Shark Week, here we go!

i saw the first of 5 new shows on Shark Week this year. it's from the mythbusters and it's their shark week special part 2.

please, please, please don't take what these clowns do seriously! shark week is about entertainment, not education. these "experiments" are done for the goof value. look, in one "experiment" they were testing to see if sharks are more attracted to a dead fish rather than a struggling one. so what did they have? one dead fish, and one dead fish on a stick that they were flapping on the water. anyone with a brain can tell you that a dead fish on a stick will never resemble a live wounded fish.

let's see, they were also testing to see if a swimming dog would attract sharks. so they used a robot dog. yes, a robot dog, complete with 3 syringes of dog urine, blood and anal gland secretion. the thing did not move like a dog, gave off no heat, had no wet fur smell, and i'm sure the mechanical whirring of the limbs moving did not resemble a dog in any way. oh yeah, they had some sort of underwater speaker making barking sounds...let's move on.

they filled balloons with ground up chilis peppers to see if they would repel sharks because some tribe supposedly used chili peppers to ward off sharks.. sort of interesting. the sharks just ate the balloons.

2 guys were in the water. one stayed still the other splashed around. the sharks investigated the guy splashing around. um, we already know sharks are attracted to splashing.

they built a huge life-size mechanical great white shark that thrashed around and who's jaws clamped shut. it had stop triggers in the eyes. the trick was too see how easy it would be to hit the shark in the eyes while it had you in the mouth and was throwing you around. that's great, for a ride. usually a great white bites it's prey and then leaves it to bleed out, saving it's energy instead of fighting with the prey. in the case of humans, it usually goes away as we're not on it's favorite foods list!

at least they did stick in like a 10 second blurb in their 2 hour experiment-a-thon about how sharks are endangered and to check out Ocean Conservancy for more info. gee thanks.

seriously people, i love shark week just because i get to see some beautiful fish in hi-def, but again, PLEASE don't view this as anything more than entertainment.

btw, this is a very good site: www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/

AND, i'd like to see Shark Week have a special on this: www.sharkfriends.com/sharks/sharkfinning.html and please check out the trailer for Sharkwater while you're there.