I saw one of the most interesting things ever tonight on the Discovery Channel. I am hoping that most of you already know that it is shark week.
Well today happens to be the first day of my family beach vacation, and we rented a house right on the ocean. When we got in tonight, we ordered pizza and checked out what was playing on the tube. We stumbled across SharkWeek, and I considered changing the channel, as I was very disapointed at one of SharkWeek's previous shows. But I stuck it out, and I'm glad I did.
The show was called "Sharkman" and it was about a guy that willingly swam with great white sharks, without a cage or any other sort of protection. And even more, he would reach out and touch them. He was experimenting with some sort of hypnosis, where if he touched certain sharks in certain places, they would go into a trance-like state. This was much easier to demonstrate on smaller sharks. He would flip some smaller sharks over, or just rub their nose, and they would immediately relax and lay still, allowing him to rub all over their bodies.
In one case with a caribean coral reef shark, which I believe was around 6-8 feet long, he induced this trance-like sleep, moved shark bait a few feet away and then let the shark wake up. Instead of immediately going for the bait, the shark followed him, asking for more. This indicated that the sharks enjoy this tonic immobilization. Some of the sharks were competing for the Sharkman's attention, wanting to get their snouts rubbed.
This reminded me somewhat of my dog Chloe. If you pet her in a certain place, she basically falls into a hypnotic trance and rolls onto her back, presenting you with her belly, which she wants you to rub for her. If you stop and walk away, she follows you, wanting more.
The fact that my little westie and massive predators of the sea may have a lot more in common than I ever would have imagined possible, in terms of ability to interact with humans, is astounding.
It also blows the traditional view of sharks, especially great white sharks, to pieces. The sharks seemed playfull, curious, and friendly even towards humans in the water, as apposed to "mindless killing machines."
I think it's a great thing when all previous negative connotations towards anything are totally shattered, whether it be stereotypes towards certain groups of people or negative views of sharks.
7 comments:
Hey I saw that it was awesome and I totally enjoyed it glad to see that someone else likes it to!!
I just started watching this a couple of minutes ago. I googled it, and congratulations, you're close to the top of the search!
i saw this earlier today, at just about the same time as galen. it was probably one of the most interesting shows on discovery channel.
I saw this on Animal Planet last night, googled and found your blog. Yes it was amazing, makes me want to try it myself.
The final sequence of the diver swimming on the back of a huge tiger shark was extremely beautiful
At Anonymous, the last scene was of the Sharkman swimming with/riding a 15 foot female great white shark not a Tiger shark
I happened to see the same documentary in the Animal Planet.
it was really amazing that wild animals does have some feelings which can be controlled. I had been constantly thinking about the same for almost a week, about this discovery.
Excellent performance by the whole team of Animal Planet
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