Shark Week on Discovery
- Thread starter LIVES4SHARKS
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JTH2711
Registered
Okay I have to make a statement here. I have watched the past couple of Shark week shows. "Deadly Waters" was relatively silly, but it is Les Stroud so I 'll look the other way. "Mythbusters", I love these guys so I can't say anything bad per se about their show. However the others were STOOPID for the most part. The information was informative but I did feel like they were feeding the hysteria monster a little. One dude gets his leg bit off in the Bahamas. One guy, out of the thousands of bathers everyday. Gee what are the frickin odds. It was just like a few years ago when people were saying Castro training sharks to attacks Americans. Come on. We need a reality check Big time
I sent this:
You need to spend less time of how sharks hurt people and more time on how people have been slaughtering sharks. Normally, your network is terrific, save this sensationalizing of sharks attacks.
tndash
Registered
I posted this on the Discovery link:
Hello, every year I am upset with Discovery’s advertising for Shark Week. This year, it was even more detrimental. By showing humans calmly swimming at the surface and then simply being pulled under you are not only instilling unjustified fear, but adding to the already high levels of irrational thought to fear and thus, by association, hunt sharks. It is obvious that Discovery has done its research due to the content of some of the programs on Shark Week and actually know the hype is purely just hype. The very SMALL threat of sharks as say compared to dog bites or crossing the street, is well known but are the ratings ethically and environmentally more important that the preservation of marine life? Please stop spewing fear. It only does harm for everyone.
Hello, every year I am upset with Discovery’s advertising for Shark Week. This year, it was even more detrimental. By showing humans calmly swimming at the surface and then simply being pulled under you are not only instilling unjustified fear, but adding to the already high levels of irrational thought to fear and thus, by association, hunt sharks. It is obvious that Discovery has done its research due to the content of some of the programs on Shark Week and actually know the hype is purely just hype. The very SMALL threat of sharks as say compared to dog bites or crossing the street, is well known but are the ratings ethically and environmentally more important that the preservation of marine life? Please stop spewing fear. It only does harm for everyone.
OP
I want to thank you all for your imput and especially those that have made your feelings known to the Discovery Channel. So far their programming has done anything but feed the irrational fear of sharks by the public. Balanced programming should be just that, balanced showing the good and the bad. There are so many organizations that are fighting for shark conservation that their work and discoveries should be an integral part of Shark Week. However, that is a far cry from what the Discovery Channel has done in the past 20yrs.
Keep fighting the good fight!
Carolyn:shark2:
Keep fighting the good fight!
Carolyn:shark2:
tripledive
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Lots of good points made here on this forum. But to be quite honest, as much as I feel Discovery Channel blows out of their a@#$, I don't care very much and in fact I don't even look forward to Sharkweek anymore. They have actually accomplished the impossible....they made a shark attack boring. How many times are we gonna watch the surfer, the diver, blah blah blah get bit with the same lousy re-enactment then the post interview about how they're not mad at the shark blah blah blah. Let's face it...this forum is proof enough...TEACH US SOMETHING!!! The quick and simple...sharks have bitten,maimed, killed, even eaten humans whole (I know you're all shocked!)...this will continue to happen regardless of all our precautions and studies about how and why they bite us on those RARE occasions. So, please Discovery Channel if you read these posts, you CAN educate and entertain us all at the same time( ideas=shark physiology, mating, migrations???..don't be scared to challenge us!). Get a host like Mike Degruy or Brett Gilliam. These guys can make watching paint dry humorous and fun and keep you at the edge of your seat. Don't be scared to educate...remember its the delivery not the content.
mikerault
Contributor
One thing I found a bit odd was the catching of the Greenland Shark...pulling it up from 1200 feet. Don't sharks get the bends? I know you pull any other fish up from just a few hundred feet its basically throwing its guts at you from its mouth. I would be surpized if their data recorders don't show a grandual descent to the bottom, it swims around for a short time then stops dead (literally.)
ocbeachbum
Contributor
As I understand it, the "guts" you see is a swim bladder found in most bony fish which contains air and expands when rapidly changing ambient pressure (via fishing) occurs.
Sharks have no swim bladder, (which is why most sink when they stop swimming). Instead they use their livers for buoyancy as they are high in lipids. Sharks are also naturally saturated with the right ammounts of dissolved gasses at depth. It's their baseline. They dont get "bent" for the same reason we don't when we ascend to high altitude rapidly in an unpressurized plane. Also, gills obviously differ from lungs, and dissolved gasses don't get a chance to un-dissolve as they pass over the membrane from the water into the shark's body. You can't compress water: thus in an open system, you can't dissolve any more gas in it at any depth. It will diffuse back to wherever it came from to equalize concentrations. The only way to add dilutant gasses is to force gas into a closed system containing water. You may already know this, so i'm sorry if i'm re-hashing anything. If not though, and you're curious, look for a thread containing the "piston example" concerning gas theory, i'm sure there's one floating around.
Sharks have no swim bladder, (which is why most sink when they stop swimming). Instead they use their livers for buoyancy as they are high in lipids. Sharks are also naturally saturated with the right ammounts of dissolved gasses at depth. It's their baseline. They dont get "bent" for the same reason we don't when we ascend to high altitude rapidly in an unpressurized plane. Also, gills obviously differ from lungs, and dissolved gasses don't get a chance to un-dissolve as they pass over the membrane from the water into the shark's body. You can't compress water: thus in an open system, you can't dissolve any more gas in it at any depth. It will diffuse back to wherever it came from to equalize concentrations. The only way to add dilutant gasses is to force gas into a closed system containing water. You may already know this, so i'm sorry if i'm re-hashing anything. If not though, and you're curious, look for a thread containing the "piston example" concerning gas theory, i'm sure there's one floating around.
mikerault
Contributor
I don't buy it. You go from 1200 feet to sea level in less than an hour even if you are a shark, the dissolved gas in your tissues is going to be an issue. Even if it isn't the dissolved gas if your body is conditioned to 1000 PSI and goes to 15 psi there are going to be issues. Look at what happens to 6 gills when they are forced to the surface.
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