Shark Week Starts Tonight!
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
Set your Tivos! Shark Week 2009 starts tonight, kicking off with “Blood In The Water”, the true story behind the bloody shark attacks of 1916 that inspired the movie “Jaws.”
And there’s more… I’m personally looking forward to catching “Vacation Bites”, “Ankle Biter”, “Bloody Ocean Swim” and “Missing Limbs”.
Get the full schedule here.
LOUISIANA!!!???
This years Shark Week has revealed a bacchanalia of man made shark horror well beyond any concerns the shark conservation community and commercial shark diving community could have fathomed.
Without a doubt Discovery Networks have reinvented Sea Monsters, erroneously establishing the shark as the most feared predator on the planet.
34 years after JAWS, and 34 years of conservation science discoveries, pro-shark media, and conservation themed initiatives have been swept away by the 2009 Discovery Channel anti-shark juggernaut. This year broadcast in gory, blood soaked HD, to an estimated 30 million domestic viewers.
Great for advertising revenues, lousy for the perception of sharks worldwide who have been thrown back to the stone age with last nights docu drama, “Blood in the water” and this weeks entire line up of gratuitous Shark Porn.
As a commercial shark diving operator I find over hyping one small facet of a sharks entire Raison d’etre to be patently dishonest and a disservice to animals that are suffering one of the highest rates of destruction on the planet.
Approximately 90 million sharks are killed each year. That’s a stunning statistic. And yet Discovery Networks feels compelled to bring back the 1970′s shark mythos, blood and fear, with absolutely no Sympathy for the Devil.
At the same time Discovery Networks have rolled out a simply draconian and somewhat East Bloc ham fisted media campaign showing conservation for sharks. An afterthought pushed out by Discovery and it’s hand selected group of “Shark Porn Programming Apologists” to mollify the growing push back from an appalled research, science, and commercial dive community.
To those who are supporting the very dark decision by Discovery Network executives to bring back, promote, and hype the fear of sharks, rethink your position.
At a critical time when sharks, as a measure of the health of our oceans, need as much support as we can give them, programming decisions that demonize these animals for ratings, ad sales, and corporate profits are wrong, dishonest, and bordering on fraudulent.
Discovery started Shark Week 20 years ago with programming that was fresh, alive and informative. Our company along with many others have been involved in some of that programming and happy with the results.
Early Shark Week programming started with unflinching production companies striving to produce they best they could, fully engaging local operators to introduce them to the full range of shark behaviors.
Discovery has officially lost it’s way. It can come back, hopefully this is the final year of Shark Porn. Hopefully those within the community who are currently in bed with Discovery Networks “will see the light”.
As both the alcohol and tobacco industries have discovered you cannot sell these toxic brands to minors and then ask them to “drink and smoke responsibly”.
Discovery Networks cannot sell fear and loathing of sharks…and then push for conservation.
Cheers,
Patric Douglas CEO
http://www.sharkdiver.com
http://www.sharkdivers.com
http://www.sharkdivers.blogspot.com
http://www.guadalupefund.org
http://www.islandofthegreatwhiteshark.com
415.235.9410
i disagree i found shark week to be very imforative and did not feel in any way he could effect the need to protect the sharks not one person on there said anything negative all agreed the sharks were not to blame in fact just the oppisite that they were in the sharks territory and none feared to return to the ocean and i did sign the petition to save the sharks which had i not watched shark week i would have never known about it
Oh, poor Patric, Discovery Channel is the devil for recounting actual instances of human predation. I watched the shows and am not surprised when the victims descibe the menacing terror of an attacking shark.
Even if every person boycotted the Discovery Channel and commercial fishing were banned from fishing sharks, Tigers, Bulls and White sharks would still attack and eat people as a tertiary prey item. That is a scientific fact.
Spare me the “34 years ago Jaws ruined the shark’s public image” bit. Sharks have been attacking and eating human beings forever and no tv station or movie can undo what sharks are.
I get it, your business is dependent upon sharks.
But the truth of the matter asserted works and is.
“Enter the water, enter the food chain”