Les Stroud's Surviving Sharks: talk about stupidity

On a total flip side, the Mike DeGruy hosted "Mysteries of the Shark Coast" features another Cousteau, Celine, and Richard Fitzpatrick, the resident shark expert on the Undersea Explorer. This 2 hour show is definitely written with divers in mind as they even mention the divers were on "DEAD" coral. Talk about underwater PC. No over sensationalism or dramatization. But then again Mike DeGruy has been in the biz for a long time and I hope will never resort to that sort of nonsense to sell a program.

http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/web/shar...k-conservation/

Oh I forgot to mention for the dummy scene, they stuffed the wetsuit with fish to get the tigers to bite.

Sorry to reply to this so much later, but for us here we are just beginning our Shark Week here in Tonga on discovery.

As we speak I am halfway through "Surviving Sharks" and can not believe what I am seeing, I have not watched Shark Week for about 3 years because I was disgusted with the sensationalism by the crews, and am so disappointed with what I have seen so far.

The "Surviving Shark" program I am not going to go into, it has already been mainly said here.

The Mike De Gruy program shown last night was not bad, but I still don't get why we are naming places on tv where there are still healthy shark populations, and specifically saying that these places are outside of marine parks. Shark Fisherman watch Discovery too! Bikini atoll was a prime example of this, the healthiest most untouched reef in the world due to the 50 years of no touch/farming,fishing or living, it was an amazingly healthy ecosystem. Within only a short time the longliners had come through. So sad.

Now I am watching yet again another Shark Attack programe and quite frankly I am done, these programes only touch on the damage that is being done to shark populations.

Thats it if I say anymore it will not be nice.

I agree it's a sensationalistic piece of crap. The only thing it will do is fuel the general publics fear of sharks.

However, I fail to understand how provoking a shark to bite a dummy would increase its lust for biting people? Why would it?

/c

... the Mike De Gruy program shown last night was not bad...

Heaven help us (see "Pacific Abyss") if this is the best that can be said...

Tim

I agree it's a sensationalistic piece of crap. The only thing it will do is fuel the general publics fear of sharks.

However, I fail to understand how provoking a shark to bite a dummy would increase its lust for biting people? Why would it?

Christian, the theory is association with humans and food. Anecdotal evidence includes regularly fed/chummed sharks turning up when the boat engines are heard. This is true for many different shark feed places with specific places for shark feeds, like the Bahamas, Tahiti, PNG etc.

Obviously, many sharks use visual cues until they are very close to the prey, then they close their eyes and use their ampulae to go in for the bite. So by using a dummy shaped like a human, it increases likelihood of association, in theory. While there's plenty of evidence of association with other stimuli (engine noise, chumming), visual stimuli has yet to be proven.