Giant Shark scare in the UK

In another stellar piece of journalism (sharkasm) intended, the Daily Star writes "Jaws attack: Terror after GIANT SHARKS spotted circling the coast of England"

Wow, someone got attacked by a giant shark! Did they survive? What kind of a shark was it?
The article states: "HOLIDAYMAKERS have been placed on alert as huge sharks hit British shores thanks to the recent hot weather.

Still, no mention of what happened. So what the heck is going on?



OK, we are getting somewhere. Here is what happened: "The basking sharks, which can grow up to 26ft long, have been spotted off beaches in many of the country's holiday hotspots.
As if that wasn't terrifying enough – thousands of jellyfish have also been spotted in the waves."

The caption for the picture below read: "HORROR: The terrifying sharks – which can grow up to 26ft – have started circling shallow water around the UK [AK Wildlife Cruises]"
 

source

Wait, did I miss something? Where is the attack? What is terrifying about a basking shark?
The article goes on to say: "Ross Wheeler of AK Wildlife Cruises in Falmouth, Cornwall, captured incredible footage of the first sighting of a shark in UK waters."We had two basking sharks – our first for the season – thousands of barrel jellyfish, 11 common dolphin and five harbour porpoise" he said."

Ah, I see. They are describing some people going on a wildlife cruise and encountering a completely harmless basking shark. The "reporter" mistakenly wrote the wrong headline. He really meant to say: "Tourists are excited about encountering gentle giant" or "Lucky tourists encounter gentle giant and friendly dolphins off the UK coast". Easy mistake to make (sharkasm) intended.

Later on the article correctly mentions: "But the sighting isn't likely to mean a repeat of horrific scenes from 1975 thriller Jaws - the basking sharks are harmless but have been lured to the Cornish coastline earlier than normal.
They swim around with their gaping jaws open to swallow tiny plankton, their main food source."

So the reporter actually knew that there was no attack and the sharks are harmless plankton eaters, which of course didn't stop him from making up a completely fictitious and sensationalistic headline. It's not like the sharks don't have it hard enough already, with overfishing and being killed for their fins. I really wish the media would stop making it worse by portraying even the most harmless sharks as terrifying monsters.

Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO Shark Diver 


 
About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at staff@sharkdiver.com.

Pro Shark Finning Talking Points - Got Counters?

Yeah but...

If there's one thing that a recent media bomb in Singapore exposed it was pro shark finning talking points. The ones being proposed last week were, by any standards, pretty good.

The person uttering them was Dr Choo-hoo Giam at a recent conservation round table that pitted Dr Giam against anti shark fin groups seeking shark fishing/finning bans in the region.

We're not going into the side show of last weeks misquotes, or media responsibility here, that's been covered by Da Shark and David quite aptly.

We want to talk about the fundamental currency of mainstream and social media - Talking Points.

TP's are the short media friendly quips that move media sources to write stories and create content. They also help on social media sites.

Talking points are the main arsenal for groups seeking to sway public opinion.

In this world, unfortunately, readers don't care for bulky PDF's filled with researched facts, they want a sound byte, they want instant raison d'etre.

It's a media currency traded by Sea Shepherd and PETA to great effect...in the short term. If talking points are currency then these two orgs represent the Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac of the talking point world. Dispensing a treasure trove of toxic media to unsuspecting masses, bundled and sold without any thought to the future, just the media meme of "the now".

The problem with talking points is that they have to be factual. Your media opposition will take your talking points and, like a grenade thrown too soon on the field of battle, pick up and lob back into your position.

For the many grassroots shark conservation groups who have been growing, morphing, and relying on Facebook and other social media platforms to save sharks over the past two years the media staple of the talking point became horribly skewed along the way.

We have all seen talking points that have reverberated in social media eco chambers around the world to create free standing monsters made of whole cloth factoids that make no sense and provided the opposition like Dr Giam a treasure trove of his own talking points that actually resonate.

Does anyone remember the following media samples?

1. 100+ million sharks killed

2. Sharks = Oxygen

3. Asians are evil

4.90% of all shark species are now completely extinct

5. Japan kills all the worlds sharks

The list goes on and on with some unfortunate racist undertones to boot. Many in the shark conservation world disavow any responsibility for these talking points, "what happens in chat rooms or how people comment is up to them, we operate to a higher calling, just read our bulky PDF's on the issues and you'll know".

It's not good enough.

There are some seriously flawed media talking points out there and they are the current shark conservation meme. And yes, any group involved in shark conservation has the direct responsibility to disavow these gross misrepresentations and start, today, by doing the following:

1. Full review of the most egregious talking points out there.

2. Broad bi-partisan reworking of all media talking points. Let's all get on the same table.

3. A separate media educational track to the shark conservation base to redirect and refocus.

4. A disavowing of all racist talking points, "Hate the Policy - Not the People".

5. Create and promote talking points that are compelling and make sense.

You can still have talking points that have an impact. But we have to get savvy quickly on this issue.

Thankfully Dr Giam has educated all of us to our glaring media Achilles Heel.

It's not too late to clean house and reverse two years of fundamental media mismanagement. The fact is we got a lot of mileage out of , "100 Million Sharks Killed" but that sound byte has just landed back in our foxhole and we don't see anyone out there in a leadership position throwing themselves on that particular media grenade.

Which is too bad, because when it goes off, everyone will take a piece of it - like it or not.

SharkDiver.com-Top Underwater Onions of 2008

O.K so we're flying into San Diego tomorrow for the day and will not be at the office, nor will we be blogging. We will have the trusty mobile office so feel free to email and call.

For our many daily blog fans don't despair, we thought you would be amused-along us-with few of the Underwater Onions we created in 2008.

These were sharky and underwater stories that might be believable but for the fact we made them up:

Sperm Whale Hunt Closed-Japans Fleet Turns Back

China Olympics: Speed Whale Shark Champions

Japan: Whale Hunt Causes Fashion Crisis

Competitive Eating Champion Sets New Record-36 Pounds

White Shark Discovered in Hotel Pool

DNA Disaster-Scientists Add Seal DNA to Asian Caterpillar

Editors Note: Eh, it's a work in progress.

Snopes.com-Busting Shark Stories Wide Open

Another day another 15 emails from our shark blog fans with the following story. For the record this shark ain't what you think:

Hey Shark Divers,

Have you seen this?! Holy Crap!

OCEANSHORES, WASHINGTON
While the ocean vessel 'Dawn Raider' was commercial fishing for dogfish, this Great White Shark was hooked in the mouth.

It only resisted slightly for 15 mins before it came up alongside the boat to have a look; just long enough for one of the crew members to slip a rope around its tail! And that's when the fun began. The Shark took off towing the 42-foot fishing boat backwards through the water at an estimated 7 knots. Just like in JAWS, the boat was taking on water over the stern and the crew watched in horror as the shark would actually jump completely out of the water at times. This went on for an hour before the shark finally drowned.

She weighed in at 1,035 pounds. It is suspected she followed a weak El Nino current into local Washington waters in search of food. Although mid- 60 degree water is considered ideal for these sharks, the larger ones can tolerate water in the low 50s.

Editors Note: Snopes.com busted this story wide open back in 2004...and that's not a Great White it's a "Honkin' Big Mako".