The Dorsal Fin

WARNING: Video features footage of live sharks being finned.

While Discovery Channel has faced much criticism for some of its programming choices for Shark Week over the past few years (including this year), there have been a few features popping up on Discovery Networks YouTube channel over the past few days that are conservation based. The video above which features some of the first known footage of shark finning, according to the intro text in the clip (typos aside).

The Beqa Adventure Divers blog and this article from The Huffington Post have pretty much summed up the negative aspects of Shark Week. Rather than focus on the negatives this year (like I did last year), I’m going to try shift my focus toward the “positive” or at least “educational” aspects of Shark Week. Hopefully, they won’t be few and far between this time around.

DiscoveryNetworks has posted the video above to their YouTube Channel. The video focuses on the repercussions of the extinction of sharks as top ocean predators. Researcher Andy DeHart of the National Aquarium points out the impact of the shark finning market on shark popluations but also notes that roughly half of the sharks killed each day as a result of accidental bycatch. DeHart goes on to say that of the roughly 400 species of sharks only 30 species are heavily fished. However, within those thirty species are some of the apex predators which help control stingray and fish populations. DeHart concludes the video discussing how the slow reproductive nature and small number of pups of some shark species also puts them at greater risk for extinction.

Raw video footage of a southern right whale breaching and landing on a sailboat has surfaced since the news story first hit the media last week.

The Independent Online reported that South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs is investigating the incident after several witnesses claim that the boat had illegally approached the whale in violation of regulations that require boaters to give the whales at least a 300m berth. The eyewitness accounts seemed to be backed up by a voice, which can be heard in the background of the raw video saying, “They don’t listen. You can’t go close.”

CNN.com has an extended version of the raw footage, in which the crew of the boat from which the video was filmed seemingly left the scene laughing at the crew of the sailboat without checking on the well-being of the boaters. Fortunately, nobody was hurt on-board the sailboat.

According to a WPRI Eyewitness News news clip, 3 to 4 great white sharks were spotted by a pilot yesterday (07/27/10) off the coast of Chatham, Massachusetts. At least one shark, estimated at 12′ in length, was tagged by a fisherman. Increasing sightings of great white sharks around the Chatham area have been attributed by some researchers to large populations of seals, which are a food source of the sharks.

The "Cardiff Kook" in Encinitas, CA, which is routinely the victim of pranksters, has recently fallen victim to a paper-mâché great white shark. The video feature above from CBS8 shows off the “artistic prank” (and also shows off a girl picking her nose on camera at the beginning).