Gimme A Hug

1. MB
   June 30th, 2009 at 12:19 pm

   Wow! That's beautiful. Thanks for posting.

2. LisaL
   June 30th, 2009 at 12:31 pm

   It's neat, but I really wish people would stop petting fish like that. Fish have a protective slime coating on their bodies and idiot divers and such petting them rubs it off leaving them susceptible to disease.

3. Kalel
   June 30th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

   It's not just sharks, but other creatures that do this, too. I would guess it is a defense mechanism, to which we have found the trigger.

   Sharks weren't always as we see them now. Quite some time ago, the little pre-shark likely needed this defense system to avoid predators. And somewhere deep in the modern shark brain, that defense is still there.

   But I wouldn't be so comfortable playing with them for fun... Remember that vengeful sharks chased Roy Scheider and his family through three movies.

4. Mytake
   June 30th, 2009 at 1:12 pm

   Another example of a naive view of animals.

   The images on the trailer are gorgeous, totally worth watching even if the premise of the movie is just maudlin fiction.

   Trying to show the sharks as if they were docile critters casually hobnobbing w/ that diver (covered in chainmail from head to toe just in case) is misleading and potentially harmful for both.

   The attempt to portray a violent species as "misunderstood" is absurd and dumb.

5. Geekazoid
   June 30th, 2009 at 1:52 pm

   I agree with you Mytake. Hey I'm all for a better understanding and appreciation of all creatures, even those regarding as deadly predators.

   However I am not a fan of these "gosh, let's show the world how docile and peaceful predators are" routine.

   We don't need anymore Timothy Treadmills of the wild kingdom.

6. Gene
   June 30th, 2009 at 2:30 pm

   "The attempt to portray a violent species as “misunderstood” is absurd and dumb.'

   wouldn't this apply to humans too.

7. LisaL
   June 30th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

   And I completely agree Mytake. It's like the idiots who raise wild bears and try to tell everyone how calm, docile, & misunderstood they are, and then later on we're reading an article about that persons face being chewed off by said bear.

8. Ali S.
   June 30th, 2009 at 2:57 pm

   Awww come on folks. Sure it sounds a little far fetched and fictionalized but the idea of a shark not going for the divers jugular is something to be appreciated as well as the fact that he/she is petting it.

9. MightyCow
   June 30th, 2009 at 4:21 pm

   Start the countdown until that diver gets horribly mauled by a shark and then defends the shark's actions.

   Some people deserve to be eaten.

10. Tim Giachetti
    June 30th, 2009 at 6:43 pm

    Great call MyTake. I agree.

    Lisa, sharks are one species that doesn't have that slime. Not saying to go and pet them though.

11. Bursar
    June 30th, 2009 at 8:53 pm

    Some thoughts:
    I'm no shark expert, but I do happen to know that gray nurse sharks look pretty scary, but are actually quite harmless, while great whites, well... I suspect these sharks were the former.

    Also I strongly suspect there was something seriously wrong with the shark in the vid. Don't sharks need to keep moving to breath? Just perhaps that individual had a parasite in its head that had eaten most if its brain away!

12. whysharksmatter
    June 30th, 2009 at 10:18 pm

    I AM a shark expert, and I don't recommend petting sharks. While the risk of a shark attack is incredibly low, these are wild animals and shouldn't be pestered.

    http://southernfriedscience.com/2009/05/10/four-things-everyone-needs- to-know-about-sharks/

13. -H
    June 30th, 2009 at 10:42 pm

    @whysharksmatter: I was wondering how you concluded that the risk of a shark-attack is "incredibly low". Went to your website and your analysis goes thus:

    "In an average year, over 650,000 Americans die as a result of heart disease, giving me a 1 in 5 chance of dying of heart disease in my lifetime. In an average year, over 550,000 Americans die from cancer, giving me a 1 in 7 chance of dying from cancer in my lifetime. In an average year, over 40,000 Americans die in car accidents, giving me a 1 in 84 chance of dying in a car accident in my lifetime. In an average year, 1 American dies from a shark attack, giving me a 1 in 3,748,067 chance of dying from a shark attack in my lifetime."

    Do you see the leap of logic here? How many of these americans a) had a heart b) were immune to cancer c) drove a car?

    Now, how many Americans actually spend a significant amount of time in shark-infested waters?

    -H

14. Mihkel
    July 1st, 2009 at 8:43 am

    @ Most of you...
    I think the purpose of this video is being misunderstood, just like the animal that it’s discussing. It is not taming some predator to show how "docile" it is. It’s just pointing out that there is a less than expected behavior from an animal that has a very very bad reputation that it does not deserve. That’s all there is to it. Sure, he is exploiting a biological mechanism to do so, but it’s not saying that sharks are safe; it’s just saying that they are misunderstood. Once people care about something or find it interesting, then you can reach out and educate them even more. It’s the fundamentals of conservation education.
    But no, they don’t just show up and eat people. It’s usually out of pure curiosity or defense, not hunger that they bite.
    My favorite example of this is how divers think that turning a shark upside down automatically makes them pass out... this doesn’t always work out so well. But really, whose fault was it? The diver or the shark?
    http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=32785901461

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