Shark week 2018

[IncreaseMyT]

So I watched the episode from two days ago with Guy Fieri and it was actually pretty good. Definitely dramatized but they even removed some hooks from some small silky sharks and spoke about shark conservation

 

[MrVegas]

I've watched some of Shark Week (and, yes, I confess I like it despite it really being entertainment more than documentary). Some of the shows (particularly the Cuba show) have brought a few questions to mind. (Note that I have never actually seen a shark in the wild -- my only salt water diving was in the BVI, and I didn't see any there.)

1. Every time a boat shows ups, it seems like sharks are waiting. Are the sharks so tuned into boats or people in certain locations now, that they are expecting to get fed or get easy food (fishing leftovers), or are the people chumming to make sure the sharks are there? (Or are they cutting and pasting from hours and hours of footage?)
2. Why do sharks always seem to go after the cameras? Does a camera on a stick look like a fish on a stick? Should I not carry a Go-Pro on my wrist?

Just a few things that crossed my mind watching the show.

 

[Nick Steele]

@MrVegas Maybe not scientifically proving but these are my theories and guesses to your questions

1) I believe it is a combination of all of those. I don’t know about Cuba but some spots in the Bahamas will get sharks right when a boat comes around. In the Florida Keys I’ve been fishing for 20 years and never seen sharks approach a boat unless they were fishing/chumming maybe a curious pass by once in awhile but not in numbers.

2) I believe most of the sharks that go for the cameras are use to being feed and associate the camera to the feeding create and take a chunk trying to get food. I wouldn’t worry about a GoPro around sharks.

 

[ReefGuy]

Yup, its because the feeders are training the sharks.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

I think it's a combination - there's definitely some cutting and pasting, and most of these shoots are being done at Bimini with the assistance of Doc Gruber and Tristan Gutteridge at the Bimini Shark Lab. The shark population there seems to be fairly dense, the scientists know where they hang out, and those sharks do get baited frequently both for research operations and recreational dive tours. I don't know whether they do baited shark dives at Jardines de la Reina in Cuba, but I doubt it. For the shoots that take place in areas where the sharks are sparse (the Aaron Rogers shoot with blue sharks off San Diego), getting anything to come in and hang around is not easy even with chum.

One of the things that has changed about Shark Week over the past 30 years, as related to me by a researcher who's been on it a number of times, is that in the old days the filmmakers would devote months in the field to getting the footage and editing it into an hour of TV. Nowadays they want to spend maybe a week on location to cut costs, which increases the reliance on celebrity participants, padding, and editing.

 

[dirtfarmer]

Starting off watching the Shaq episode is definitely going to lead to being let down. It was horrible.

Now if you caught Isle of Jaws, that has some spectacular footage. And when they go out of the cage with GWS swimming overhead it's spectacular. Yes it was recycled from 2016/2017, (Shaq probably didn't come cheap), but still amazing footage.
I don't care what all you grumpy divers say, despite the over dramatization, the sensationalizing, the use of old footage over and over, I still love it.
I'm gonna set the phone down, lay on the couch and pull up an episode and enjoy, because we are in the middle of a heat wave, some idiot totalled my truck, and I need a the sweet sweet respite provided by Shark Week.

 

[pepperbelly]

Check out Sharkfest on NatGeo.

 

[Rooster59]

Would you walk up to a wild grizzly bear and hand it a salmon, maybe a 5 lb London broil? No?

 

[Saniflush]

Does Shaq get eaten? Cause I would probably watch then.

 

[Hoag]

As someone once noted:
"Shark week has 'Jumped the shark'."

I think that even the Discovery Channel knows this since one of the shows last night was dedicated to debunking one of their own fake "documentaries" from a couple years ago (the Megaladon still exists "documentary"). I am also happy that "Bob the Shark" will not be around for another year.

I really wish that the Discovery Channel would switch their focus from sensationalization to education and conservation for Shark Week. Inform people on the way that shark finning and long line commercial fishing have wiped out an estimated 90% of the sharks world wide. Inform people of the importance that an Apex Predator has to the overall health not only of a given reef, but to the oceans as a whole. Inform people that only between 5-10 people worldwide are killed in shark attacks but that the media will maximize their coverage of every incident no matter how minor to sell their product. (I once saw a fisherman who was bitten removing a hook from a juvenile shark's mouth reported as a shark attack.)

Unfortunately, until ratings suffer and sponsors demand changes or they pull out, the Discovery Channel is unlikely to change what is for them a very profitable formula.