The Dorsal Fin

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.

YouTube user, OperaJes, has posted a music video to an original song, Deep Blue, (apparently, composed by the YouTube user, aka JesVega) using raw footage of marine life from the European Space Agency’s multimedia library. The ESA and director Jacques Perrin teamed up to film the footage for the movie Oceans, which has already hit theaters in some European markets and will be released in U.S. theaters on April 22. Included in the montage of ESA clips is some excellent footage of a diver gracefully swimming side-by-side with a healthy-sized female great white shark.

Kip Evan’s documentary, Isla Holbox – Whale Shark Island, was recently debuted at the 2010 San Francisco Ocean Film Festival. The film focuses on whale sharks and the effects they’ve had on Isla Holbox as a result of the ecotourism industry created by their presence around the island during the months of June through September. Evans hopes to send a message that whale sharks need to be protected throughout their migration regions, as opposed to just in small marine reserve areas such as Isla Holbox, according to the Ocean Film Fest blog.

Footage from the Australian Institute of Marine Science’s Baited Remote Underwater Video Stations (BRUVS) is making news in Australia’s The Courier-Mail. While The Courier-Mail article claims the video features a tiger shark “stalking” a sea snake, it certainly looks more like the tiger shark is “stalking” bait attached to the BRUVS unit, based on the footage. Regarldess, the footage (which appeared on the AIMS site back in August) is definitely worth a watch…

Sport Fishing with Dan Hernandez posted the video seen below on YouTube. This is what happens when you try to reel in a tuna at Isla de Guadalupe when there are white sharks around. They don’t call it the “Island of the Great White Shark” for nothing.