So The Documentary-makers Stick With Sharks. Generally, Their
Procedure Is To Scatter Bleeding Fish Pieces Around Their Boat, So As
To Infest The Waters.
... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, their
procedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as
to infest the waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of
sharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making
documentaries. Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairly
listless. The general shark attitude seems to be: Oh God, another
documentary. So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking,
under the guise of Scientific Research. We know very little about the
effect of electricity on sharks, the narrator will say, in a deeply
scientific voice. That is why Todd is going to jab this Great White
in the testicles with a cattle prod. The divers keep this kind of
thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, and
then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very
dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all
along.
-- Dave Barry, The Wonders of Sharks on TV
So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].
With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to
maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of
corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to
flop up onto the land and evolve....
