# Fish thieves **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 9, 2004, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-thieves/254273 "2004-07-09T12:52:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-thieves/254273/1 "2004-07-09T12:52:25Z")
Yesterday I sort-of heard a story on the Seattle news about a guy who flew from Anchorage to Seattle with the fish he’d caught on his Alaskan fishing vacation. When he got to Sea-Tac, some or all of his fish was missing. (As I said, I really wasn’t paying attention.) This morning there’s another story of purloined fish. Same scenario: A woman and her sons returning from Alaska, 40 pounds (18 kg) of halibut was missing. Also missing were the family’s lures and ammunition. In both cases, TSA blames Continental Airline’s security, and Continental blames the TSA. It seems to me that if it’s so easy to remove large amounts of fish from the baggage area, then it might be just as easy for a baggage worker to put something _into_ the aircraft’s hold. Passengers have to take off their shoes and belts before they’ll be allowed on a commercial aircraft. Who’s watching the airport workers? It seems to me that they are potentially more of a threat than passengers. I really dislike thieves. I’ve had stuff stolen from me, and I’ve always felt “violated”. I mean, when someone steals something from behind your back, you don’t have a chance to stop them. Not that I’m a violent person; but it hurts to have stuff stolen from you without even having the chance to yell, “Stop! Thief!” ---
**Author:** ![Gulo\_gulo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bcef8e/32.png) [@Gulo\_gulo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gulo_gulo)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-thieves/254273/2 "2004-07-13T02:37:33Z")
They found the [halibut!](http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/07/12/halibut.missing.ap/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-thieves/254273/3 "2004-07-13T12:23:06Z")
Hm. Sounds fishy… (Or to make sense of the idiom, “Sounds as if sometheing smells fishy.”) The article says the guy “found a rope he had tied around the chest” **inside** of the cooler, and that it appeared to have been cut. It’s _possible_ that the rope snagged on something and was cut; but it would have fallen off. Then someone would have had to see the rope and figure out that it belonged to this particular cooler, ignored the fact that the cooler was empty and not looked for its contents, and then put the rope inside of it. :dubious: The container is described as a “cooler”. I picture a big plastic box. The woman whose fish went missing had what looked like a proper chest. (Erm… I mean that the container for the fish looked like a purpose-built shipping container.) Would it have also just “popped open”? Would all of the fish have just fallen out? Why haven’t they found _her_ fish? Of course it can all be a pair of innocent accidents. But I’m wondering if someone stole the fish and then brought it back and hid it so as to say, “See? No theft here! Just a mechanical failure nobody noticed! No need to keep tabs on us!” ---
**Author:** ![medstar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f07891/32.png) [@medstar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/medstar)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-thieves/254273/4 "2004-07-14T01:51:16Z")
I was wondering–has anyone thought to put windows in the area where the baggage inspectors are or where the baggage handlers are moving the luggage? How about hidden cameras so that security people can keep an eye on the situation? I don’t have any recent cites, but there’s always stories about baggage handlers treating airplane customer’s luggage as their personal discount store. Surely something can be done to monitor the luggage. ---
**Author:** ![Beauty\_Personified](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Beauty\_Personified](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beauty_Personified)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-thieves/254273/5 "2004-07-14T05:50:57Z")
> [@medstar](#): > > … there’s always stories about baggage handlers treating airplane customer’s luggage as their personal discount store. Or as sporting equipment. I lost a bag once because the tag got ripped off. IMO, all tags should be made of plastic, not paper. Or, if you don’t already have one, they could give you a plastic sleeve that the paper tag would go in. Then you could just use the same sleeve over and over again. Anyhoo, my bag ended up all over the place before they found it and sent it back to me. When I got it, it was all beat up. The zipper tab was broken off. My bathroom amenities were busted open. (Thankfully, I had started putting stuff like that into ziplock bags, so all the mess was contained.) And the bag, which had still been practically new, was all scuffed and rumpled. Fortunately, the bag only contained my clothing. If I have a CD player or books, I carry them with me. There’s no reason luggage missing its tag should be treated any differently than any other piece of luggage. However, I can just see the eyes of some of the baggage handlers light up with excitement when they realized that the bag was “lost”. _“Hey, Bob! Punt it over here! Stan! Go long!”_ Bastards! I know that’s just what happened. Anyhoo…