Protestors target Shark Week
I guess I’m either really the target audience for Shark Week or I’m really not, based on the charges leveled at Discovery Channel’s annual week of shark programming by some “scientists, scuba divers and self-described shark lovers” bloggers:
This loose coalition argues the Discovery Channel programming sensationalizes shark attacks and embellishes the dangers sharks pose to humans. While Shark Week may provide a handsome profit to the US-based network, it has created a generation of viewers that feel “sharks need to be hunted to extinction,” the group argues. They are circulating a petition calling for the boycott of Shark Week.
I clearly have been watching different shows than they have.
Sure, the various shows — only a few new ones are added to the mix each year — make it clear that tigers are tops of the aquatic food chain (or close to it) and comparable in power (and fragility) to land animals like the great cats. But when I see video of sharks leaping out of South African waters to swallow a seal in mid-air, I don’t think “those animals need to be hunted to extinction,” I think, “that is one incredibly badass shark. Sucks to be a seal, though.”
Are there people who are getting upset watching Shark Week? And if there are, why don’t they change the channel?
According to most estimates, each year sharks attack 50 to 70 people and kill between 5 and 15. Between 20 and 100 million sharks die annually due to fishing.
A fact that’s hard to miss in the shows or in the short segments aired during commercial breaks.
People are interested in sharks for the same reason they’re interested in tigers and the like: Predators are fascinating. Most of the conservation efforts that are the best chance for tigers to survive at all are due to this sort of fascination. There’s a lag generally for most people realizing how endangered ocean populations are, but sharks aren’t exactly being singled out here: Most people scoff at the notion that tuna are in danger, for instance. (They are, though. We’ve eaten the slow-to-mature adult tuna and are busy consuming our way back through the breeding years. Once we’re done with that, kiss Charlie the Tuna good-bye.)
The bloggers are also hilariously un-self-aware:
The question-and-answer session sparked debate throughout the shark community.
If there are sharks debating things online, someone please tell me where; I’ve got to bookmark that site.
I got interested in sharks due to the Original Sin, in the mind of this community: Jaws. When I was a kid, I roamed around the Army base we lived on with my Star Wars figures carried in the belly of Jaws game shark and wanted to be an ichthyologist studying sharks when I grew up.
Maybe I had more sense as a kid than the people these bloggers are sure are getting whipped up into an anti-shark frenzy by Shark Week, but I don’t think so. I think most people who actually watch Shark Week — as opposed to merely being offended by it — see it as pro-conservation programming packaged with action movie narration.
Of course, I also used to relish shoving Luke Skywalker down into the belly of a great white, so what do I know?
Shark Week 2009 starts August 2.
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
It’s likely that they’re protesting because they don’t like the idea of Shark Week, which they developed by not actually watching it.
Comment by Jeff Hamilton — July 24, 2009 @ 8:35
The Shark Week Web site even talks about the fact that, with shark population levels plunging, they may not even be able to have a Shark Week in 20 years. They’re not exactly soft-pedaling the conservation message nowadays.
Comment by Beau — July 24, 2009 @ 10:12