shark week – Page 3 – Southern Fried Science

Does Shark Week portrayal of sharks matter?

June 29, 2015July 3, 2015 David Shiffman 6 Comments

I’ve been critical of factual inaccuracy and fearmongering on Shark Week documentaries for years. But how big of a problem is this, and how do we know? I asked some of the authors of three recent scientific studies* to summarize the evidence.

Many species of sharks are in desperate need of conservation. Twenty-four percent of all known species of sharks, skates and rays are considered Threatened with extinction by the IUCN Red List. Using a variety of different methods, scientists have documented rapid and severe population declines in many species of sharks all over the world.

Conservation requires public support. In a participatory democracy, new policies and regulations require some public support to pass. It’s easy to get public support to conserve cute and cuddly animals, but ugly animals need protection too. So do animals that scare people, like sharks.

An open letter to new Discovery Channel President Rich Ross from a shark scientist

January 9, 2015January 9, 2015 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

Dear Rich Ross, new President of the Discovery Channel,

I was excited to learn about your commitment to no longer show fake documentaries on the Discovery Channel. These shows have been incredibly damaging not only to Discovery’s goals of being the “number one non-fiction media company in the world” by”telling compelling and accurate stories,” but to public understanding of science and conservation. In recent years, the Discovery Channel has tried hard to actively muddle the fact that these documentaries were fake, including hiding vague disclaimers at the very end. I’ve spoken to hundreds of schoolchildren about sharks, and every time someone asks me about megalodon or mermaids. Viewers believed that they were real, and your channel actively bragged about the fact that people believed that they were real.

By claiming that megalodon isn’t extinct and mermaids are real but the government is covering this up, these shows resulted in scientists receiving threats and harassment, and resulted in important government agencies getting so many angry phone calls that they had to issue public statements. Producers for some of these shows intentionally lied to scientists to convince them to appear onscreen, intentionally lied to journalists about the facts behind them, and intentionally caused a real-life public panic. They actually showed a documentary about a legendary (read as “fake”) shark called Hitler. In short, I will be glad to see Shark Week and the Discovery Channel return to your roots of fact-based programming.

However, while “we won’t actively lie to viewers anymore” is an important step that I applaud, Shark Week and other Discovery Communications programs have many other problems that should be addressed. Shark Week 2014’s “Zombie Sharks” glorified wildlife harassment for no reason, as the entire stated goal of the show was for a non-scientist with a history of wildlife harassment to try to answer a question that scientists have known the answer to for decades. This problem is not limited to Zombie Sharks, but pervades Discovery Communications shows.

Shark Week 2014: documentary reviews, tweets, and media coverage

August 26, 2014 David Shiffman 3 Comments

Blogging, Popular Culture, Reviews and Interviews, Science

Another Shark Week has come and gone, and despite being out of the country at the time, I’ve managed to keep up my record of never having missed a single Shark Week documentary. I gotta tell you, though, some of them are really hard to watch. While there there is undoubtedly some great educational programming focusing on science, natural history and conservation, the Discovery Channel is doubling down on the troubling recent trend of blatantly lying to viewers with fake documentaries that use actor playing scientists and CGI video. In a time when public misunderstanding and distrust of science and scientists is already high, the Discovery Channel has decided to actively perpetuate misunderstanding and distrust of science and scientists. I’ve included my reviews (which originally were posted on my Facebook page after each show) of each of the documentaries below, along with a link to the Storify of my twitter reactions and links to some of the media coverage.

Upwell held another successful Sharkinar, bringing together scientists, conservationists, communicators and educators to talk about how “Team Ocean” can best take advantage of the increased public interest in sharks during Shark Week. Indeed, many members of Team Ocean were able to use the temporary increase in public interest in sharks to get important messages out to the media, and I’ve linked to and summarized some of the best examples below, but imagine how much more effective we could be if we didn’t have to first debunk the lies aired on a supposedly educational non-fiction television channel?

5 simple things you can do to improve U.S. shark and ray management

August 16, 2014 Guest Writer

Science

Sonja Fordham President, Shark Advocates International — Sonja Fordham
President, Shark Advocates International

Sonja Fordham founded Shark Advocates International as a project of The Ocean Foundation in 2010 based on her two decades of shark conservation experience at Ocean Conservancy. She is Deputy Chair of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group and Conservation Committee Chair for the American Elasmobranch Society, has co-authored numerous publications on shark fisheries management, and serves on most of the U.S. federal and state government advisory panels relevant to sharks and rays. Her awards include the U.S. Department of Commerce Environmental Hero Award, the Peter Benchley Shark Conservation Award, and the IUCN Harry Messel Award for Conservation Leadership.

Most Americans by now must know it’s Shark Week, but did you know that the Discovery Channel headquarters are mere steps from the headquarters of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and that right now — and rather often — fishery managers in that NMFS building are soliciting comments on US shark fishing rules?

Shark Week is winding down just as several key opportunities to help US sharks are being announced. Aside from controversy over some programming, other shows, the associated press coverage, and the veritable social media frenzy have sparked a lot of concern for sharks, and sent many Americans on a hunt for things that they can do to help. I welcome that interest and am taking the opportunity to make a plea for some unique, hand-crafted comments and personalized testimony about timely policies for several particularly deserving Atlantic shark and ray species.

Taking these actions won’t be quite as easy as pushing a button on an automatic petition, but I believe – because of the relatively low profile of these species and the increased influence of original comments – that they can truly make a difference. If heeded, your advice can lead not only to better conservation of US shark and ray species, but also to better examples for other countries to follow. Here goes (see the hyperlinks for more information and contact details):

Can Shark Week do more for its female viewers?

August 14, 2014August 14, 2014 Guest Writer

Blogging

Vicky Vásquez is a Moss Landing Marine Labs graduate student under the Pacific Shark Research Center. Her Master’s thesis focuses on the soupfin shark population of San Francisco Bay. Before beginning her graduate program, Vicky worked in marine education for over 7 years with groups like the Ocean Discovery Institute and the Marine Science Institute. This work has fostered Vicky’s passion in outreach education with a special interest in working with at-risk students and under-served communities. She has continued this work as the founding Deputy Director of a new non-profit in San Francisco Bay, the Ocean Research Foundation (ORF). You can follow Vicky on Twitter @VickyV_TeamORF and get updates about ORF through their Facebook Page.

Was anybody else bothered by Shark Week’s King of Summer campaign? I wasn’t at first. I thought it was hilarious! I found this light-hearted commercial of a guy riding two sharks to be on par with the ridiculousness of SyFy shark movies like Sharknado or Ghost Shark. It’s just too silly to take seriously. More so, I was just relieved they finally moved away from their Snuffy the Seal theme which vilified and eventually killed a shark for eating its natural prey of seal. However, after watching the subsequent versions which include Bob the Shark and Rob Lowe, I couldn’t help but get a annoyed. What is with that freaking mermaid?!

So men are kings and women are mermaids?

Perhaps some of you may think I’m spoiling the fun of Shark Week by bringing this up, but the Be the King of Summer promotion reflects my point. People were asked to insert their own faces into this add. Although women did participate, they most commonly posted their faces as the mermaid at the King’s knees. I understand that this is all in good fun and obviously those women did too. However, very similar to this mermaid persona, is the growing number of women whose shark conservation work has been recognized for their sole approach of being sexy while swimming with large sharks. Despite that sounding like a jab against them, it really is not. My concern is that there is an equal number, if not more, women who are protecting sharks through research. For instance, there were 60 female scientists that presented research at the 2014 Sharks International Conference. Nevertheless, Shark Week predominantly features white male hosts and researchers despite the slowly growing number of women (as well as people of color) in the science and engineering fields. I therefore can’t help but wonder, where are they on TV?

Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine is a fake documentary

August 10, 2014March 18, 2015 Michelle Jewell 119 Comments

Popular Culture, Science

Shark Week has done it again with their Shark of Darkness nonsense. This show goes after everyone, from the whale watching industry, to shark cage diving, to South Africa as a country, and literally broke my heart to watch.

As always, a brief and vague disclaimer appears after all the credits have rolled. — As always, a brief and vague disclaimer appears during the show.

The fake-u-mentary is supposedly based in Hout Bay, but continually shows a map of Dyer Island and Geyser Rock and refers to Shark Alley that are all in Gansbaai, ~100km to the east. So why would they say Hout Bay? If you google “boat capsized in Hout Bay”, you will find that there was a boat which capsized outside of Hout Bay in 2012, killing 2 passengers onboard. This boat was capsized by heavy swell in the middle of the day and had nothing to do with a shark, let alone a mythical one. So I can only assume that Discovery Channel chose to include this very real tragedy in order to somehow legitimize their fake-u-mentary. This is horribly insensitive.

Fin-Body Ratios for Smooth Dogfish – Depends on How You Slice It

August 8, 2014August 9, 2014 Chuck Bangley 1 Comment

Conservation

The 2010 Shark Conservation Act prohibits removal of fins at sea for all sharks landed in U.S. Waters, with a glaring exception for smooth dogfish, or smoothhound sharks. In an effort to ensure that fishermen aren’t performing the cruel practice of throwing a still-living but finless shark overboard, a fin:body ratio of 12% for smooth dogfish became law as part of this bill. This means that the total weight of smooth dogfish fins cannot be more than 12% of the total dressed weight of the bodies when the sharks are landed.

Some time ago I wrote a post questioning where this 12% ratio came from, especially since the best available published literature at the time suggested a ratio of only 3.5% for smooth dogfish. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Management Commission (ASMFC) responded, claiming that they had data backing up a find:body weight ratio of 7-12%. Now, thanks to the SEDAR stock assessment workshop for this species, the study conducted by the ASMFC is publicly available (albeit nearly four years after it was written into the law).

So where does this seemingly extremely high fin:body ratio come from? It depends on how you slice it.

Megalodon: the New Evidence is a fake documentary

August 7, 2014 David Shiffman 3 Comments

Blogging, Popular Culture, Science

So was last year’s “Megalodon: the monster shark lives.” Both Shark Week specials claim to show evidence that Carcharocles megalodon, the largest predatory shark that ever lived, is still alive. In both cases, the evidence is 100% completely and totally fake. A disclaimer from “the monster shark lives” Video evidence is CGI, images are photoshopped, and … Read More “Megalodon: the New Evidence is a fake documentary” »

A Shark Week 2013 retrospective…with memes!

August 12, 2013August 14, 2013 David Shiffman 7 Comments

Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

davesquare

As Shark Week 2013 comes to a close, I wanted to take a look back at which part of my outreach strategy worked (and didn’t work), as well as what I liked and disliked about Shark Week as a whole. Ever since my “15 important shark conservation and management terms explained with memes” post, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to incorporate more internet humor into a blog post, so here goes…

While this Shark Week allowed scientists like myself to reach the public on a large scale, most of the content was...troubling. — While this Shark Week allowed scientists like myself to reach the public on a large scale, most of the content was…troubling.

Does shark conservation result in more shark attacks?

October 6, 2011October 5, 2011 David Shiffman 5 Comments

Science

Meet Captain Bill Goldschmitt, an author, blogger, and commercial shark fisherman. Captain Bill is a passionate, opinionated, and influential man in the world of shark conservation and management. Unfortunately, the opinions that he chooses to passionately share are wildly incorrect. Captain Bill is a leading proponent of many ideas that have no basis in reality, including the notion that shark conservation efforts lead to an increased danger for humans from shark attacks.

He repeats this idea often on his blog. In recent months, he has written that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission has declared “open season” on Florida bathers by even considering new shark protection efforts, pleaded with Shark Week to focus more on how dangerous sharks are and less on their dwindling numbers and ecological importance, and compared shark conservationists to those who apologize for al-Qaeda terrorists.