Last night they aired a show about Tonic Immobility called "Zombie Sharks". The findings they shared were already proved science thanks to research by Mike Rutzen. The biggest difference in Rutzen's findings and the rehash in Zombie Sharks was that Sharks were painted as aggressive man eaters, but in Rutzens they were portrayed as predators.
Shark's and by extension most marine predators are treated like monsters. When is the last time you turned on an nature program about big cats and saw them painted as ravenous blood thirsty killers. We're working on conserving them. Not giving them a reason to be feared. With sharks we've realized that blood sells a lot better than conservation.
We can't be surprised when we see that people refuse to give up overfishing and hunting down sharks when they're seen as monsters who have to be stopped. The battle for conservation has be played out in a way that paints sharks as predators to be respected and not as monsters to be feared.
