Scamming The Blog - Useless Film Promotion

A few weeks ago we got a series of emails from blog reader "Ethan" directing us to a seemingly "leaked clip" from a new film questioning the fundamental numbers of shark conservation. Ethan also contacted other Blue Bloggers with the same clip.

"100 million animals are killed each year."

As it turns out the leaked clip was not so leaked and is part of a half assed production now titled "The Shark Con." The premise being if you absolutely enrage dedicated members of the shark conservation movement by highlighting a few zero credibility, lowbrow naysayers, people will buy your film.

As we did not buy Tiburon Productions last half assed shark film we'll be giving this next effort a wide berth and are a little disappointed they did not approach us directly so we could have told them officially to go "crawl back under a rock."

In the interests of watching folks lose their minds to outrage here is the You Tube clip they are peddling around to anyone who will watch so you can post nasty controversial messages like this one:

"You're full of shit and I think you know you are full of shit. This is an attempt to make money and protect your interests by deliberately deceiving people. Find something useful to do with your time instead of destroying species that have every right to exist and which are vital for the health of our oceans."

On a personal note, with as much shark footage as Tiburon Productions have in the can and obvious desire to be part of the shark conservation movement, why bother with this effort?

Manufacturing controversy is as easy as following Sea Shepherds Whale Wars and a media world where facts mean little. Providing real and tangible solutions to shark declines is where the grunt work begins.

That is what we call shark conservation.

What, you afraid of some heavy lifting boys?

Mossel Bay Shark Death - New Twist

It would seem there's a new twist in the widely reported story of a "Monster Shark" that was accidentally caught in Mossel Bay, South Africa.

Turns out the shark was caught some 1600 kilometers away from the Mossel Bay location and "trucked in" for a film crews shoot, contrary to multiple mainstream news reports and emails floating around the Internet.

Thanks to writer Martin Hatchuel who wrote us this week to offer the straight story. Martin is a travel writer for Mossel Bay tourism.

Media Release. Immediate. 28 October 2009.

Scientist Dissects KwaZulu-NatalShark in Mossel Bay.

Mossel Bay’s Oceans Research Laboratory last week dissected a massive great white shark which had been trucked into the town from KwaZulu-Natal, where it had drowned after being caught in shark nets.The animal was supplied by the Natal Sharks Board.

“The rumour mill has been working overtime, but the truth is that the shark was brought here so that the dissection could be filmed for a National Geographic television programme called ‘Inside Nature’s Giants’,” said Mossel Bay Tourism’s Marcia Holm.“The series will be shown on both National Geographic and on ’s Channel 4, and features experts from all over the world who trace each animal’s evolutionary history by exploring its internal anatomy.”

According to David Dugan, chairman of Windfall Films, the producers of the series, “When the [first part of] the series aired in the UK, it received universal acclaim in the press and it is now being nominated for many major awards.“A team of researchers and production personnel flew in from New York, London,Durban and to assist scientist Enrico Gennnari, who performed the dissection as part of the requirements for his PhD degree,” said Ms. Holm.

“There are people who want to be frightened by this poor creature, but it really is worth remembering that he was dead by the time he arrived in Mossel Bay,” she said.Mossel Bay has featured in a previous National Geographic production - called ‘Sharkville’ - which showed how, in fact, man and the sharks really do live side by side.“If anything, we’re more of a threat to them than they are to us.”

Ms. Holm said that the risk of shark attack remained low, and that swimmers, surfers and other recreational users of the oceans could mitigate this even further by looking out for - and avoiding - unusually high concentrations of sea birds and fish in the areas in which they were swimming.

“We don’t catch great whites in Mossel Bay as they are protected by the law,” she said.

Sea Shepherd Crushing Dissent?

We have been critics of Sea Shepherd for the past year at this blog. Along with a growing number of others we have been hammering away at what appears to be a conservation org based on media fabrications, distortions, and an ongoing complete lack of credibility.

SSCS manages a 1970's direct action eco strategy that has all but failed to effect real conservation change. This strategy has been wildly successful in attracting millions in conservation donor dollars and a reality television show.

Dissent and Conservation

It is important that dissent is kept alive and well within the conservation community. Dissent and critique are the twin guides by which the conservation world polices itself. Or should be.

Global strategies and conservation efforts should be guided by clear and definable metrics for success. This is the basis of conservation. Choose targets well and roll out a careful and successful strategy to effect conservation change.

When conservation orgs fail to deliver conservation change they, as public entities, should be held to account. The money they accept is public money.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society does not like dissent, or opposition to any of it's ongoing and very public conservation antics. We have discovered this first hand.

This blog is re posted on a series of blog aggregators and other sites. Over the past year SSCS has been quietly emailing and demanding these sites take our critiques of SSCS down.

The implied threat is one of legal action by SSCS.

Using vague and varied legal terms, SSCS has accused this blog of falsely reporting "facts" and basic muckraking against SSCS.

These are counter accusations coming a conservation group featuring Paul Watsons ongoing claims and faked video that he was "shot by Japanese whalers." A media "fact" that has all but been completely discredited including most recently by popular media's South Park.

When conservation critique is quashed, we lose the ability to guide the overall direction of conservation efforts. The very efforts that the public funds through donations.

We are all in the business of real and lasting conservation change - or should be.

This blog will continue to point out failed eco strategy in the hopes that change will happen. The fact SSCS chooses to deflect dissent is one indication that we are on the right track.

Faked hostage events, faked attempted assassinations, and made for television vessel rammings do nothing to save whales, sharks, seals or change eco policy in any country. Recently SSCS suffered a multi million dollar loss when the Canadian Government sized their sister vessel the Farley Mowat and sold it at auction. Seals will be slaughtered again this spring and the entire SSCS seal campaign was a loss, both monetarily and to the conservation movement.

To those few who support SSCS the world has changed since the 1970's. We need new strategy, new conservation goals, and new direction, not hyper inflated eco media.

Consider what you are doing, what you have been doing, and ask yourself...has anything really changed? Where are the solid, lasting metrics for conservation change?

Sea Shepherd - Popular Culture and South Park

When Sea Shepherds plans for a new reality television show with Animal Planet were announced - we had to the following to say about it:

"Perhaps one of the most chilling departures from the entire 40 year global eco movement was this year when Sea Shepherd traded it's last shred of dignity and credibility for the cameras of Animal Planet and thus began Eco-Edutainment Television, where media messaging and outright fabrication of events have subsumed the horrors of actual whaling. Where dead whales and story lines are traded with advertisements for SUV's and laundry detergent. This is a meeting of eco media and horror that never should have happened and now that it has will change the landscape of the global eco movement for years to come."

No truer words have been written about the ongoing embarrassment to the global eco movement that is Sea Shepherds Whale Wars.

We're not the only ones to take notice, popular culture commentators South Park decided to expose Sea Shepherd this week in what can only be described as "Skewering the Emperor with no clothes."

We have been covering Sea Shepherds media rise and mistakes for the past year in an ongoing series of blog posts. In one year Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd have managed to completely redefine the term for "conservation," taking the concept from quantifiable metrics for eco success to a series of often inane talking points and million dollar media spectaculars that leverage main stream media's desire to sell advertising as their conservation vehicle.

Meanwhile whales keep being killed, year after year, while Whale Wars ratings climb. It is high time we discuss and enable real and lasting conservation efforts. Reality television shows are not conservation, and fortunately South Park has just embedded that idea with the next generation of conservationists.

Sometimes the best way to enact conservation change is with a popular culture backlash.

Unfortunately Sea Shepherd is soon to announce a new reality television show with sharks in the coming weeks. We're pretty sure the folks at South Park are looking forward to that announcement as well, while the rest of the shark conservation world cringes at the prospect.

See complete Whale Whores episode here.

Kicking the Shark Diving Industry

Interesting. A chop shop comes up with two iterations of a new shark show concept called either "Shark Divers" or "Shark Business". They are both posted on You Tube to see who's interested and what, if any, ensuing media hits these two concept shows get.

Sounds familiar? It should we invented the idea.

The problem with this is that what you are watching is damaging our industry and whoever is behind this cares nothing for the many hard working operators worldwide who are trying, on a daily basis, to show our industry in a positive light. These operators care about sharks, they support research, and work tirelessly for local and regional shark causes.We spoke with Mike Lever (featured in "Shark Divers") owner of Nautilus Explorer today who has no idea how these videos came to pass - quote:

"There's no way we would do this kind of televised crap, we agree that divers should remain in cages, those are not our divers outside the cages at Isla Guadalupe"

That's it. While Hawaii decides the fate of two operations in their waters, Mexico continues to debate having shark operations in their waters, and the Bahamas has the fate of Tiger Beach in committee - one misguided media chop shop decided, alone and all by themselves, it was in the best interests of our 100 million dollar commercial shark diving industry to show the entire planet its worst face.

What a difference a "few clips" can make to the perception of a global industry.

The "Imperial Presidency"...Ends With A Shoe

Good by and farewell Mr.President: