Shark Week...really!

billwill

billwill

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OK...in the new era of political correctness and no offense to anyone.....what about shark week on TV in light of all the real shark attacks that are occurring along the Carolina coast.
I hope somebody says something about being safe in the water.

I would be p!$$#d if one of my family had been shark bait and then having to see all the hoopla on TV celebrating sharks.

Growing up I spent a lot of time along the coast swimming, fishing and floating just beyond the breakers. At this point in life I think I will confine my ocean experiences to the tidal pools. Just a too much pucker factor to being in the water these days.

Hope all those injured recover quickly.
 
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Yes, Bill, it's been quite an eventful summer along the North Carolina coast. Very, very unusual to have this many bites in a single season, much less a whole year or two.

Fortunately, no deaths so far, but two teenagers lost arms, and some of the other bites were serious but not life or limb-threatening.

Nobody's been able to explain so far why the sharks have been in such shallow water or, seemingly, so much more numerous this year. A couple of people have been bitten in no more than ankle-deep water near the beach.

I'm thinking of getting a few thousand t-shirts printed up with "I Survived 2015, the Summer of the Shark" and a map of North Carolina. ;)
 
Shark week has been on every year in the summer since 1988. I'm sure there had been a few shark attacks between 1988 and now.

Beautiful thing about TV is that you can change the channel up or down or turn it off. No one is forcing anyone to watch it, especially not the victims or families of
 
I'm genuinely surprised that there hasn't been a big knee-jerk-panic-kill-every-shark-we-see thing along the North Carolina coast.

I used to love going to the beach (North and South Carolina beaches) in the summer and swimming/floating in the Atlantic. And in the Gulf when I lived in Florida. But one year, I just stopped. No particular reason, other than coming to the realization that there are things out there that I can't even see, and that some of those unseen things can kill me and eat me, and have a swell time doing it.

The last data I could find shows 11 fatal shark attacks along the NC coast from around 1900 through 2012, out of a total of 95 unprovoked shark attacks.

And there is a type of Jaws mentality at work in the coastal resort towns of North and South Carolina. To my knowledge, no NC beaches have been closed, even temporarily, because of the attacks...not even immediately following a shark attack. Gotta rake in those tourist/vacation dollars, you know. Who do those sharks think they are, anyway...cutting into our income like that, spoiling our fun and stuff?

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billwill said:
Shark Week...really!
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Yes, unfortunately. Thankfully it's only once a year. Or maybe twice. I never watch it. Period. I mean, you can only do so much with sharks eating other things, or coming up out of the water to take bait, and so on and so forth. Shark Week has become about as repetitive as Bear Gun threads or Open Carry threads on this forum. It's like watching reruns of I Love Lucy or something.
 
Swimming on the back side of Shackleford Banks just a wee bit east of Beaufort Inlet. (The kind of cut where you pull up to shore and jump in with the anchor right at the beach and then go in over you head) Had a good time swimming when buddy hollers...fish breaking...we pull up anchor and go maybe 30 yards to see b i g hammerhead having lunch. Didn't go back swimming that day.
 
NC has a large amount of shallow water beaches. It has been 10 degrees hotter than normal during the month of June, and the water is warmer than normal. The surf is rampant with mole crabs(sand fleas), which attract large numbers of pompano, who feed right in the surf. The bull sharks, primarily, come into the surf looking for food,i.e. the pompano, mullet, and menhaden, and since bull sharks feed with the 'bump and bite' method, they bite when they touch something solid, that is putting off an electrical discharge, as all living things do. The water is murky, the sharks are hungry, and people are handy. Accidents will happen, and this month has illustrated why swimming in murky ocean water can be hazardous to your heath. If you don't want to take the chance on being a victim, swim in the motel pool and don't go more than ankle deep in the ocean. Common sense, folks, which isn't so common anymore.
 
I have never understood shark week, but find it even less amusing this year. The most wonderful week of the year? Really? Give me a break.

I also have never understood protecting predators, obviously the more sharks there are the more attacks we will have. Plus they are depleting our food supply. I must be stupid, but I feel like the world would be a better place without Great White sharks.
 
I'll watch Shark Week. I like studying sharks, and want to learn more about them. I don't think the recent attacks should compel avoiding learning about sharks.

BTW, George Burgess, the shark attack file spokesman, said that Florida has many more attacks than do the Carolinas.

I've studied attacks for years, and some take place in incredibly shallow water. Did any of you see that video of a blue shark patrolling RIGHT off the beach in the UK? Its pectoral fins must have grazed the sand at the edge of the water as a crowd of terrified people watched. It was in a sort of channel just deep enough to let it swim.

Bull sharks can reach over 1,000 miles up freshwater rivers. The record bull shark came from a South African river, over 13 feet long.

On the other hand, some of the shark "documentaries" these days are BS. I asked our man in Cape Town (Stirling) about the huge white shark supposedly lurking off of his city, which was supposed to be a local legend. He said it was a fake story, but a big white had just attacked a swimmer at False Bay, just to the north.

Sharks are fascinating. But did you see the River Monsters episode where Jeremy Wade showed the jaws of that really big musky? And the one that he caught (different musky) was also big enough to deliver a really bad bite. I think of muskies and pike as sort of freshwater barracudas.
 
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Texas Star said:
I'll watch Shark Week. I like studying sharks, and want to learn more about them. I don't think the recent attacks should compel avoiding learning about sharks.

BTW, George Burgess, the shark attack file spokesman, said that Florida has many more attacks than do the Carolinas.

I've studied attacks for years, and some take place in incredibly shallow water. Did any of you see that video of a blue shark patrolling RIGHT off the beach in the UK? Its pectoral fins must have grazed the sand at the edge of the water as a crowd of terrified people watched. It was in a sort of channel just deep enough to let it swim.

Bull sharks can reach over 1,000 miles up freshwater rivers.
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True. There was an infamous series of attacks in the U.S. during WWI, in either 1916 or 1918, please correct me if I cite the wrong year. IIRC, it was New Jersey? The sharks swam a great distance upstream in some river, and I believe the fatal attacks took place in fresh water.

We all know of the shark attacks when the USS Indianapolis was sunk in 1945. What is not mentioned is that whenever a large ship went down in the Pacific (and there were many), either side, the sharks were always on the scene en masse giving the many 100s in the water a rough time.

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103
 
kaaskop49 said:
True. There was an infamous series of attacks in the U.S. during WWI, in either 1916 or 1918, please correct me if I cite the wrong year. IIRC, it was New Jersey? The sharks swam a great distance upstream in some river, and I believe the fatal attacks took place in fresh water.

We all know of the shark attacks when the USS Indianapolis was sunk in 1945. What is not mentioned is that whenever a large ship went down in the Pacific (and there were many), either side, the sharks were always on the scene en masse giving the many 100s in the water a rough time.

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103
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It was Wed., July 12, 1916, in Matawan Creek, NJ. It was probably a Bull Shark, C. leucas. I'd have to check, but think about 4-5 men were killed. I can get their names, if you're really interested.

Some books I have on the subject include, "Shark Attack: Their Causes and Avoidance", by Thos. B. Allen. That account is on pages 20-32.

BTW, I'd read all of those books that Chief Brody was looking at in the movie, "Jaws." I have some newer ones, too, and they record some grim attacks.

You are correct about mass attacks on shipwreck victims. One of the worst was on a ship carrying Italian POW's to S. Africa in WW II. I think most of the sharks in that event were Oceanic Whitetips, Carcharhinus longimanus. The ship was torpedoed and the sharks feasted.
 
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eveled said:
...
I also have never understood protecting predators
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We protect predators of many species because they help maintain the natural environmental/ecological balance of this planet we inhabit. We'd be up the proverbial creek without predators. Keep in mind, also...man is the most dangerous predator on earth.

eveled said:
...obviously the more sharks there are the more attacks we will have. Plus they are depleting our food supply.
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Kinda like the more cars we have, the more wrecks we'll have? And no, sharks are not "depleting our food supply". Man is in no danger of becoming extinct because sharks eat a lot of fish. Sharks are not taking the food from our dinner tables.

eveled said:
I must be stupid, but I feel like the world would be a better place without Great White sharks.
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No, it would not. Every animal has its place in the natural world. Every animal fulfills a purpose in the great cycle of life on this planet. Just because we may not like it or understand it, does not lessen its importance to us.
 
I love watching shark week ! ( not the super shark fake documentary's.) I enjoy learning about apex predators, and that's what a shark is. If you don't wanna get eat by one don't go in the water. That was there domain long before it was ours. I still swim when I'm on the coast even though I'm terrified of sharks. When I'm in that water you couldn't shove a greased sewing needle up my butt with a 10 lb sledge hammer!
 
I can't buy into the hype. I'm fortunate that if I need to see a shark I can stick my head in the water off one of the local piers.
As far as the OP's contention that some folks may be dismayed by the TV after a real life encounter I wonder about car wrecks vs. car commercials?
 
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