Sean van Sommeran, full of sound and fury, signifying his own self-importance?

How can a tag be in two different places over the span of a decade?

Update: As expected a week has passed and Sean van Sommeran Executive Director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation has failed to provide any evidence of his self proclaimed and very public "discovery" of last April.

As expressed by members of the California white shark shark research community this week:

"PSRF's sole obligation was to provide scientific proof of the PSRF ws tag in the Sea of Cortez - from day one."

Instead we have seen reams of Internet bluster, accusations of secret Corporate/NGO cabals and no more than a few somewhat grade school accusations leveled at those who would question what is now understood as one of the most outrageous claims ever perpetrated on the California white shark research community.

The final question remains. Why? Unfortunately getting any coherent answers to the Big Shark Research Lie will probably be as hard to come by as getting any tangible proof that anyone involved in the original story ever existed, aside from one man sitting at his desk in Santa Cruz back in April of last year with a very big imagination.

Now on to our original blog post:

Sean van Sommeran, full of sound and fury, signifying his own self-importance?

We're almost loath to blog about this guy, as one might loath the prospect of researching the life habits of parasitic tapeworms that inhabit the bottom of port-o-potties at construction sites in San Diego.

Yeah, that kind of loathing.

But for the *fact* (and when blogging about SvS you use that word lightly) that the white shark research world was rocked by the assertion of a tag discovered on a shark in the Sea of Cortez back in April of last year - we would not be writing right now.

SvS claimed in the news, and on Facebook, and in emails, and on the phone, and via carrier pigeon and even to the homeless in Santa Cruz when they would listen, that the mailbox he calls the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation had in fact tagged a simply huge white shark that wound up in the Sea of Cortez providing - for the first time - direct evidence of adult sharks moving from California into the Sea of Cortez.

He was adamant about it and he had proof, an image of a tag.

Then the story took a weird turn, according to the PSRF a rival researcher stole the "tag evidence" (as witnessed by an actual image attributed to the shark) and the PSRF was robbed of one of the most exciting research stories of the year. A new page on white shark migratory patterns was wiped out and the world was a darker place because of, "well heeled corporate researchers who are jealous of PSRF success."

The whole Steve Zissou vibe.

The image was the key and as we pointed out back in April nothing about the image made any sense at all, never mind the story, or the person peddling the story, or the fall out from the story within the California white shark research community - then the same image appeared last week on Facebook attributed to another GWS tagging event in California by the PSRF in 2001,wait, what?

The ENTIRE MX tag story was...wait for it...you probably know where this is going... a lie.

A huge, pulled out of your steaming arse...lie.

A malformed and twisted...lie.

A moronic half baked fib, nurtured to a white lie, and then kicked into a caldron of hate and misinformation and left to the desert like elements of Mexico...lie.

A childlike and somewhat stupid, "I didn't put my finger in the pie momma" but with far reaching adult implications...lie

We could go on, but our sustainably harvested, shade grown, $40/lb morning coffee is growing colder by the minute and frankly, like the tapeworms, once you get past the "ick factor" this entire story is about as interesting as the bottom of those port-o-potties we mentioned earlier.

Oh, and LIAR!

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 sharkcrew@gmail.com.

The Death of Intellectual Curiosity

Intellectual curiosity is a term used to describe one’s desire to invest time and energy into learning more about a person, place, thing or concept.

On this day, May 29th, 2012 we are hereby declaring Intellectual Curiosity - Dead.

And what, pray tell, caused this statement of fact to surface on our hallowed blog you may ask?

It is an email circulating about a recent story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. One that made outlandish and completely unsupported claims of a shark tag found on a recently caught white shark in the Sea of Cortez.

What's at stake is everything we know about white shark movements in the region and as the author of this email rightly points out, "falsified data may lead to the misinterpretations that could take a generation to correct."

Hello Oxygen Shark Myth.

The story about the tag caught our full attention many weeks ago when it first ran. Unlike far too many who accept as gospel fact the forthright media drivel being spoon fed to conservationists, a sorry state of affairs we call "The Sea Shepherdization" of conservation. We have always reserved the right to ask questions and drill down into the facts.

It's called intellectual curiosity. 

In the hands of those who propagate conservation nonsense it has been re-branded as, "meddling, jealousy, and hate."

The persons penning the email put forth a well known character in shark conservation and politics Dr.Michael Domeier. You may recall our blow out with him over the Junior Affair at the Farallones in California a few years ago.

Say what you want about that particular timeline our argument was with the animal and methods of tagging. What has recently transpired in the Sea of Cortez at a little place called El Choyudo will undoubtedly go down as the worst of shark conservation and science and a complete validation of how in today's media environment those who would invent utter conservation nonsense can in fact, be heard, be accepted, and be considered relevant.

Again, when Paul Watson can fake being assassinated to secure a second season of a reality tv show and NO ONE in the wider conservation sphere calls him or his organization on it, the world pays attention. 

And those who do - emulate.

Welcome to the death of intellectual curiosity. 

Fortunately Dr. Michael Domeier expresses a deep and abiding intellectual curiosity for sharks and was unwilling to accept a story that suggested that one of the largest recorded sharks in the Sea of Cortez history had a tag on it from California. 

We too were dubious, but our investigations only followed up to images of the tag.

What caught us were the nature of the images. In one, the alleged tag was in place with a small knife for perspective. Something only a researcher would do, certainly not a small village fisher-woman in Mexico.

Our inquiry ended with several conversations with the reporter at the Santa Cruz Sentinel and was left unfulfilled. Until the industry email we read today.

Kudos to Dr.Domeier for following up on this story, his efforts are to be lauded. He has exposed a lie pure and simple and one that causes the world as we know it to be diminished. Made smaller and cheaper by the fact that this animal was attributed to places and people it had never encountered.

We can all learn a lesson from this. This is the titular "Emperor with No Clothes" moment displaying to shark conservationists worldwide how the death of intellectual curiosity is hurting is all.

Don't drink the Kool-Aid.

Stand and be curious. 

More from Da Shark in Fiji NSFW.


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 sharkcrew@gmail.com.

White Shark Cage Diving in Mexico

Martin Graf - Liquid Predation 2011

We are rapidly running out of spaces to offer for our 2012 white shark season at Isla Guadalupe this year.

That's the bad news.

The good news is we added a new date in the prime season, August 12-16.


The additional good news is the M/V Horizon, the original shark diving vessel for Isla Guadalupe, is back from a major overhaul this spring with brand new engines.

We're greener, we're faster, and we're quieter then ever before and now we'll be seeing our toothy friends one week earlier than planned.

When life is good, it's really good, see you on the docks in August!

Monterey Bay White Shark Research - Nine Years

The premier white shark husbandry and tagging project for juvenile animals is celebrating nine years of cutting edge work in Monterey.

This week Sea Notes posted a summary worth reading:

This summer is the ninth year of our White Shark Project. Through this work we have been able to display five juvenile great whites in our Outer Bay exhibit and have tagged and tracked these sharks, and nearly 40 others in the field, to learn more about the movements of these young animals along the coast.

This year, with the Outer Bay exhibit about to undergo a transformation, we won’t try to bring a shark to Monterey; but the field work continues.

From our previous research results we’ve seen that some young white sharks tagged in the southern California region move to, or return to, warmer winter waters off Baja California. We’d like to know if they return to California and regularly make this south-north migration, but the size of the young sharks limits the tag we can use, and thus how much information we can gather.

Complete Post.