Who is Sergey Panchuk?

Apparently he's an ex special forces shark diver with the St Petersburg Oceanarium, touted to be the largest in Russia and Eastern Europe.

What caught our eye today was Russian Televisions intro to the topic of sharks and shark diving - and the video clip they used to make a point.

In fact we're not so sure about the Jaws era spin on the entire article and video. They even managed to squeeze in a classic Erich Ritter style misquote from the Sergey:

The hardest thing when working with sharks is to never show that you are scared. You can't even have increased blood pressure because they can feel it. No emotions – even if they try to bite you,” Sergey says.

If there's anyone who reads this blog locally perhaps a word with the editor?

See story and video.

When Disaster Videos Go Viral-Tracking The Spread

We have been tracking the spread of one of the worst cage breach videos ever to be caught on tape. The event happened at Isla Guadalupe, Mexico in 2007 and was posted on You Tube shortly after waiting for an editor or producer to take it mainstream.

That happened on Monday when the Times Online covered the video. What happened next is a classic case of viral negative media.

Today we'll be looking through the media lens on this event to highlight how far this video has spread-estimating the number of people who have been impacted.

Negative operational events (NOE's) affect the entire shark diving industry and ripple through the global media like wildfire. This is one example of how poor media handling immediately after an event has lead to the current negative media storm. Sadly, in the end, the sharks are the real victims here once again portrayed as 70's iconic, vicious killers.

Today is Wednesday December 10.2008-72 hours after the initial story broke in the U.K

International Newspapers

1. Times Online readership 618,160
2. Telegraph U.K readership 882,413
3. The Sun readership 7,900,000
4. Courier Mail Au 224,689

US Coverage

1. Today Show NBC-USA viewers 4,910,000
2. Today Show NBC-USA viewers 4,910,000 (second show Dec 11)
3. CBS Evening News-USA viewers n/a
4. ABC Good Morning America viewers 5,656,000

Major Viral Video Sites

1. You Tube 1 views 683,140
2. You Tube 2 views 149,541
3. You Tube 3 views 15,419
4. Break.com views 291,877
5. Travelistic.com views 27,160

Blogs

A quick blog search shows this video on well over 400 blogs and video posts at this time. Estimated numbers of viewers is hard to count.

Summary

The coverage of this video by the mainstream media will burn out by the end of this week. The driving force behind this video's success has been CNN's Planet in Peril and a recent expose on cage diving in South Africa. The story will not end here. This video will now sit on literally thousands of servers across the planet with absolutely no chance of it being taken down.

"Post spin" after a negative operational event (NOE) is not effective. Viewers of this video make up their own minds based on the negative media in front of them and will continue to carry that view. The real tragedy here is the animal which was put into an "artificial situation" driving both the anti shark diving agenda, and the negative image of sharks.

Operators have a small window immediately after an event like this to control media should they choose to exercise this option. Failing to do so, as we have seen this week, damages everyone.

Two escape as great white shark tears apart cage

We spend a lot of time on this blog talking about the 200 million dollar shark diving industry and how the actions of local operations ripple across the globe to eventually effect us all.

For the second day in a row a major newspaper in the U.K has acquired a You Tube video shot by a diver at Isla Guadalupe in 2007.

The video details one of the worst cage breaches ever caught in the history of cage diving.

The operation in question has had several cage breaches going back to 2004 at the same dive site with the same sharks.

By way of disclosure we also operate at the same site and before anyone proffers the idea this post about "slamming a competitor" we would like to put that to rest-now.

This post is about media, responsibility, and leadership within an industry. It is about our responsibility to the animals we make a living from, it is about treating the resource as a renewable one and not as a Biological ATM Machine.

This video, for the anti shark diving lobby, who would like to see an end to shark diving in places like South Africa, Australia, the Bahamas, remains the perfect visual media tool. It is the Golden Key.

For example this video is one of the primary reason the Mexican Navy enacted a ban on chumming at Isla Guadalupe in 2008. This ban affected an entire fleet of operators and shark divers from all over the planet. All due to a video and the complete lack of any media control exercised by a commercial shark diving company.

The abject irresponsibility of allowing this video to remain on the Internet where it continues to portray great whites in a 70's mindset, continues to harm other operations at this dive site, and continues to provide a platform for those who want to end shark diving-cannot be understated.

Leadership within an industry begins with the sharks and it ends with the realization that everything we do on a local level will eventually affect those on the other side of the planet either positively or negatively. The next steps are up the the company responsible for this event.

It is high time they took full responsibility for this sad affair and "retired" this video for the sake of the industry and for the ongoing perception of sharks worldwide. These animals deserve better, you know it, the industry knows it, and no amount of post event website spin will change that.

Sharks and Media 101

This mornings Times Online highlights the ongoing need for both control of media within a shark site and safety protocols with macro sharks. Back in 2007 this company had another full cage breach at Isla Guadalupe. This time the shark took off the entire front of the cage system dumping a fully weighted diver into 500 feet of water.

At the time the event was written off and to this day the operation publicly looks at this event as "par for the course" when dealing with Great Whites. Meanwhile the video of the cage breach continues to grow on You Tube (500,000) garnering interest far and wide from not just the media, but government agencies in Mexico tasked with this sites enforcement, members of the Mexican Parliament, and a few NGO's whose agenda is clearly anti shark diving.

The lessons here are simple and two fold. Design and adhere to safer protocols for macro species encounters that do not rely on cage systems for "entertainment". Having white sharks bump, ram, or hit shark cages is both a disservice to the animals and inherently dangerous. Always control your media. When events like these happen there is a small window in which the operator may ask for the video or images. Videos such as these damage the credibility of all shark diving operations worldwide.

As an industry we live in a world where negative operations events (NOE's) are transmitted at light speed around the planet. These events will also sit on servers until the end of time reinforcing the image of sharks as deadly killers and no amount of post event spin will change that. As an industry whose livelihood depends on these animals, we can do better. Let's start by taking this video down and replacing it with a pro shark PSA, while at the same time ensuring these kind of events never happen again. The Times Online readership is 349,000 a day.

Editors Note: We just noticed the Sun also ran with the same story with a "Divers survive shark attack" headline. Good for sharks? Probably not.