If you're still jonesing for more shark action after the end of the most recent "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel, Spike TV might be able to whet (and wet) your appetite with The Hunt For: Monster Sharks, a one-hour special airing September 3 at 10:00 p.m.
The special covers the annual Oak Bluffs Monster Shark Tournament in which over 200 boats and 1,000 fishermen compete to see who can capture the largest shark in the waters off Martha's Vineyard.
Frankly, I find the whole thing cruel. Everybody knows sharks, like people, often vacation in Martha's Vineyard. While there, they don't bother people at all, they just drink wine and play cribbage:
Shark One: I say, dear boy, would you care for another glass of port?
Shark Two: I really shouldn't, Trevor, I'm getting the fat sucked from my dorsal fin at three o'clock.
Shark One: Quite.
Shark Two: Yes.
Shark One: Hmm.
And so forth. I'll admit I've only heard about this recently, despite it being around for the past twenty years, but it seems unfair to the sharks to send so many humans into their territory to kill them. The only way I could get behind this is if they balanced it out by letting 1,000 sharks come onto the land to see which one can capture the fattest person. They'd have to build mobile aquarium suits and robot legs for the sharks, which you have to admit would be really cool.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-25-2007 @ 3:04PM
TVblogger said...
These shows are so stupid, because they build all this hype with the "Monster Sharks" title. But, then at the end hundreds of sharks die, and none of them are really "Monsters" just really big sharks, but they won't set any records.
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8-26-2007 @ 2:03AM
chris said...
Sharks attack like 4 people a year, yet we kill millions from byproducts of fishing and stupid events like this. You take out the predator you mess with the whole ecosystem, oceans are no different. Shows like this only promote ignorance and hasten the decline of our planets enviroment.
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8-26-2007 @ 2:15PM
tinycg said...
Just some info for you, this tournment like others along the east coast require the fisherman particapating to also tag other sharks that dont qualify to be caught.
They then use this info to track and monitor the shark population.
I'm not saying its right, but to say that its senseless violence with no real purpose is completely incorrect. I know that through this tournament alone they track thousands of sharks they wouldnt otherwise be able to know about.
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9-01-2007 @ 1:35PM
kate said...
I wasn't aware that the Hunt for Monster Shark fishermen were also tagging sharks that would then be tracked for scientific purposes. I was under the impression that fishermen went out, each hoping to catch the largest shark, and to take home the prize.
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9-02-2007 @ 11:06AM
Daryn said...
A shark hunt is neither manly nor helpful. Sharks are not especially good game fish and they are not especially good eating. Catching a shark doesn't require any special skill because a shark will strike almost any bait. And pretending that tagging the "unusable" sharks is helpful is just plain stupid (and little more than spin to offset the ecological disaster that is this shark hunt). The shark gets injured and exhausted during the landing and the tags are poorly placed with the end result being dead and injured "unusable" sharks of dubious future scientific value. Want to impress me with a manly monster shark hunt? Strap on a vest made of meat, draw your dagger, get in the water, and fight like a man...anything else is cowardly and valueless. Spike TV is waaay off-base with this one. Nothing manly going on here! What's next? A "monster" puppy hunt over at the humane society? I love Spike, but this is a valueless "contest" and I won't be watching. All I can hope is that this "monster" shark hunt generates a few episodes of "When Animals Attack" because I would rather watch sharks eating "monster" fishermen than fisherman killing harmless sharks.
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9-03-2007 @ 8:36PM
Shaitan said...
As far as I know we seem to be the only race capable of making death such a profitable entertainment.
Makes me wonder what the word "humane" should really mean.
No matter the killing method, killing any living being just for fun is unacceptable for me. No questions about it.
Why is it that such act is only severely punished when its done to humans? And not only that but now they have to make a whole event out of it? and a TV show?
SpikeTV is indeed way off with this.
And regarding the lame tagging excuse: why in the world we think that we have to get our hands in every ecosystem existing on earth and that by intervening with nature we are making it any better?
As far as I've seen we are not making it any better we are just cleaning up the mess we left behind.
For how long we humans will continue to make profit and cruelly dispose of lives we don't really own?
I wonder who is the real monster here.
Shaitan.
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9-03-2007 @ 10:54PM
Jason Carroll said...
Shame on Spike TV for supporting such an inhumane practice that will surly be outlawed someday (soon, I hope).
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