Shark Week is airing this week and I’ve turned it on a few times. I find the topic interesting but to have that amount of shows seemingly covering the same exact thing is boring. Discovery Channel promotes it as the next coming of Christ but there is only one part that interests me, the sharks.
I don’t care about the guy who got attacked. Or the new drone that will take footage of the coast. Or the new device to measure. All I want to see is a mega (+20 ft) shark…preferably fighting another mega shark. I’m a simple guy with simple wants.
Now after traveling in the bayou of Louisiana this Spring, crocs are equally scary (they are even in the sky!). View this picture of the bayou at night.
My fear of a shark is about equal to that of a croc. Both would be life threatening and I’d imagine death would become of me if I found my self in a compromising situation. Nature is big, bad, and evil and my #1 priority is survival. I told Jimmy survival was my life philosophy and he replied, “a profile of courage.” I couldn’t argue with that.
Don’t forget “SharkFest” on NatGeo – which is airing the same week!
The best one is the show where the Orca kills a mature Great White off the coast of SF. Apparently sharks are harmless when you flip them over – which the Orca somehow knew, did that, and essentially drowned it before ripping it apart. Within a day of killing it, the entire great white population of the area (about 150), disappeared from the region out of fear.
“Jaws” and all the shark culture started at the Jersey Shore btw…
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150702-shark-attack-jersey-shore-1916-great-white/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_tw20150706news-jerseyshark&utm_campaign=Content&sf10660929=1#
I absolutely loathe Shark Week! Not a very popular opinion, but I can explain..
Shark Week used to be about educating people about sharks. Now it has become this massive spectacle where all science and reason is thrown out the window to appeal to the American (American Idol watching, dumb as a doorknob) public. Discovery relies on shark attack porn and other fear mongering specials that only serve to boost ratings. They opened this week with a special titled “Megalodon: The Monster Shark That Lives”. Sorry but no, that bitch has been extinct for over 2.5 million years.
The real tragedy is that the switch in programming that we see today is harming the animal that this whole week is supposed to be honoring. Shark attacks on humans are such a rare occurrence that being afraid of them is absolutely ludicrous. On average Sharks kills around 5 people per year while Humans kill around 100 million Sharks per year. To put that into perspective around 4,000 people in just North America die from choking on food every year. So you should be more weary of eating than encountering a shark.
The point is humans are killing (at an alarming rate) some of the oceans longest living and most impressive animals it has. Sharks have been on the Earth before plants even started to appear on land. If the Discovery channel actually wanted to help these animals they would focus on facts rather than ratings.
Correction:
They opened one* week