Iowa Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Protect Iowans from Shark Bites in Iowa

cornfieldHabitat of the Iowa landshark (image: inkknife_2000 via flickr, CC 2.0)

I am favorable to Iowa right now because, according to the internet, it’s one of only four U.S. states in which people want the Kansas City Chiefs to win another Super Bowl. But I still have a job to do, and part of that job is pointing out ridiculous legislation, so here we are.

Thinking of Iowa triggered a memory of past articles, and while my memory is questionable on some things it’s pretty good on these. The top answer when I brain-searched “Iowa laws” was “spinner hubcaps,” and a website search proved that was spot-on, even though that article is ancient. See Iowa Bill Would Protect Public From Deadly Spinner Hubcaps” (Jan. 26, 2005) (reporting that a legislator who said he’d been confused by these while driving was trying to ban them). Turns out this bill did not pass, and so 20 years later millions of Iowans are still not being killed or injured in spinner-hubcap-related accidents every year.

In 2010, I briefly mentioned an Iowa Supreme Court holding that remand would be necessary to determine whether a man “substantially deviated from” his employment by “shaking his butt” at a co-worker. The employee—a machine inspector for a rural water district—testified the butt-shaking was a “greeting,” and argued the lower court should not have held it was “horseplay” as a matter of law. The ultimate issue was whether the employee could get workers’ comp benefits after the co-worker, trying to return the unusual greeting, accidentally hit him with a truck. See Xenia Rural Water Dist. v. Vegors, 786 N.W.2d 250 (Iowa 2010).

Three years later I reported my discovery that in Iowa, being completely blind was no obstacle to getting a gun permit. SeeIf You Can’t Read This, You Can Still Get a Gun Permit in Iowa” (Sept. 10, 2013) (citing a Des Moines Register article including the quote, “when you shoot a gun, you take it out and point and shoot, and I don’t necessarily think eyesight is necessary.”) The Register hasn’t archived that story—though you can still find a copy of “Half human, half bat: [Town of] Van Meter remembers a 1903 visit from a winged monster (July 1, 2015) (“It let off a powerful stench”)—but here’s an ABC report on the permit controversy. There wasn’t a law specifically saying blind people could have gun permits, but in Iowa these permits can only be denied for a few specific reasons, and being blind was—and still is—not among them. I strongly support the rights of the disabled, but no rights are absolute. Eyesight might not be necessary to shoot a gun but it does seem pretty important to aiming it.

Anyway, this article is about House File 24, a bill introduced on January 14 that would, if passed, help protect Iowans from being bitten by sharks.

The risk of this is relatively low. You may be surprised to learn Iowa does have bodies of water, but all of them are far from the ocean, where the vast majority of sharks live today. According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the state “is home to 148 different fish species,” but none seem to be sharks. That may explain why the International Shark Attack File has no record of even one shark attack in Iowa, or any of the surrounding states, or any of the states that surround those states, though its records go back to 1837.

Sorry, I should have said “unprovoked shark attack.” That’s what the ISAF tracks. So it might or might not include the incident last July when a bamboo shark bit someone in West Des Moines. But the shark didn’t swim there, it was living in the Blue Zoo Aquarium. It bit an employee. He wasn’t seriously injured—probably because the shark was only 18 inches long. But it could have been worse, at least according to HF 24’s sponsor, Rep. Ray “Bubba” Sorenson (R-Greenfield).

HF 24 would address this risk, first, by adding sharks to the state’s list of restricted “dangerous wild animals”—which, to be fair, already includes things like sea snakes that aren’t typically found in cornfields. But the bill wouldn’t add all sharks, only members of any species that “has a documented history of biting humans” or “can grow to more than twenty-three inches in length.” Not sure where the 23-inch minimum comes from, but it would make bamboo sharks “dangerous” as a matter of law because they can grow to more than 30 inches. The species has no documented history of biting humans—although I guess maybe it does now. Anyway, it would be covered, even though experts describe the species as basically “harmless.” This would trigger restrictions on the ability to own, transport, and exhibit said animals.

That would force changes at Blue Zoo Aquarium, which has “interactive” tanks in which visitors can pet certain animals, including (at least at the time of the report) bamboo sharks. Bubba Sorenson thinks this is nuts, and his bill would create the new crime of “allowing any member of the public to come in direct contact” with a “dangerous wild animal” as well as adding sharks to that list. His bill “doesn’t shut [Blue Zoo] down,” he insisted, “it just shuts down them having people pet a damn shark.” Not a terrible idea, maybe, but I continue to think people should generally be free to do most things even when they really shouldn’t. See, e.g., “Warning: Visitors May Be Eaten” (July 22, 2011).

As of last week, HF 24’s fate was uncertain. Sorenson claimed there was support for moving forward, but another subcommittee member said he was reluctant to vote for a bill that would apply to only one business in the whole state. “We govern the state of Iowa,” he said, “not West Des Moines.” And, again, this particular state is almost entirely shark-free. Still, Sorenson claimed this was “a broad safety issue” that Iowa should address. And he should know, or so he claimed: “‘People shouldn’t be reaching their hands into a bed of sharks,’ said Sorenson, who said he has worked with sharks before at a job at Walt Disney World.” I’d really like to know what went down at Disney World, so maybe we will learn that if the bill moves forward.