All This Hype for Shark Week

Shark week... it started out great, maybe a quarter of a century ago, but where did that greatness go? The goal of shark week is no longer instilling the mind with invigorating information about a formidable predator that deserves some amount of respect and awe. Instead this week evokes: shock, blood, horror, fear...all things that ignorance and a stubborn adherence to prejudice instill. I know why it happened, I just need to figure out how to make it stop without resorting to the tactics of the characters in "God Bless America..."

Any one who has talked to me for longer than five minutes know that I am absolutely crazy about sharks. And it used to be, that I would look forward to every August for a great way to rot my brain in front of the TV for hours, filling it with nothing but what was assumed to be the latest and greatest shark facts.  It was fantastic!  I felt like I learned so much.

But I was an avid watcher of all public broadcast nature documentary while growing up whether cable or local network.  

Perhaps it is the college education now, or the extreme cynicism that comes with age and a pursuit to escape ignorance...but shark week is nothing but fluff now.  It is incredibly disappointing.  Gouts of blood, giant mechanical sharks, limbs of surfers surfing in known shark feeding areas where the sea lions and fur seals are desperately seeking land, constant stock footage of open jaws snapping at cages trying to bite anything.

There really are no words to describe the level of hate that I hold for Discovery Channel.  Their footage doesn't promote conservation! Instead it instills fear, aggression, perpetual ignorance.

Do not misunderstand me: I realize that majority of human interactions with these fish end brutally, tragically.  Respect, awe, understanding should be the goal of Shark Week however.  These fish have been around for millions of years.  They are not any more primitive than any other fish.  Their apparent lack of change over the millenia, is an evolutionary design that works wonderfully for them.  If the shape of their bodies, the abilities of their hunting had been sub-par, they would have gone extinct completely.  Does this fact alone, a species that has gone primarily unchanged throughout the bulk of their evolutionary history, not inspire awe?  Instead it seems to evoke disdain: simple killers, primitive, blood thirsty.  Of course they are bloodthirsty, it is how they recognize food.  If humans had not evolved initially from frugivores, we would be just as bloodthirsty... 

But instead of ranting about the ineffective ability of cable networks to deliver educational television, what is there that can be done to change it?  I know why the transition happened, it is the reason for everything: money.  The blood, the horror, the endless jaws footage brings in an audience.  People don't watch TV (or read for that matter) to learn.  It is pure entertainment.  Which would be fine, if this were actually entertainment instead of entertainment deceptively hidden in the disguise of documentary.

For those of us who want to share information with the world, this showy display of misinformation is disheartening.  Why should anyone support conservation for something they fear?  Why would anyone want to get in the water when such seeming monsters might be lurking?  Why shouldn't we destroy everything that potentially poses a problem to our livelihood?  Discovery Channel no longer answers those questions, as it is sending a mixed message as a get richer scheme. 

All this hype for Shark Week?  You might get more information from Jaws, a movie for pure entertainment value.