There are plenty of deep water sharks in the world, few of which have ever attacked a
human being. While Sharkageddon makes them sound like man-eaters, the stunning
diversity of deep water sharks was beautifully revealed in Alien Sharks 2: Return to the
Abyss, which aired on Tuesday night. The special was rare form for Shark Week in that
it accurately portrayed shark science without ‘near-death’ shark encounters or
“dramatization”. Fear mongering aside, it would have been really cool to see some deep
water sharks in Sharkaggedon. Unfortunately, none of the sharks seen by the divers
were “deep water” sharks.
Perhaps the production crew simply confused “deep water” with pelagic or open ocean
sharks. In that case, the oceanic white tip is a pelagic shark, and tiger sharks are known
to cruise large stretches of open ocean. Hammerheads, though, are semi-pelagic at
best, and preferring coastal areas. There’s nothing unique about Hawaii’s coastline that
draws these sharks in. Steep drops in depth are found in many places around the
world—the coast of California, for example. And if it was geology, how would that
explain a recent increase? How exactly has Hawaii’s geology changed in the past five
years? And if it were pelagic sharks to blame, you’d expect there to have been attacks
from the most notorious of the bunch: the great white shark. The geologic hypothesis
simply doesn’t make sense.
FACT: Tiger shark movement patterns are messy.
Jeff Milisen isn’t studying tiger shark movements in Hawaii. Milisen is a technician for
Kampachi Farms, an innovative aquaculture business based on the big island.
According to his LinkedIn, he is “currently working with novel aquaculture species, feed
trials and the next phase of offshore cage trial.” He does, however, have a photography
project on the tiger sharks of Honokohau harbor. The goals and methods of this project
aren’t clear from the site.
Side note: if Milisen really does photograph these sharks daily or even frequently, then it
seems especially surprising that he was intimidated out of the water by the regular
crowd. Yet that’s exactly what happened in the show—the pair are forced to leave
“while they still can”. (Now that I think of it, every time Alexander enters the water in this
program, he “narrowly escapes.” How is it that hundreds of millions of scientists, surfers,
swimmers, snorkelers and divers survive their day-to-day ocean activities, yet
Alexander is almost attacked every time he gets in? With how sharks seem to be drawn
to him, it’s a miracle he’s survived as a surfer this long!)
So has Milisen’s photo project shown there are “repeat offenders”? Not yet. On the
other hand, Milisen has noted that sharks presumed to be repeat customers are simply
mis-IDs. In his “Story of Laverne“, he says:
“To date, ten sharks have been photographically identified near the mouth of the harbor,
many of which fit Laverne’s description down to their dorsal fins. So “Laverne” is not
one, but many tiger sharks intermingling with a variety of ocean users without a single
adverse incident.”
Not only does he say he’s only photographed a small number of sharks (in three
years?!), he readily admits that locals have been misidentifying the animals they
presume return frequently.
Even if the two returning IDs seen by Alexander and Milisen solid, spotting two sharks
that have been seen before doesn’t “prove” anything, except that these two sharks have
returned this once. Have they returned, as Milisen says, “year after year after year”?
What does the rest of Milisen’s data say? And what evidence does he have that it has to
do with the fishing boat scraps, as opposed to any other factor (temperature, depth,
habitat type, abundance of living prey fish, etc)? Milisen doesn’t have any answers. But
other scientists in Hawaii do.
There are scientists studying the movement patterns of Hawaiian tiger sharks, but
Milisen isn’t among them. Nor is Kori Garza—or, as she otherwise goes by, Kori
Michelle or Kori McClanahan—a 23 year old model from Kaneohe who currently works
as a “pirate” for Captain Bob’s Picnic Sail. In 2013, she was a Pacific Islands Fishery
Center Young Scientist with a project on corals, but she has no affiliation with shark
research in Hawaii. And it was very clear to the shark scientists that watched
Sharkageddon with me that she has no idea how to tag a tiger shark (my profile of Mark
Royer from last year shows what real shark tagging looks like).
If you want to understand shark movements in Hawaii, you have to ask the experts, the
Shark Lab at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. They have extensive experience
with Hawaii’s tiger sharks, and have employed a diverse set of tags and cameras to
understand the movement, ecology and behavior of several shark species.
Their work over the past few decades has revealed that tiger shark movements are
complicated. The sharks have large home ranges, and while they might return to a site
within days or years, their movements can be erratic. Males and females behave
differently. So do individuals—some stay in one area near the coast while others will
venture far into open ocean. Movement patterns observed in Hawaiian tiger sharks
might be related to mating, or pupping, or feeding, but no one is entirely sure. Camera
data are revealing when, where and on what they feed. This work is ongoing—you can
even see how tagged tiger sharks are moving around the islands this week, but so far,
there’s no evidence that sharks from Kahoolawe are particularly fond of Maui, or vice
versa.
Seriously, how cool is this site?
The underlying premise for all of this Sharkageddon “theorizing” is much more sinister:
by implying the same sharks are being habituated to people and hanging around to
feed, Discovery is implying that there are certain sharks that bite people and others—
the ones that live their daily lives in less populated areas—that don’t. This line of
thinking is what leads to shark culling efforts like the current one in Western Australia.
We tried culling in Hawaii, for the record, in the 1990s (you know, the last time someone
claimed there was an “increase” in attacks). It had no effect, and was discontinued
when research showed that tiger sharks don’t hang in one place.
Finally, on a cultural note, there’s no evidence that native Hawaiians would
“purposefully change their fishing spots so they would not habituate the sharks.” Native
Hawaiians respected sharks, and some were revered as `aumakua (the manifestation of
ancestral spirits). Hawaiians had a special relationship with their shark `aumakua, and
would feed and pet sharks believed to be the embodiment of relatives, trusting that
those sharks would protect them. Such ancient traditions are why there is a cultural
exception to the legislation that bans shark feeding in Hawaii today. Furthermore,
Hawaiians were well-versed fishermen, and knew when and where to find their catch.
They extensively used fishponds and a diverse set of fishing gear. Seasonal changes in
fishing location were more likely designed to maintain catch and rest resources, not
keep sharks from coming around.
The verdict?
Not only is there no support for the show’s entire premise, each of the hypotheses
presented are factually wrong or illogical. Sharkageddon’s pointless pontificating doesn’t
leave us any closer to explaining why shark attacks occur—or where, or when.
Alexander ends on a conservation message, which Discovery, of course, ensures is
brief and buried with credits. But this final thought is what Discovery should have
focused on all along. Sharks are vital to Hawaiian ecosystems. We don’t need another
“documentary” villifying these ecological and culturally important animals—we need one
that explains why they matter, what they do for us, and why we should be fighting to
save them.
A note on Sharkageddon’s cast members:
While Sharkageddon featured many people with different ideas, none of them are
current shark researchers in Hawaii. While there is no doubt that they all care deeply for
Hawaii’s sharks, Discovery should have known that they were not experts on the topics
being discussed. The constant manipulation of information regarding these ‘experts’
backgrounds shows that Discovery intentionally misled viewers to make their show
appear more credible. Here are the key players in the show, their background and
relationship to sharks.
Kala Alexander: Alexander is a professional waterman and actor. He has appeared in
Hawaii-based movies and TV shows including Blue Crush, Forgetting Sarah Marshall
and Hawaii 5-0. He is most notorious for being the ‘enforcer’ of the Wolfpak, a ‘surf
gang‘ that enforces the unwritten rules of the North Shore. You can read his perspective
on the Wolfpak and the events in his past that made him infamous in his 2008 Outside
Magazine article.
Juan Oliphant: Oliphant received his Bachelor’s in fine art photography and sculpture
from BYU Hawaii in 2000, and has been photographing marine animals since 1992. He
worked from 200o – 2003 as a captain and divemaster for Sea Shepherd Global and
from 2000 – 2008 as a senior captain and media manager for Hawaii Shark Encounters.
He is the co-owner of Water Inspired, a team of photographers that support shark
conservation.
Mike Jutt: Jutt is a spearfisherman from Haleiwa, Maui. His YouTube contains a video of
an encounter with a tiger shark while spearfishing as well as other spearfishing videos,
and he worked in the past as a lifeguard on Oahu’s North Shore.
Jeff Milisen: Milisen obtained an M.S. in Molecular Biochemistry from UH Manoa in
2012 studying the captive husbandry of venomous cone snails. He obtained his BS in
Biology from the same institution in 2009. He began work at Kampachi Farms while still
a student, and has since become a research technician for the aquaculture group. Prior
to his work at Kampachi Farms, Milisen spent 2 seasons aiding NOAA’s Marine Debris
Project in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. He volunteered for the Hawaii Institute of
Marine Biology Shark Lab when he was a student, but he has not worked with them
since.
Kori Garza: also known as Kori Michelle or Kori McClanahan. She was a 2013 Pacific
Islands Fishery Center Young Scientist with a project on corals while attending the
Marine Biology program at Hawaii Pacific University. Currently, she is a 23 year old
model from Kaneohe that works as a “pirate” for Captain Bob’s Picnic Sail.
Why it matters to set the record straight
Some might question why I have bothered to detail the shady filmmaking practices and
overall inaccuracies in Sharkageddon. My answer is this:
The truth matters. Discovery has made their reputation off of being “the world’s #1 nonfiction media company.” As anyone who reads this blog knows, I’ve come down hard on
them in the past for their mockumentaries and for unethical PR tactics. But this special
goes above and beyond what I considered their worst offenses. Sharkageddon didn’t
just contain an accidental slip of the tongue or the errant incorrect factoid. The
production team systematically sought to prove that Hawaii is becoming more
dangerous because of shark attacks—a “fact” which isn’t true—and through overdramatized reenactments, staged “experiments” and unreliable “experts”, they
deliberately deceived their viewers into believing them. All of the producers and movie
makers involved in the editing and final production of this special should be held
accountable. This wasn’t about ‘taking the audience on a different journey‘—it was
about selling a lie, plain and simple. It’s disingenuous; it’s dishonest; it’s deplorable—in
other words, it’s the worst of what Discovery Shark Week has become.
In an ideal world, Sharkageddon would get pulled from the channel. They would issue
an apology to the 2.4 million viewers that watched the special when it aired and explain
how they went wrong. They would not just vow to do better, they really would do it, and
truly earn the trust of their viewers. But we all know that this is not an ideal world, and
so long as Discovery makes money off of their special breed of bullshit, they will
continue to seek ratings by any means necessary.
There is a glimmer of hope: Discovery’s fear-based tactics appear to be backfiring.
Their ratings and viewership are down, and their stock is stumbling. I wrote this post
because all of this tells me that Discovery’s audience is listening. They are tired of the
lies. Someone has to #FactCheckSharkWeek, and since Discovery seems unwilling or
unable to do so, it’s the least I can do.