Manifesto
Denouncing Discovery Communications
for Victimizing Sharks for Profit

We, the organizations, researchers, and divers who foresee the imminent extinction of the large shark species, demand a stop to Discovery Communication's dishonest use of sharks for profit.

Since 1987, Discovery Channel has annually presented 'Shark Week.' This week-long series of programs featuring sharks claims to present facts about sharks, and its popularity has earned the company billions of dollars.

Discovery Channel is owned by Discovery Communications, which claims to be “dedicated to upholding the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct.”

Discovery's scientific credibility and reputation has resulted in the wide-spread belief in the truth of the shows televised on Shark Week.

In reality, Discovery uses sharks for the horror-show effect that draws a wide audience. Shark Week dramatizes shark attacks, blood and the animals' unusual dentition, to frighten viewers. Since no true sea monsters have been discovered, Discovery has cast sharks in that role, following in the footsteps of the movie “Jaws.”

But “Jaws” was advertised as a fictional horror film, whereas Discovery presents its horror shows as scientific truth. A recent example consisted of stuffing a dummy's wet suit with fish pieces and letting the dummy snorkeller float at the surface. Not surprisingly, a tiger shark, who had been attracted to the area, tried to get to the food source by biting the 'snorkeller'. The viewers were not told that the dummy's wetsuit was filled with smelly fish parts, and Discovery presented the producer's fraudulent sequence as evidence that sharks are likely to attack any swimmer in the sea. This is just one of countless ways in which Discovery Communications has lied to its viewers to show sharks as dangerous.

The fact is that no shark species target humans for food and people all over the world swim and dive with sharks for pleasure—the same species that Discovery infers will attack and kill people.

Scientists who's work has been used for Discovery's Shark Week have found it twisted and misrepresented by the company. For those who are familiar with sharks, Shark Week is nothing more than tabloid journalism, and does not reflect modern scientific knowledge.

Until recently, even the dangers to sharks from overfishing was covered up by Discovery, because they considered conservation to be an unpopular subject.

So after Shark Week 2007, the authors, representing the Shark list (now The Shark Group), sent a letter to Discovery Channel, outlining the above concerns. It was signed by 352 people and resulted in a three and a half hour meeting with Discovery executives. The Shark Week phenomenon and lack of ethics in its portrayal of sharks was openly discussed, but Discovery's representatives saw no problem with it. While they did include some information on the need for shark conservation in 2008, they continue to present sharks as monster man-eaters, thus reinforcing the biggest obstacle to their protection.

Therefore, since:

• Discovery Communications uses endangered marine animals to provide horror shows for profit, facilitating their mass slaughter with almost no public sympathy, nor protest
• Discovery has so effectively convinced their millions of viewers that sharks deserve to be hated, that many people think that sharks should be hunted to extinction
• Discovery has created a wave of fear of the sea, in people who grew up watching Shark Week
• Discovery executives know exactly what they are doing, and call it 'shark pornography,' while they bring in billions of dollars
• Discovery excuses itself by claiming it is only giving the public what it wants, though the public's love of horror shows has nothing to do with their responsibility for having made sharks the subject of that horror
• Discovery is as responsible for the decline of sharks towards extinction as the market for shark fin soup

We call for an International boycott of all of Shark Week's programs until Discovery Communications stops using sharks dishonestly for profit in horror shows, and starts presenting them as the important marine animals that they are, now in danger of extinction.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN

Open Letter to the Discovery Network

In July 2007, Members of the Internet Forum THE SHARK GROUP and FRIENDS, got together to write the following letter to Discovery Network.

From:
The Shark Group,

To:
The Discovery Network:

Mr. John Hendricks, Founder & Chairman, and
Mr. David Zaslav, President & CEO

Members of our Internet shark discussion forum, have been asked by your marketing representatives to help promote your famous Shark Week sequence. This letter, signed by list members and friends, is our formal response to the request from your grass roots agency, New Media Strategies, for our support of the programming.

How can we support Discovery Channel when we are fighting for shark conservation, and its biggest obstacle is the monster image given to sharks by the media, including Shark Week programs? Further, some of us who have been directly involved in the production of your documentaries feel disgusted at the way that our interviews were censored and our words twisted around.

Our group is comprised of scientists, researchers, educators, media companies, and many NGO's, lobbyists and others. In aggregate we represent a strong network of influence that can help or hurt the efforts of any shark related programming or initiatives. In an age where media fragmentation is plaguing marketers and entertainment companies, we represent an outlet of opportunity for you.

We try to remain current regarding scientific findings on sharks, and we watch as many of Shark Week's documentaries as possible. However, as the years passed, we have become appalled by the failure of these documentaries to reflect modern scientific knowledge of sharks. We understand the need to drive "tune-in" and ratings to satisfy your obligations to your advertisers. However, it is our impression that the Discovery Channel's Shark Week is stooping to the level of tabloid journalism by casting sharks as the sea monsters that science was never able to find.

It's no secret that people love monsters, blood, teeth and frights. On Shark Week, that seems to be what you are offering them, even though this subject matter fails to reflect current scientific understanding of these unusual and important fish. For example, though there are about 500 known shark species, inhabiting a wide range of ecolological niches, your shows focus on the biggest top predators, especially the great white shark.

In recent years, conservation groups as well as individuals and scientists have become concerned to the point of alarm at the speed with which sharks have been depleted, mostly for the growing market for shark fin soup. It is estimated that roughly seventy-three million sharks a year are slaughtered, (though some estimates are as high as two hundred million), a plunder that has stripped the oceans of roughly ninety percent of the accessible species. Casting sharks in a negative light leads to increased devastation of the species that you feature, even if that is not your intention.

Apart from the waste and brutality involved in shark finning, the threat of extinction is such an important part of the reality sharks face, that we ask why you have not used your power to publicize it. It is your responsibility as a credible media company to portray the perilous situation sharks face, thus bolstering consumer awareness and action.

On the contrary, we know from personal experience that you take the trouble to clip information about the finning crisis from your sequences about sharks, deliberately concealing the facts of this oceanic catastrophe from your viewers, who innocently believe that you are presenting them with science.

Thus not only are sharks misrepresented as monsters when they are not, but the truth of the ecological crisis that has befallen them is left out. In using shark attack mania for profit, you are reinforcing the main obstacle to shark conservation. In projecting an air of scientific knowledge when you are presenting only tabloid journalism, you are wronging the animals you portray.

Your own words clearly express how you promote and prolong their "Mindless Man-eater" image, and contribute to an attitude that allows their mass slaughter with almost no public sympathy, nor protest:

"Ocean of Fear: Worst Shark Attack Ever"
"Deadly Stripes: Tiger Sharks"
"Top 5 Eaten Alive"
"Shark Feeding Frenzy"

We take issue with Ocean Conservancy as well, for allowing themselves to be associated with such a travesty.

In the 1970s, Peter Benchley's fictional best-seller, JAWS (which Steven Spielberg made into a blockbuster movie), dramatically increased our immemorial fear of sharks. By the 1980s, that fear had largely given way to curiosity, resulting in an unprecedented amount research on them. Thus, in the 1990s, as sharks became target species for Asian markets, scientific data were available to combat the new threat to sharks.

We are no longer in the 1970s, and the archaic perception of sharks you present belongs on the History Channel, not the Discovery Channel. Peter Benchley became a spokesman for sharks and an ardent shark conservationist. We suggest Discovery Channel follow his example and move Shark Week into the 21st Century.

We welcome and encourage an open dialogue with Discovery Networks in regard to the programming for next year's Shark Week. Let's work together to balance your ability to drive "tune-in," with your responsibility to create awareness of the global marine disaster created by the intense overfishing of sharks.

We can fully support your efforts, resulting in many niche media publications and websites, reaching millions of consumers, to influence people to tune in and watch. Some list members are involved in the media and marketing communities and are willing to work together with you to ensure the alignment of the goals of Discovery Networks, and the sustainability of these important apex predators.

We look forward to your response.

Very truly yours

218
David Budd
Diving Academy &
Underwater Digital Imaging Centre
Mandurah,
Western Australia.

242
Allen Sanderson
Salt Lake City City Utah
USA

250
Chris Relf
Caribbean

256
Don Gingrich
Melbourne, Victoria,
Australia

263
Wendy Wood
National Coral Reef Institute
Fort Lauderdale, FL
USA

279
Capt. Stephen D. Nagiewicz
Chairman of the Board
Shark Research Institute
Brick, New Jersey,
USA

290
Dr. Dan DiResta
Marine and Atmospheric Science Progrqam
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL
USA

325
Greg Brown
Plano, Texas
USA

327
Patrik Cesnek
Sala 92701
Slovakia

331
Annie Vanasse
Scuba diver
Quebec City,
Canada

337
John Rawlings
Photo journalist for Advanced Diver Magazine
Mill Creek,Washington,
USA

351
Michael Stock
Riegens Hof 11
21423 Drage / Elbe
Germany

UPDATE:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

from

THE SHARK GROUP

Contact: Alex Buttigieg, Founder

email: "The Sharkman" <sharkmanab@gmail.com>

OUR MEETING WITH DISCOVERY CHANNEL EXECUTIVES

A letter to the Discovery Network, in the wake of Shark Week 2007, resulted in a four hour meeting between several of Discovery Channel's top executives in production, programming and development, and Shark Group representatives: Maris Kazmers, shark photographer; Julie Andersen, a founder of Shark Savers; Steve Fox, whale shark researcher; and David Ulloa, underwater film-maker. The meeting was held at Discovery Channel's headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The Shark Group believes that Discovery Channel should move in the direction of presenting Shark Week as a nature documentary for the whole family, providing accurate and interesting facts about these unusual and intelligent animals. As the most heavily fished species are now considered to be on the verge of extinction, public appreciation of the true nature of sharks is important for their future preservation, and the health of our oceans.

The three requests offered by The Shark Group representatives were:

That Discovery Channel eliminate the use of negative descriptive words to describe sharks, such as man-eaters, monsters, mindless killing machines and other like terms.

That Discovery Channel make Shark Week more scientific in content.

That Discovery Channel heed our plea to use their power to spread the message of the dire need for shark protection.

The result of the meeting was an agreement with Discovery Channel that The Shark Group will pursue interesting stories for Shark Week 2009, in accordance with the company's effort to improve the image of sharks. This will mean placing less emphasis on the rare shark related accidents that occur.

Few animals consider humans to be potential food, and no shark, even the Great White, kills and eats people. Shark bites are usually the result of rare investigatory bites used by sharks to check if an object is edible or not, or the response of the shark to being attacked by the person.

Discovery Channel's representatives share our concern about shark depletion, and are already producing shows portraying how heavy fishing, by-catch, and shark finning are endangering them. They expressed strong interest in working with our community of shark scientists and researchers toward this mutual goal.

While the programming for Shark Week 2008 has already been decided upon, we are confident that the positive results of our new collaboration with Discovery will become apparent in 2009 and beyond.

The Shark Group is an International Internet discussion forum, whose members live on all continents. Many of us work in shark related jobs: scientific research, education, film-making, publishing, shark diving and photography, writing, journalism, the arts, and more. Our common interest is sharing information about sharks; our common concern is their future.

If you would like more information about this topic, please e-mail Alex Sharkman Buttgieg & Ila France Porcher at info@year-of-the-shark-2009.org