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Sadly but true, the general media giants and little reporters that bring us so called valued News stories are aiding in killing our oceans. Whenever there is a shark attack, someone gets tormented, bitten or dies the media hype up the story just to get sales. I know this from a personal experience of how the media falsely report incidents in order to make a story sound more dramatic!!
The media has always portrayed sharks as aggressive mindless killers that scour the oceans looking for their next victim to attack. All of this dramatized media, along with movies like jaws all play a part in playing on people's minds that Sharks are out to get us if we enter the water. In actual fact it is the sharks that are most endangered by the human race but we do not see Headlines reading; Human Race is killing our Oceans” do we? This Headline is not as effective to play on the minds of people as having flesh torn from the bone by a predator of the deep.
According to a survey conducted in 2003 by the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland, seventy percent of Americans surveyed recently believe that sharks are dangerous. 72percent also believe that shark populations are just adequate or too high.
Shark attacks are disproportionately sensationalized; sharks are vilified feeding the publics' unrealistic image of sharks. According to the International Shark Attack Files (ISAF) you are 15 timesmore likely to be struck by lightning than to be bitten by a shark, and 89 times more likely to die of being struck by lightning than dying from a shark bite. These figures demonstrate that the public perception of sharks is largely due to a lack of education and a distorted image fed to the public by mainstream media. The lack of knowledge about sharks perpetuates the continued over-exploitation and ultimately the depletion of these species.
PSFNZ in association with Dive Planet NZ aim to create and provide educational information that raise local and international awareness of sharks and encourage public and government participation in conservation efforts. It is ever so crucial for organizations to foster the change of the stereotypical image of sharks as killers and promote awareness of the ecological role of sharks and rays.
Paul Morris founder of the Dive Planet Website and of the Project Shark Fin NZ campaign with Julian Snelgrove and a list of others ongoing goal is to provide the public with accurate and scientific information about sharks and raise awareness of the conservation needs of sharks. You will find links within our shark research sections to other organisations to help you find out the truth about the sharks and rays of our oceans and why we need to protect them.
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