[Stealhead]

I never got into Shark Week to be honest and I am wondering why this year they had a much shorter add campaign in the past they where promoting Shark Week in early June this year I did not really notice any adds until mid July.I am guessing maybe that last year they did not get as many viewers as they wanted.

A show that I do watch that is shark related is "Sharkmen" on "Natgeo" the one where they converted a crab boat and they actually pull great whites onto a platform stick a water hose in their mouth(so they can breath sharks do not have movable gills) they draw blood from the shark and stick a specially designed tracking tag that they actually drill into the dorsal fin which allows them to keep much better track of the shark because the tracker will send data each time the fin broaches the water where as the "sticker" type stays on the fish and then comes out after a week or two giving alot more guesswork they try to do all this in 10 or so minutes to avoid harm to the fish.I don't know if anyone else watches it but "Sharkmen" is much more interesting to me than the shows that Discovery airs during "Shark Week".

I dont know I always felt that "Shark Week" was too cheesy and does not do much to really remove the bad image that sharks have even though they are a very vital part of the oceans ecosystem.The adds and all seem to still promote fear of sharks rather than understanding.I have always found sharks to be one of the most interesting animals and they get a bad rap thanks to media.For example "Jaws" was largely based on series of attacks back in the teens that occurred around New York and New Jersey water ways and all got blamed on White sharks aka Great Whites when in reality many of the attacks occurred in brackish water which White sharks are not able to swim in those attacks the culprit had to have been Bull Sharks which can swim in brackish water with no problems they have even been found in the Mississippi River and way up rivers in Australia as well.They did not know this back in the teens though I suppose.Of course they do show some "sharks are not so bad" shows during Shark Week but they also show more silly ones as well.

I have a friend a marine biologist that does research on Bull Sharks and I have gone out with him a few times to help him so I have some "experience" all though I'd not dare say I was an expert about such matters.Most people cant afford the better tags that the sharkmen guys use though so the kind that sticks into the skin and pops off is much more common and you can stick a fish with one those very easily and never take it out of the water once you get good at jabbing them.Some New Zealanders even invented a modified version that uses a spear gun they are not tagging sharks though.