an impressive gig; seems like it’s more fun to be her today than the Obama donor who thought he could buy his way into the job of Ambassador to Norway and then got in trouble in his confirmation hearings when it came out that, not only had he never visited the country, he hadn’t even done the reading. Frankly I’d rather frolic with sharks than sweat in an unfriendly Senate hearing room, disdain for me being the one thing uniting Al Franken and John McCain. Here’s the video:

Thanks for the link, Today in Tabs!

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