Jawsfest: The Tribute has received numerous questions regarding our Summer for the Sharks conservation initiative, with people wondering if we are against the Boston Big Game Monster Shark Tournament that begins this week. The answer to this question is no; however, we would like to see that tournament convert to a catch-and-release event, as is happening with many such tournaments today. As a local business owner, who also runs TicketsMV.com, I fully appreciate the revenue derived by local businesses from events. I also appreciate that select shark populations have declined by a frightening 90 per cent in the last 40 years.

On Thursday, May 24, Friends of Family Planning of Martha’s Vineyard Inc. hosted our annual art show benefit gala preview party. Each year we are overwhelmed by the generosity of our Island community. This year, our gala event (relying almost solely on donations) was one of the best and most successful ever, due to the many donors who made it possible.

I read with a great deal of interest Prof. David Morris’s column on Thomas Paine (“The Long-Lasting Influence of Common Sense”). Readers should understand that Paine did not stop with the most cogent and perhaps first-published arguments on why the Americans should separate from the British Empire. He also wrote, just a few years later, two of the most important tracts on why society must care for its less fortunate citizens, in the second part of Rights of Man (1792) and Agrarian Justice (1797).

Shark populations worldwide are in grave peril. Many species of open ocean sharks are in danger of extinction. The spectacle of the Annual Oak Bluffs monster shark tournament unnecessarily contributes to declining shark populations and is an assault on the natural world. This unremitting display of cruelty and disregard for clear conservation imperatives undermines the spirit and character of our Island community. The town of Oak Bluffs justifies this catastrophe by promoting the message that killing sharks for fun and prizes is good for business.

Very often I consider in private how idiosyncratic Island people and culture are. The shark tournament held in Oak Bluffs every year is a case in point. How can Island people, surrounded and sustained by the ocean itself, how in the world we can sponsor a shark-killing tournament with bloody carcasses for all the world to see this waste of good fish flesh and this spectacle of killing the big watch dogs of the seas?

The Gazette has been pretty fearless in exposing dredging errors, environmental threats and the like on the Vineyard, but I wonder if you would consider also covering the lawsuit against Pie in the Sky Bakery in Woods Hole that the Martha’s Vineyard Saving Bank is carrying out?