Shark Hoax Enjoys Airtime - Embarrassingly so for Dale Kobetich

Not even April 1st yet and photographer/surfer Dale Kobetich unloaded a whopper of a shark tale on an unsuspecting surf and shark crowd this week.

In this semi tragic story Dale faces off with a deadly mako (the one in this image) and manages to take some stunning images in the process.

The problem with this story and sadly for Dale is that he mis-judged his audience...completely.

The shark image world is a pretty savvy place and anyone can tell this animal is as dead as they get. A dried out stage prop for a completely faked story of man vs shark in California.

Why did he do it?

Who knows, who cares, suffice to say Dale must be wondering the same questions right about now as well. With April Fools still a few months away, this story would have been a world class contender - instead it is a world class bogus effort.

Editors Note: Click here to see a live mako shot notice the difference?

Editors Other Note: Dale comes clean, admits fakery, of course we already knew that.

113 Nations Agree - Will it save sharks?

113 nations have signed on to conserve migratory shark species. This is being heralded as a landmark decision.

On the flip side we have seen this kind of thing before.

Nations banding together to work long ranging plans for animal conservation and who fall foul to enforcement issues or internal pressures from commercial fishing interests.

In short, while these announcements are always good news, the conservation world needs to radically change the way we do conservation.

Too often nation conservation consensus leads to little in the way of actual conservation, as is the case with blue fin tuna.

Good "news" for sharks does not always translate into actual protections for animals.