9.07.2009

Giant Jumping Shark! Do I have your attention yet?

This is the photo the NY Daily News ran to accompany a story about Chatham (Cape Cod) beach closing due to recent sitings of 3-4 Great Whites. The article describes the sharks "Great White Sharks, like this one off the coast of South Africa, have been spotted off the coast of Cape Cod." Not really.

Sure, it is unusual to find Great Whites in the Atlantic, but the researchers certainly didn't find them leaping 10 feet out of the ocean. That behavior is reserved for particular feeding frenzies and has only been observed a limited number of times by people. Also, that shark looks quite a bit bigger than the 8-10 feet noted in the article (I am going by wave/ripple size), so the shark is both bigger and badder than anything close to what we're seeing off the coast of MA. Oh, and did I mention that Great Whites aren't among those sharks generally considered dangerous to humans? If these were hammerheads, black tipped reef sharks (I have scuba'd with these - they are more scared of us, yadda yadda yadda), etc., get out of the water.

Did anyone in the editorial department stop to think that this photo might be inappropriate fear-mongering, or is that a legitimate editorial aim at the NY Daily News?

1 comment:

Ari E-B said...

Incidentally they stole the image from here:
http://www.apexpredators.com/SharkDiving/shark_main.asp

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