15 Years of BAD Videos - Coming of Age!

And here we are!

Needless to say that we're mighty proud - and after much trial-and error, it also looks like we might be finally doing something right! :)

Anyway, notable more recent clips include:

Howard and Michele!



Fiji's first National Marine Park!

Happy, and very funny clients - and the FOOTAGE IS 100% REAL! :)

Philippe!



Jason!



Juerg and Kerstin!





16:55ff: Tashi Blue and My Fiji Shark!

Lemme tell'ya, it has been quite the adventure!

And although the job is by no means done, we're certainly getting there, baby step by baby step, with BIG NEWS looming in the not-too-distant future!

To be continued!

And THAT's a promise!

15 Years of BAD Videos - Getting There!

Happy days.

And the saga continues.

Among many, many short and long film productions:

Behold the Fiji Shark Sanctuary that wasn't.

And lest anyone forgets: thank you Julie Andersen and her disastrous Operation Requiem for sabotaging years of hard work!

 

Shark Free Marinas in Fiji!



My favorite trailer for David's Of Shark and Man, filmed in 2011.




Hello Projects Abroad!



Jero and Ana of Pelagic Life in Fiji!



Shark Reef video!



Goodbye my friend and hero, Ron Taylor.



RIP my friend and buddy, Rusi.



To be continued!

Mystery Wedgefish?

The CITES CoP18 will be held in Colombo in May. 

Among the species proposed for listing are the Wedgefishes and Giant Guitarfishes that are both being persecuted mercilessly for their fins, and ever more threatened with extinction as a consequence.
 
Above is a Wedgefish from Fiji - click for detail.

The pics are from the FB page of the Waidroka Bay Resort, i.e. from just around the corner. Our local Wedgefishes are a bit of a mystery and consistently being misidentified, mostly as Rhynchobatus djiddensis which this one is clearly not - so which one is it?

Brand-new ID guide right here.

Thoughts?

PS: indeed R. australiae or laevis - or yet another undescribed Wedgefish from that species complex. That said, Kerstin has already identified australiae by DNA barcoding back in 2015!
And, remember?
 

15 Years of BAD Videos - Growing up!

Our Viking BAD girl Lill dove with us for most of 2009 and provided us with a steady stream of great pictures - this is Chopper.

Welcome back! :)

So here are some videos from our middle years.

I had just come back from a rather traumatic multi-year hiatus in Tonga, things were challenging with first a coup d'état and then a constitutional crisis in Fiji, and a recession globally; and then to top it off our land lord went bust and we were temporarily shut down - and thank you Frank for personally saving our ass with a strategically placed phone call!

And yet we did progress in leaps and bounds, did really crank up the scientific work and also greatly refined our protocols.

And then there was the International Year of the Shark!

We coordinated the only nation-wide roll-out of this initiative and produced Fiji's first Shark PSA, to wit.

This is a nice little program we did with local Mai TV.









The following two productions are incidentally both by Basque visitors.





And finally, more goodies by Mai TV, this time about our early work in the river nurseries.





To be continued!

15 Years of BAD Videos - the Beginning!

Oh my - how time flies!

Behold a small selection of videos from the very early days.

These are from approx 2003-2007 when we did a lot of experimenting and frankly also crazy shit, to wit the selection of bloopers and close calls in the "Naughty File".

 

Featuring Rusi and "Papa" Manasa but also David and Mini!

And this is our very first, very cheesy marketing video! :)

And talking about crazy shit.

How about Rusi a) removing a hook from, and then at the end b) mouth-feeeding Scarface!

And here's the famous BBC clip from 2006!



To be continued! :)

Sharkbait Ooh Ha Ha!

Source - click for detail!

To wit,



That said, enjoy Hannah Logan's Shark diving report!

Will Smith's Bucket List - Shark Diving!

I've finally found the embed code so there - watch.

Like it?

Frankly, I rather do - because I like pro-Shark media, because I like Will Smith and because owing to him, there's an endearing levity to it all.

But of course there has to be a big BUT - right? :)

No worry not: I'm not gonna personally unleash on little PdG who has been punished enough and is obviously just trying to cope and make a living.

But I still got to ask,
Has this production gotten any better by portraying him as a Shark expert which he is clearly not, letting him stoke the fear of Sharks by reminding everybody that they can be deadly, and then having him sell his old and terminally tired fear-facing snake oil?

Wouldn't it have been amply enough to have Will experience and simply ENJOY the dive at Tiger Beach sans all that repetitive gratuitous and totally fabricated death-defying drama - remember the stellar program with Craig Ferguson back then?

And talking of clap trap: did Nietzsche really state what Joe claims?

Anyway.

It could have clearly been better - but Will had a great time and that's all that ultimately counts. And it will of course make no difference whatsoever, one way or the other.

So all is good.

Let's go Shark diving!

15 Years of BAD - Pictures!

Rusi the man with the yellow hood and Whitenose, the first Shark we've ever named - click for detail!

So yes we're celebrating!

I really got nothing to add to what I said here and here.

Only, that there obviously has been more progress, foremost of which the designation of the SRMR as Fiji's first National Marine Park; quite a few more research papers, with several more already in the pipeline; and last but not least, our newest conservation initiative, My Fiji Shark.

So in lieu of yet another boring self-congratulatory tribute.

Behold 15 years of BADness - and should this or that picture intrigue you, you can click on it for detail, and also click on the dates for the relevant blog posts!

Enjoy!

The unforgotten Scarface - this pic is from 2003!

Two icons: Rusi and Scarface, 2005

October, 2006

Rusi and Doris, June10,2007
 

June 17, 2008

June 27, 2008

September 15, 2008

March 7, 2009

 

August 22, 2009

August 28, 2009
 

December 22, 2009

April 21, 2010

June 25, 2011
 

August 14, 2012

August 28, 2012

March 21, 2012

May 21, 2012

May 29, 2013 

July 26, 2013 

 August 13, 2013
 

February 14, 2014
 

April 4, 2014 

January 29, 2015
 

March 28, 2015 

September 9, 2015

February 28, 2016 

September 27, 2016

March 25, 2017

May 3, 2018 

May 15, 2018

January 1, 2019

February 2, 2019 

And finally, here we are!

To be continued - and that's a promise!

Yes it's true!

Watch.



There will be a proper blog post after the celebrations!
And anyway... let's go Shark diving!

My Fiji Shark on Speak Your Mind!

Behold Peni and Tashi Blue on 16:55ff!

It goes without saying that I'm fucking proud.

Should you have been living under a rock for the past 6 months: this is obviously about our latest and greatest conservation initiative, MyFijiShark. And as Tashi has hinted, something is brewing - and you can rest assured that once anything eventuates, your contribution will lead to immediate and tangible results on the ground!

And for you in the know.

Yes this would finally be the ravishing Esquire - and I will most certainly leave it at that!

Anyway.

Enjoy - and please, Adopt Your Shark Now!