Just found out next week is Shark Week and I’ll probably unplug the TV to be safe.

No one would confuse me for a shark lover, but I’m not a COMPLETE jerk. That’s why I think it’s a shame that a megamouth shark was recently captured and eaten in the Philippines. This was only the 41st megamouth shark ever found. I’d support an international law preventing the killing, hunting, or eating of any shark species with a population lower than 200.

Via Boing Boing.

Continuing right where we left off yesterday with our interview with George Burgess, the director of the International Shark Attack File, which tracks shark attacks all over the world. If a shark bites a person somewhere on this planet, Burgess and his crew track down all of the information and keep it safe in the File.

It seems like the number of unprovoked shark attacks is very low relative to the number of people who spend time in the water.

Boy, that’s true.

So how scared should someone really be about spending time in the ocean?

I think that if one is worried about being scared or that sort of thing, they ought to be more scared about the ride to the beach in their vehicle. There’s certainly a much greater danger in that than in the other. That said, any time we enter the sea, we need to remember that it’s a wilderness experience. We’re entering an alien environment, one that we’re not pre-adapted for and one that can, occasionally, cause us some harm. Whether it be jelly fish, or barracudas, or stinging corals, or whatever it is, the fact of the matter is that there some things out there that can do us damage and occasionally do. So we need to go out there with respect, we need to go out there with the understanding that we’re not a member of that environment, we’re not pre-adapted for swimming, we don’t have gills. And in fact, we’re pretty lousy when it comes to being participants in the water by nature of our activity.

We’re at a huge disadvantage in the water and just like we show caution when we go on other wilderness experiences, whether it be hiking in the Rockies and remembering that there are mountain lions and bears or taking a tourist trip to the Serengeti Plain and understanding that there are lions and cheetahs and elephants and other things that can do us damage, we need to do the same thing of course with the sea and know that we have to exercise some caution. That said, the sea is a pretty forgiving space and most people enter the sea don’t even think about it at all and don’t pay a price. It’s a pretty darn safe recreational activity. When you consider we’ve been averaging 4 deaths per year worldwide in all areas, that’s such a ridiculously low figure compared to other risks associated with aquatic recreation or any other recreational activities you probably put that at the bottom of the page if you make a table of dangerous recreational activities. In any case, one shouldn’t be really worried about this kind of thing, but one should have respect.
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You know the stories about animals with rabies acting abnormally and doing things their animal peers would never do? Here’s a story about a body surfing shark. Without examining this shark’s brain, no one can say with certainty that it DIDN’T have rabies.

George Burgess is the director of the International Shark Attack File, which tracks shark attacks all over the world. If a shark bites a person somewhere on this planet, Burgess and his crew track down all of the information and keep it safe in the File. I tracked Burgess down a couple weeks ago and he graciously agreed to answer some questions. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.

Is there something specific that drew you to your study of sharks and your work with sharks?

I guess, like many people I grew up with a fascination for sharks, having grown up on the coast line. I think most people are excited about sharks on some level. The difference was that I was able to take that fascination with sharks and interest in sharks and turn it into a career.

So you grew up in Florida or?

I was an Air Force brat. My dad was in the Air Force. So we moved around quite a bit, but everywhere we lived was coastal. I lived in Virginia, Hawaii, Italy, New Hampshire, and eventually settled on Long Island, New York. In all cases I was fortunate enough to be able to be near the ocean and obviously my appreciation of things marine grew and I had lots of opportunity to get on the water and in the water.

Do you remember your first shark experience?
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There’s the story about Snakes on a Plane getting made because some LA movie makers were at a bar playing a game where the goal was the come up with the stupidest movie pitch possible. I have a feeling that people saw the cult attention Snakes on a Plane received before it came out and decided they could make a better marketing campaign. This was a bad idea because none of the people who gushed about Snakes on a Plane before it came out actually went to see it and the movie flopped.

I wonder how they decided how to bill Lorenzo Lamas above Debbie Gibson? I wonder how mega a shark would have to be to allow it to jump out of the water and catch an air plane?

First January Jones and now Jessica Alba, will no Hollywood bombshell disavow sharks? For her part, Alba was recently involved in an incident in Oklahoma City where scary and terrible posters of great white sharks where plastered all over town.

In a sign of hope, Alba has apologized for her involvement:

“I got involved in something I should have had no part of. I realize that I should have used better judgment and I regret not thinking things through before I made a spontaneous and ill-advised decision to let myself get involved with the people behind this campaign. I sincerely apologize to the citizens of Oklahoma City and to the United Way for my involvement in this incident.”

I’ll let you decide if she’s gone far enough.

This 30-ft long shark appears to be a vegetarian, but just to be safe, I’ve crossed Cornwall off the ‘Places I’d go on vacation’ list. Also on this list: Every city mentioned in this article and San Jose, whose hockey team needs a new.

(As mentioned yesterday, this is Shark Week on Unlikely Words. It will last until the Discovery Channel asks us to change the name or the end of the week.)

“In experiments carried out in the US some varieties of shark allowed themselves to be picked from the water and cuddled.” It takes all kinds of people, it’s true, but it shouldn’t take the type of people that want to cuddle sharks. In this article they think they’ve found some sharks that can be trained. I don’t know how often I have to say this, but please, let’s NOT train sharks. Didn’t any of you see Deep Blue Sea?

(Am I going to get sued if I call this week Shark Week? I’ll let you know! Stop in everyday for tons of derisive sharksnark culminating at the end of the week with a 2 part interview with a shark expert.)