Happy Shark Week?

Hello,

Well, it's the end of what some people consider to be the best week of the summer: Shark Week by the Discovery Channel.  Since 1987, one week in August has been dedicated to shark specials covering a wide range of topics from shark attacks to documentaries to reasons why sharks should be saved.  However, I've become very frustrated with the Discovery Channel and Shark Week in the past few years.  A quick search of comments on Shark Week material, their Facebook page, etc. will turn up hundreds of negative comments about what the week of specials has become.  Personally, I've been watching Shark Week for 14 years, and I grew up on a Shark Week full of education about some amazing animals and why we should protect them, not be afraid of them.

The issues with Shark Week started with me last year.  The opening "documentary" showed some first-person shooter footage combined with statements from scientists and eyewitnesses and photographs supporting the existence of Carcharodon megalodon, an ancient ancestor of the Great White Shark.  The doctored photos showed a shark with a length greater than 100 feet, and showed that the ancient predator is still alive and seeking out the blood of humans and has been responsible for attacking ships.  Right away, I was skeptical of the validity of this documentary, and a quick Google search found that the scientists and shark experts were merely actors, and that the photos and videos shown were doctored.  The only indication that this was in fact a "mockumentary" was a quick disclaimer in writing at the end of the program.

Even though this mockumentary was admitted to be fake, it wasn't enough to convince well over half of the viewers of Shark Week that year that Megalodon wasn't still around.  Viewers were polled, and many believe that Megalodon still roams the deep waters, looking for victims.  THIS IS NOT TRUE.  Megalodon lived during the time of the dinosaurs, and reached a MAXIMUM size of maybe 50 feet - about three times the size of their cousin, the Great White.  This number is based on estimations comparing the fossilized teeth found of Megalodon to the teeth of the Great White Shark.  However, a shark of this size would have made an appearance by now if it still existed, even in the deep ocean (which it wouldn't since while it was alive, it was an open-ocean predator.  It's also hard for a large predator like Megalodon to find enough food deep down past the 200 feet of ocean where sunlight reaches).

I was disappointed by Shark Week last year, and when I learned the date for the beginning of Shark Week this year, I was once again excited by the prospect of a week of entirely new shark footage and that maybe Discovery Channel had learned from the backlash they received for last year.  Almost forgetting my disappointment in last year's special, I invited friends over, got dressed up, make shark-themed snacks, and settled to celebrate the beginning of Shark Week 2014.  Within 10 minutes, I wanted to turn off the television.  Once again, fake videos, eyewitnesses, and scientists were shown preaching the existence of a massive Great White named Colossus.  Again, there was only a small disclaimer at the beginning of the mockumentary that I didn't read.

Yes, Colossus is an urban legend with hundreds of reported sightings off the coast of South Africa, and there are many websites and organizations dedicated to finding this fish.  No, it does not take down ships and push people out to sea and drag down massive buoys.  After this special was finished, I made the tough decision that I was to be done watching Shark Week until Discovery Channel learns from their mistakes and makes the week about education, not about bloodthirsty monsters.

Shark Week has now become the 2010-era version of the 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws.  It terrified people and made them not want to go in the water for fear of a man-eater.  Discovery is doing the same thing - but trying to make it more credible than a mechanical shark.  Scientists are interviewed (real scientists), shark facts are presented, and the whole thing seems much more believable.  However, many of the scientists interviewed for Shark Week have expressed that they were tricked into saying what Discovery wanted them to say or led into answering a question that they didn't want to.  No well-respected scientist would ever say some of the things that these scientists have said.  Discovery has warped their words to make a point that they want for the purpose of entertainment.

I think I'm going to stop myself here but I could easily go on for a while about my feelings regarding what Discovery Channel has become, especially surrounding Shark Week.  I would, however, like to leave you with some facts about sharks that Discovery doesn't seem to care about because they're not shark attack statistics.  Honestly, you could learn more from the following list than you can from 14 years of Shark Week.  I want you to make your own decision, but know that I, as a self-proclaimed shark enthusiast, and sharks were the reason why I became interested in science, will no longer be watching Shark Week, and just think about the validity of what you watch and question everything!

• Almost all sharks hunt solo, but there are a few species, like the scalloped hammerhead, that hunt in large groups (called schools).  They can swim together in numbers in the hundreds, but at night, some will break ranks and hunt by themselves.  Bottom line: some species of sharks can be surprisingly social, especially for fish, showing that they have a higher level of intelligence than expected.

• Every time a shark attacks a human, it's plastered all over the news and about what you can do to protect yourself from these bloodthirsty predators.  But this only happens maybe 5 times per year, and usually, all those attacked survive.

• No one mentions how many sharks are killed per year, because that is really the shocking number.  Humans kill over 100 million sharks EVERY YEAR.  And many of those killings are to feed the Asian shark fin soup market.  Shark fin soup is considered a delicacy and is often served at weddings and high-class events.  The fins don't have any flavour, they only add texture to the soup (which is stupid) and they aren't really safe to eat, since sharks have high mercury levels in their bodies.  Basically, tens of millions of sharks are killed every year for less than 1% of their bodies to add texture to only one dish, and that dish can kill you.

• Ever ridden on an airplane?  Then you have sharks to thank!  The design of the modern airplane was based off the streamlined figure of fast-swimming open ocean sharks.  The thought process was that because sharks are so streamlined swimming in water, why can't we have something like that streamlined for air?  And the modern airplane was born!  I'm sitting in the airport in Washington DC right now waiting to board a 13 hour flight to Ethiopia and that's exactly what I'm thinking about right now!

• Think all sharks are top-of-the-food-chain predators? Of the over 400 species of sharks, only a few even look like what we think of when we think of sharks. Another one of my favourite species of shark is the Cookiecutter Shark. This little guy is a total badass, they live in the deep ocean and come up to the surface at night to prey. They are less than a foot long, but attack (and win) against large open-ocean sharks, dolphins, whales, and more. How? The cookiecutter shark gets its name from its specially shaped jaws that form a perfect circle when fully open. Basically, they attach themselves to a large fish or mammal and twist their bodies to rip out a perfect circle of flesh - leaving scars like the ones pictured.

• When you think of blood and sharks, you probably picture a gruesome shark attack. Shark blood is actually super cool because it doesn't clot like our blood does. This might not sound cool, but their blood is being looked into to develop new, natural blood thinners for people with heart disease. And their thin blood is obviously working well for them, being the ocean's top predator and having been around for so long! And this is a picture of a preserved shark's blood vessels, compare that to a human's; sharks have a lot of blood!

• Thresher Sharks are one of my favourite species of shark because they have big eyes and a HUGE tail! Their upper tail fin can be the length of their body and it is used as a weapon. Thresher Sharks can whip their tails around their bodies and stun their prey, making it an easier catch. They're also known to launch themselves out of the water like dolphins!

• You think that dolphins are the only sea animals that like to play? Actually, Porbeagle Sharks (these little guys in the picture) like to toss seaweed chunks around to each other, much like American football.

• Did you ever hear about cartilage pills for treatment of cancer? Maybe your parents have? Those were all the rage a while back because there were no documented cases of a shark ever getting cancer. Science has now shown otherwise, but it was thought that sharks wouldn't get cancer because their skeletons are made of cartilage, the stuff that makes up our ears and nose, and not bone. Sharks were further hunted for their skeletons, that were then crushed up and put into pills as a treatment for cancer in humans. Not surprisingly, they didn't work. But you can actually still buy them as a dietary supplement - but those don't really do anything either.

• So you've all probably seen pictures of fishermen with huge shark catches - did you ever realize that there aren't really many of these pictures that look old? That's because recreational shark fishing didn't become popular until the movie Jaws was released in 1975. The scene where fishermen catch a Tiger Shark inspired thousands to go out on the water to snag their own "man-eater". While the sport of catching sharks has become a great thrill ride for many fishermen, it's decimating the populations of the big sharks. Basically, everyone wants to look like a badass.

• If you thought that the jaws of a shark have a lot of teeth, think again! Their skin is made up of what are called "denticles", which are tooth-shaped and run from nose to tail. So if you stroke a shark from nose to tail, their skin is super smooth, but if you stroke it the other way, you'll cut your hand open. Why have these? They're super good at reducing drag while swimming, and are being used as a template for suits for professional swimming and professional skiing. So yeah, sharks' bodies are literally COVERED IN TEETH.

• Sharks have been around on this planet for at least 400 million years (since before the dinosaurs!) and since then, they have evolved very little considering. This makes them basically evolution's perfect ocean predator! We're still discovering sharks similar to the ones that lived hundreds of millions of years ago (but no megalodon).


^if these look familiar, then you remember my Facebook posts leading up until Shark Week 2014

Thanks for reading!

Kim