Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Ronda Rousey - Mental Midgetry?

Shark conservation messaging, or whatever, by fucking Shark GENIUS PdG - source.

And I cite,
It is a good, well constructed show with professional and scientific insight 
Right.
That was good old Riley who STILL desperately wants to be somebody in Sharks, or whatever, and STILL just does not get it and STILL publicly pals with human garbage.
Anyway, along with many reputable presenters, experts and shooters, we did obviously turn it down as we will categorically not host any shoot for Shark Week as long as they continue to air those horrible exploitative programs, and showcase those pathetic self promoting media whores and their pathetic feats.

But I was wrong. It is so much worse than that.
Watch.



See what I mean?
No blame goes to poor naive Rousey and husband  who have been obviously conned into believing that any of that is in any way an accomplishment. 
But seeing how all that fabricated gratuitous and misleading hype by those fucking self important morons is portraying sweet old Blunt, Gillette, Crook and Granma as lethal killer machines really gets my blood boiling. How dare they!
And no you fucking hypocrite: it is not epic, it is fucking pathetic!

And the bloody operator?
Need I really point out the idiocy of publicly allowing a total beginner to feed your Sharks on your dive - and of allowing another total amateur and untrained ignoramus to pose as a feeding expert? 
Is this maybe the reason why Aqua Trek have shortly thereafter fired Brandon their fucking GENIUS Shark whisperer, and this apparently with cause? Hardly - but here's to that, and good riddance; and here's to the guys down the road using this as an opportunity for some fucking reflection, and to them and others (...) stopping to enable all those revolting Shark porn media that are ultimately harming Fiji's reputation as a Shark ecotourism destination!

Anyway.
Like an old broken record, let me repeat - over and over and over again.
Here are my own questions to fellow Shark diving operators and conservationists.
  • Are we gonna continue to pretend this (read!) is not happening?
  • Are we gonna continue to watch that shit?
  • Are we the operators gonna continue to enable it?
  • Are we gonna continue to give our business to operators who do?
  • Are we gonna continue to admire and to associate with those people?
Questions questions!

PS - Comments: please post them here & not on Facebook. Thanks!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a customer who loves your company and have done many amazing dives with you. This angry rant has me feeling thst I will not be returning any more to your dive operation. It is incredibly unprofessional and the fact that a staff member can put such unfiltered anger onto a public website is only going to harm your business. Suggestion: Calm down, grow up and hire a Media/Comms officer to filter your attitude.

DaShark said...

Thank you for your comment and suggestion.

It looks like you are new to this blog.
We will continue to call out those horrible exploitative media and the people who enable them like we have done for years.
Suggestion: you may want to actually read the links.

Oh, and we will obviously also continue to praise people who deserve praise.

Lindsay L. Graff said...

: )

The Saffron Pimpernel said...

Troglodytes hell-bent on public displays of their own shortcomings in education, understanding of the natural world, and personal style, abetted by self-styled experts who speak in sound bites that are simply drivel. Continue being a gatekeeper, DaShark, there is too much tolerance for mediocrity and fraud and conservation con artists these days.

Martin Graf said...

Well said! It's nice to see that some operators are not afraid to call out someone, despite the possible blowback to their own business, as evidenced in Anonymous' comment above.

When our primary goal is conservation, we have to stand up to those "mental midgets" who are only in it for self glorification and don't care about the consequences of their actions.

Shark Diver will continue to operate our business with conservation in mind and we will continue to support other operations, such as yours.

DaShark said...

Thank you Martin, appreciate - and yes, speaking truth to the slack-jawed troglodytes is part of our ongoing commitment to the Industry and Shark conservation in general.

adam barnett said...

Great blog DaShark,

How low can shark week go, it is getting worse every year

DaShark said...

And yet, Shark Week will continue.

Thanks to what I've dubbed the Idicocracy Effect (watch the link!), the public is getting ever dumber = the all-important ratings will continue to remain stellar.

And then, don't forget that those idiotic shows are the essential yearly meal ticket for all those hypocritical Shark idiots and charlatans who would be strictly nobody without them; for the production houses and last but by no means least, for those deplorable Shark researchers who continue to prostitute themselves despite of the ample evidence that they are being screwed, and say goodbye to your academic standing.

So with the above in mind, who in that pathetic lineup would ever want to stop the gravy train by interrupting the race to the bottom!

We get asked to host SW shoots every single year - and when we inevitably decline, we get told that we should assist in reforming SW from within by enabling and participating in better programs.
But as long as Discovery continues to air that shit and showcase those folks, it will never be the adequate backdrop regardless of the qualities, or not, of this or that individual program.

JoySeaGal said...

@DaShark, your slacking! This has Sharkweak "experimental" research written all over it!Coincidence the teams @ Tiger Beach?!
https://www.facebook.com/187934788053634/posts/1137490109764759/

Welshman said...

Hello dashark, thanks for the continued updates into that corner of the shark world that eludes me (exploitertainment?).

Not that long ago, I had a proclivity to dismiss "shark porn" as nothing but a mildly amusing diversion with limited direct impact of "proper" shark conservation, but unfortunately, the past five years have made me realise that dreadful shite like this is a mere component of a concatenation of problems leading to dumbing-down of shark science, policy and conservation.

At recent "shark science" conferences I have attended, I can count on two hands the number of presentations that I perceived to have any direct link to current conservation issues. If I have to sit through any more Ocearch-esque tagging sharks for the sake of tagging sharks projects, baseless trophic stable isotope measurements or some bullshit retroactively inventing a positive hypothesis for speculatively measuring something for the sake of it, or yet another meta-analysis I will scream. There is nothing wrong about testing a hypothesis for the sake of testing a hypothesis, but please, make sure there's at least a hypothesis to start with.

Then there's the shark conservation aspect itself. My god, this is now such a kakistocracy that to even pose as someone who is "not fully onboard" with the consensus is to place yourself as an active obstructionist. An example. Last month, at great expense (both to the public purse and to the funds donated in good faith to many organisations from their supporters), the 3rd meeting of the CMS Shark MoU was held in the opulent, palatial surroundings of the Oceanographic museum in Monte Carlo (disclaimer #1, I was also in attendance, although mainly to end my organisation's direct engagement). NGOs from all over the globe attended in large delegations to watch countries accept a number of shark species into the CMS MoU (note, this is not the same as the CMS treaty itself, but more of a non-binding cooperative framework). I watched as people started a-whoopin' and a-hollerin' as dusky sharks were adopted onto the CMS by representatives of respective Environment ministries, followed by applause for angel sharks (fully protected in all of their range states already) now being "protected" (disclaimer #2 - I fully hold my hands up as a hypocritical tweeter on the "great progress" made).

There then followed a farcical side event where Brazil announced themselves as co-sponsors of mako sharks at this year's CITES meeting (with Mexico), with the majority of the NGOs in the room almost ejaculatory at their own magnificence in "pushing Brazil to the forefront of shark conservation" (sorry Palau, you are yesterday's cat litter tray liner). Obviously Brazil's blocking of mako measures at ICCAT were nothing to be concerned about, and barely worth a mention and in no way hypocritical. In fact, the real enemy in the room was the NGO representative who asked, very politely, whether Brazil's Environment ministry's welcomed support of mako trade measures would mean they would hold their Fisheries Ministry colleagues to the same high standards within RFMOs. Silence, apart from some people who know way more about conservation from their involvement in CITES junkets who reprimanded the insolent non-believer for daring to question the motives of our Brazilian shark saviours. Of the, (at a guess), 30 or so conservationists present, only 4 were actively involved in RFMO or actual management development.

With a huge swathe of "scientists" seemingly seeking to secure a contract for Sharks After Dark, becoming the world's de facto shark expert, or a cameo as "Un-named scientist #3" on The Meg 2 as a primary career goal, with NGOs in thrall to meretricious "Big Wins" such as CITES and CMS, and with covetous operators seeking to cash in, fighting the good fight will remain akin to the task of Sysyphus pushing that damn rock.

DaShark said...

kakistocracy?
meretricious?

On my blog?
What are you, some liberal commie bastard?
Here we operate with simple words, like fucking moron and the like - capisc?

Anyway, yes, welcome to the real world of junkets, bunk science and conservation, and shameless self promotion - like e.g. this latest addendum to the never-ending succession of Shark whisperettes, a "biologist" no less!

Notice how every picture is about her ground-breaking Shark science?
For the Sharks!

And so it goes!

Welshman said...

Hang on...I am pretty sure this is one of the very few places I have ever seen the words Panglossian and ultracrepidarianism thrown around with gay abandon...

DaShark said...

Touché mon ami :)

DaShark said...

@ JoySeaGal - incidentally, may you by any chance be this pinnacle of erudition??

Be it as it may - yes, this smacks of yet another one of those stunts.
Probably it's rather harmless - but then again I read nothing about captive testing = there's a chance that it could lead to false results if shed prematurely (= Sharks are very good at shedding foreign objects), but it could also possibly injure the mother and/or the pups.
But who who gives a shit as long as one gets the $$$ and more importantly, as long as one can parade oneself on television - right?

For the Sharks!