Sorry tried to add in some other stuff, but I couldn't edit it into the first message.

His third point related to actual short sellers of the stock, as opposed to shorting gold by the companies in his first two points. His third point is that short sellers prey on small exploration companies because they can knock the price down and make further development difficult to finance. My take is that this type of shorting is getting dangerous for the shorts because the majors need more reserves and are likely to buy small exploration companies to get them.

Shorting any kind of develpmental company is a common practice -- like biotech startups, for a very similar reason (they need a lot of financing) and the shorts only need to cover when developments occur that make good news likely, such as the end of a drug trial which could turn out positive.