The Dorsal Fin

The aquarium with the “World’s Largest Acrylic Panel” sprung a leak today. The Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo began leaking water today. According to the Khaleej Times, the leak was quickly brought under control and “did not cause any environmental effect or harm to the species.” Apparently, no injuries to mall patrons were reported either, thankfully. The aquarium, which holds over 2 million gallons of water, is home to over 33,000 specimens of marine life, including over 400 sharks and rays.

And yes, multiple “news” sources have tried to play up the danger of this event due to the aquarium being “shark-filled.” In reality, a leakage at an aquarium filled with over 2 million gallons of water and over 400 sharks does have catastrophic potential, but the danger is due to the 2 million gallons of water, not the sharks in it.

WPTV.com is reporting that Martin Memorial Health Systems has released a report on the incident involving employees taking photographs of a shark attack victim. According to the report, the hospital investigation involved interviews with over 50 people. As a result of the findings, “some employees received warnings, suspensions, demotions and loss of position,” for taking photos of the victim and emailing them. However, according to a TCPalm.com article reports that “no one was fired,” according to a written statement from Martin Memorial chief marketing communications officer, Miguel Coty.

The details seem fairly limited from Martin Memorial public response to this incident, due to a policy that prohibits discussing personnel issues. Coty was quoted as saying, “We have determined that these inappropriate actions were taken by good people who exercised poor judgment.”

The TCPalm.com article also had the following tribute video for the victim.

Numerous media outlets are reporting that a female Sea World Orlando employee was fatally attacked by an orca today. Orlando’s Local 6 identifies the orca involved as Tillikum, a 12,300 lbs. male. Park manager, Dan Brown, identified the victim as being one of the park’s “most experienced trainers.” According to the Local 6 report, the victim slipped and fell into the orca’s tank and was subsequently attacked by the orca.

Unfortunately, it seems that orcas have become just as susceptible to media sensationalism as sharks. This ABC clip is a prime example…

The clip plays out more like a guy announcing a pro-wrestling match than it does a news story. This is an incredibly tragic story, as such, it needs to be handled objectively with journalistic integrity, instead of being covered like it was a monster truck rally.

UK’s The Sun has managed to run a shark-related news story without going over the top with the sensationalism. The article, Shark Angel, briefly describes the efforts of Julie Andersen of Shark Angels. Unfortunately, it seems that somebody dropped the ball on writing the captions for the photos that were included in the story.

This photo (click the link, as I don’t have the rights to display it here) is accompanied by the caption, “Saved … Shark Angel frees creature from net.” Sadly, the “creature” in the photo, a sand tiger shark, appears well past the point of saving and looks to be quite dead. In fact, what appears to be the same shark can be seen in the Shark Angels video below.

Photo caption blunders aside, I have to give credit to The Sun for taking a step in the right direction, when it comes to steering away from the fear angle and featuring a story about conservation.

Australia’s The 7pm Project has recently posted the following feature on declining shark populations on YouTube.

The video addresses the effects of overfishing and finning on shark populations. Unfortunately, the feature is plagued with the “magic number”, claiming 100 million sharks are killed each year, which is not backed by any solid research (research-backed estimates put the number in 26 million to 73 million range, which is staggering in its own right).

Magic numbers aside, the feature does bring up valid points, including how the media has helped to contribute to misconceptions about the dangers of sharks toward humans. Ian Gordon points out that most people know very little about shark behavior and biology. He also notes that he has been around sharks for 30 years and if sharks were as dangerous as many people believe, he would likely be dead by now.