Dear Discovery Channel,

Please pick a theme for Shark Week!  In a fear evoking frenzy, you arbitrarily rank the most deadly sharks and most gruesome attacks, then go on to demonstrate the ecological importance of sharks and the need to save them.  Your constant back-and-forth is very confusing and may be doing more harm than good.

If you are like me—a 20 or 30-something not reading this blog against your will—you may count yourself as part of Generation Shark Week.  Before the internet, Discovery Channel’s Shark Week was the disseminator of most of my collective information about sharks.  I can’t say I ever lost any sleep during Shark Week, but I can still replay some of those gruesome, blood-stained clips from 10 and 15 years ago.  And who knows—I am now a fisheries biologist, so I cannot easily argue that all those TV hours weren’t influential.

Typical Shark Week advertisement, promoting death, destruction, and violence by angry sharks who ostensibly target beach-goers. (Source)

I have not kept up with Shark Week for several years.  But, on a recent channel surfing expedition, I was attacked with Shark Week promos and was quickly taken back to those long August nights some 15 years ago.  The current shows look a lot like what I remember—a deep, admonishing voice narrates over translucent blood running in the background as some cartoon-like, snaggle-toothed shark with glaring eyes swims across the screen.  Then, as if it is the legal obligation of the station, a short subdued segment follows that explains how overfishing sharks must end if we are to keep the oceans in some semblance of balance, almost like the often ignored softly spoken legal information that follows the utopian Viagra commercial.

I’m certainly not the first person to consider this, but: What exactly is the theme of Shark Week? (Other than the obvious answer: To create programs that will allow the Discovery Channel to charge the absolute highest price they can for advertising space.)

Images like these are impressive and display the raw power of sharks. Unfortunately, they largely contribute to a culture of shark fear, suggesting that sharks will readily leave the water in pursuit of a kill. (Source)

For every shark that attacks a human, millions are killed, many solely for their fins. Imagine how healthy we might be if we demonized smoking or overeating with the same tenacity as we do sharks. (Source)