Shark-Free Marina Initiative: brochure available from expanding shark conservation group

Many readers of this blog have come across posts that mention the Shark-Free Marina Initiative (SFMI), an organization dedicated to the incremental but crucial and challenging step of ridding marinas of caught sharks. Supported by the Humane Society of America and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, SFMI has an informative website and now, as this recent press release below cites, there are informative brochures available for distribution.

Shark-Free Marina brochures introduce the membership campaign
14 October, 2010

Mid-October heralds the beginning of our SFMI membership campaign. As part of the campaign we've selected strategic marinas around the country to join the Shark-Free Marina Initiative. The first point of contact will be the new SFMI brochures which are now available. Beautifully designed yet highly informative they feature artwork generously provided by the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation and scientific contributions from many of our advisers.

Click on the thumbnails for a larger view of the artwork and message. You may also use the link provided to download a PDF version.

As you read this post our brochures are speeding their way across the USA destined for 1500 marinas around the country. Their mission? To introduce the Shark-Free Marina Initiative to key marinas who have it in their power to significantly reduce the tens of thousands of sharks killed ever year by recreational fishing activity.

To receive a package of 10 brochures please write to staff@sharkfreemarinas.com and tell us how you plan to make an impact. We suggest talking to your local marina, dive shop, tackle store or classroom about the need to protect our sharks.

A very special thanks to all who were involved especially those who let us use their names, message and artwork.

Download a PDF version

8.5x14 - 4 Fold Brochure - Outside

8.5x14 - 4 Fold Brochure - Inside

The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef: colorful yarn and complex math to save coral reefs at the Smithsonian

To get people to appreciate the importance of ocean conservation to the future of this planet, we must highlight the importance of the oceans to our own future as well. Making this human connection can take many forms, from intellectual presentations to a more tactile approach . . . like crochet.

Crochet?

On October 16th, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, an exhibition opens that connects the very human art of crocheting with the complexity of shape and design of coral reefs. The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, a project started by the Los Angeles-based Institute for Figuring, will be on view in the Institution's Sant Ocean Hall through April 24th of 2011. By utilizing crocheting to produce amazingly realistic representations of various corals, the exhibit helps to make very real what some may perceive as beautiful but unreal and other-worldly.

At the core of the exhibit is the use of hyberbolic geometry - a mathematical theory of lines, curves and their relationships that manifests itself in natural forms like corals and can be effectively represented in crochet. It's a good thing too, because just reading about hyperbolic geometry can give you a headache, or at least leave you slightly dazed and confused.

Originally conceived by Margaret and Christine Wertheim, and supported by Quiksilver Foundation, the Embassy of Australia, and the Coral Reef Alliance; the exhibition is remarkable in its detail and realism. And like the organisms it replicates, it is dynamic and growing, as the Smithsonian provides other crochet artists with the opportunity to contribute to the reef.



The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef- it's organic, it's colorful, and it's mathematically complex. Just like real coral. It's cared for by humans, just like the real coral reefs need to be. Because If not, it's sad to think but colorful yarn may be all that's left to remind us of one of the ocean's greatest treasures.
Learn more at the Smithsonian website.
Read about hyperbolic geometry.

Whales and Ships Don't Mix: higher fatalities in Northern California

***News of the Hour from Chile***
The 33 miners in Chile, who have been trapped 2,000 feet below for nearly 70 days, are now, one by one, reaching the surface. A nation's compassion, determination, and technology have all come together to rescue these men and unite them with their families. A joyous moment and a reminder of what can be accomplished when we set about to preserve life.

Whale Fatalities Spike Along the Calif. Coast
While a certain number of whale deaths are recorded along the Eastern Pacific coast annually, this summer and early fall have seen a record number in the San Francisco Bay area. Since last July, there have been five dead whales sighted or washed ashore, including minke, fin, humpback, and blue whales.

The latest fatality was found on the beach in Pescadero on October 2nd: an 80-foot long blue whale with a male fetus lying beside it. The blue whale can reach over 100 feet in length, making it the largest animal on the planet.

Scientists and officials from the Gulf of the Farallones Marine Sanctuary see ship strikes as the cause of death. The determination was derived from either finding severe wounds from propeller blades or from necropsies that revealed broken bones from the impact of the ship.

"We're definitely seeing an increase in ship strikes - it's awful," said Mary Jane Schramm, spokeswoman for the Sanctuary.

While the cause of death id fairly certain, the larger question is whether this series of deaths represents a statistical anomaly or has something put whales in the region at greater risk? One likely candidate being considered is a greater than usual amount of krill in the area.

Krill, a name given to a group of small shrimp-like crustaceans, is the primary food source for baleen - or filter-feeding- whales like blues and humpbacks. Apparently, this summer has seen a larger population of krill and this may have attracted more whales into the area. (Living in Southern California, I have heard accounts from many fishing and whale-watching boats of record numbers of blue whales passing close to shore.) With San Francisco being the busy shipping port that it is, this could increase the odds for a collision between a whale and a large freighter. As big as they are, whales are no match for tons of floating steel.

But an exact reason for the krill explosion has not been determined. Krill feeds on phytoplankton and this food source can produce "plankton blooms" when warmer conditions prevail. If there is a climate change connection, no one can say with any certainty at this point.

Regardless of the root cause, what is needed is to devise solutions that could help prevent collisions and save the lives of these fragile whale populations (blue, humpback, and fin whales are all listed as endangered). Stationing monitors in the shipping channels and outfitting ships with sound systems that would alert the whales to their approach have been proposed by several groups including the Gulf of the Farallones Marine Sanctuary.

All that is needed is the compassion, determination, and technology.

Read more in The San Francisco Chronicle.

Undersea Voyager Project: seeking ocean discoveries in Southern California's island playground

A precocious child at the age of, let's say, ten has his or her first encounter with the wonders of the sea, perhaps at a local aquarium; or a vacation at the beach, wandering about the tidepools; or simply by watching an underwater wildlife documentary. Suddenly a spark is ignited and a future marine scientist and explorer is born.

That spark becomes a fire that continues to burn to adulthood and now the freshly-minted ocean explorer enters the world of academia or corporate research in search of a living. And that's when things can change. The bureaucracy and politics of these new working environments - where papers must be regularly written, departments must have their spotlight of attention, or private companies must meet a corporate agenda - take the budding scientist further and further away from that original inspiration, that sense of pure research and exploration.

The Undersea Voyager Project (UVP), headed by Scott Cassell, has a mission to bring that original sense of exploration back to the marine scientist. Providing submersible platforms for research and study, UVP has a long-term goal of circumnavigating the world through the ocean's most vibrant depths, from near surface to 1,000 feet. It's an alternative approach in that scientists can make use of UVP with one caveat: the resulting data is open for the world to benefit from. Institutions may be reluctant to get on board with such a heretic approach, but scientists from a wide variety of marine fields have expressed interest; an interest to reconnect with that first motivating spark once again.

Through the month of October, the Undersea Voyager Project is operating at Catalina Island in Southern California. Working with the Antipodes, a five-passenger submersible owned by Seattle-based Oceangate, Cassell has been plumbing the depths of this local California island attraction, discovering wreckage from Cold War era listening stations to evidence of never-before-seen underwater landslides.



I had the opportunity to join the UVP and Oceangate team this past weekend to film the Antipodes underwater as it ran through some checkout dives and will be joining them again shortly to film Scott for a German television program and take more promotional video. There is a list of scientists and educators that plan to participate while the Antipodes is available through this month, hoping to discover what secrets might be lying just a few hundred feet below in the waters off bustling Southern California.

There are discoveries waiting to be made and secrets to be uncovered. But maybe the greatest discovery or secret is the moment when a researcher can once again connect with those youthful impulses that drove him or her to be an ocean explorer in the first place.

Visit the Undersea Voyager Project website.
Visit the Oceangate website.

Coral Reef News: a new algae threat; island nations take steps

Coral reefs continue to face challenges and occasional glimmers of hope. But they lead a perilous existence, with these important tropical marine ecosystems living on the edge of collapse. As remnants of geological island movements, coral reefs form important barriers to island erosion and other weather- and ocean-related conditions (storms, currents, etc.) while also providing a home for countless numbers of marine species.

Bad News: Toxic Algae Acts Quickly
On the down side, researchers are discovering that algae can not only crowd out corals when their growth explodes due to nitrate-rich pollution (as previously studied worldwide), but algae blooms can also prove to be toxic by reducing oxygen and sunlight. And it can happen with remarkable speed.

Recently, in the Gulf of Oman, scientists were conducting a coral reef study and upon returning to their research area three weeks after an algae bloom, they found the corals seriously impacted. Several species of hard corals, including cauliflower and tabletop hard corals, were completely destroyed.

"We were surprised at the extent and speed at which changes to the coral reef communities were affected," said marine ecologist Andrew Bauman in the BBC News. Scientists have known that climate change in the form of warmer waters can adversely affect the coral, causing "coral bleaching" whereby the coral is severely and often fatally weakened from the loss of the symbiotic zooxanthellae algae that literally lives in the coral tissue.

While warmer temperatures can stress the corals to the extant that coral bleaching occurs, the scientists in the Gulf of Oman now have dramatic evidence of the impact of algae blooms in open water, literally choking the life from the coral - not to mention the impact on other sealife including fish, whose gills can be become clogged with algae particulates.

Good News: Island Nations Work Together
On the more positive side, tropical island nations are becoming more proactive in their efforts to protect their national treasures - the coral reefs. In 2007, the governments of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands formed the Coral Triangle Initiative to establish policies to protect their marine reef ecosystems. Realizing the importance of the reef ecosystem not only as a component of a healthy ocean but also of economic importance as a source of food and tourism for developing nations, the Coral Triangle Initiative is a government-led program supported by leading conservation organizations like Conservation International.

In the Indian Ocean, the Maldives - a nation of over 1,100 coral islands - recognizes the economic power of conserving its surrounding coral reefs. The reefs are the lure to worldwide scuba divers, snorkelers, and swimmers, making tourism a major component of the nation's economy. In addition, the need to protect its ecology - in fact, that of the world - is of critical importance to the Maldives. The islands are, at most, just under five feet above sea level. With sea levels rising due to global warming, scientists estimate that the Maldives will be uninhabitable by 2100.

The government has taken steps to both protect its citizens and the environment by instituting a variety of eco-friendly policies including installation of wind turbines, rooftop solar arrays, and phasing out fossil fuel-burning boats and cars. In July, 2010, they also outlawed shark fishing and the sale or export of shark fins. But the government is also reluctantly prudent and developing plans for the relocation of its entire population of 400,000 as sea levels rise.

Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed warned, “Climate change is a global emergency. The world is in danger of going into cardiac arrest, yet we behave as if we've caught a common cold. Today, the Maldives has announced plans to become the world's most eco-friendly country. I can only hope other nations follow suit.”

Read about toxic algae in the BBC Earth News.
Read about the Coral Triangle Initiative at Conservation International.
Read about the Maldives at Mother Nature Network.

10/10/10 Global Work Party: this Sunday's international event for climate change awareness

350. This is a number that has great significance with many climatologists and supporters of positive steps to slow down, if not arrest. global warming. The number 350 stands for the level of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, in parts per million, that many scientists believe must be attained if we are to have any control over the issue of climate change - and it needs to be reached sooner than later (we currently stand at around 390ppm and rising).

To help get that message out, to policymakers and the general public, is the mission of 350.org. And to do that, 350.org has in the past staged worldwide events that included everyone from children to students to politicians. Last year they held an International Day of Climate Action that encouraged people of all ages to recognize the need to reduce carbon emissions. It was a grass roots event that saw participation from Sydney to San Francisco, from South Africa to Sweden.

Coming up this Sunday, October 10th, will be the organization's 10/10/10 Global Work Party: A Day to Celebrate Climate Solutions. Once again, across the globe, 350.org has rallied folks at the grass roots level in over 150 countries with thousands of local events taking place, all designed to not only bring awareness to the problem of carbon emissions but to also promote what we can do about it.

According to 350.org, "We’re calling it a Global Work Party, with emphasis on both 'work' and 'party'. In Auckland, New Zealand, they’re having a giant bike fix-up day, to get every bicycle in the city back on the road. In the Maldives, they’re putting up solar panels on the President’s office. In Kampala, Uganda, they're going to plant thousands of trees, and in Bolivia they’re installing solar stoves for a massive carbon neutral picnic."

350.org's goal with this one-day event is not to solve the issue of climate change in one grand sweeping gesture - they are too pragmatic for that. Instead, 10/10/10 Global Work Party is designed to send a strong political message to the decision-makers of the world, that people recognize the importance of managing carbon emissions in a demonstrable way and are prepared to do what it takes.

"On 10/10/10 we'll show that we the people can do this--but we need bold energy policies from our political leaders to do it on a scale that truly matters. The goal of the day is not to solve the climate crisis one project at a time, but to send a pointed political message: if we can get to work, you can get to work too--on the legislation and the treaties that will make all our work easier in the long run."

350 parts per million. This is something that needs to be much more than a long-range, near-mythical goal for the world's energy policies. It is a very real objective that must be met quickly, before we find ourselves at a point of no return.

10/10/10. More than just a clever twist of the calendar; it's a day to show your support. Check out the 350.org website to see what events are taking place in your area. There's even still time to start an event of your own for this Sunday.

Visit the 350.org website.
Learn more about 10/10/10 Global Work Party.

Science To Action: educating policy makers to initiate ocean conservation

Imagine you are a government official, perhaps in charge of your nation's natural ocean resources, and you are considering how best to manage those resources now and in the future. You might consider Marine Managed Areas (MMAs), also known as MPAs (Marine Protected Areas), as a possible solution. These are zones that regulate and manage activities ranging from commercial fishing to recreational activities to tourism, all with the idea of protecting marine life while producing the least amount of disruption to local economies (or perhaps even enhance those economies).

But you need to be sold on the idea; you need information so that you can formulate at least the first step. Turning to the general populace, you find a wealth of personal opinions and anecdotal accounts - in essence, the moral conscience of why it needs to be considered. Turning to the scientific community, you find copious amounts of facts, figures and complex data. You're a smart man but sometimes listening to the scientific experts requires more attention to detail than you can muster. They seem to have the answers but it needs to be more palatable for you and your other policy-making colleagues to begin formulating initiatives that can successfully work their way through the halls of governmental bureaucracy. You need a well-thought out, readable primer.

Science2Action.org is an organization dedicated to providing policy makers with the basic information they need to consider and act on the formation of marine managed areas. Realizing that it takes more than raw emotion or arcane data to generate concrete, quantifiable change, Science To Action works closely with a wide array of research, ocean conservation, and NGO organizations to pool data - to translate it as it were - into easily understandable concepts and solutions, made available through a variety of media formats.

From my experiences meeting and working with scientists and discussing progress in ocean conservation with many activists and officials, this is something that I feel very strongly about. People can make a big difference in their personal choices and actions, but having strong policies, such as the formation of MMAs, that by their very nature recognize the commitment of governments to protect the oceans, is critical to the future of the oceans and to many local and national economies. You can't have one without the other. We may not like how governments operate sometimes, but we must kick them off the couch and get them in the game. And to do that we must give them information that is comprehensive, comprehensible, and compelling.

Science To Action has produced a series of publications - booklets that can easily be read (20 pages) in a brief sitting - that explore the issues related to Marine Managed Areas, explaining why MMAs make sense for both man and the oceans.

Their latest publications:

• Marine Managed Areas; What, Why, and Where
• People and Oceans
• Living with the Sea

These three booklets are available in PDF form and can be easily downloaded from their website. This is highly recommended reading for all of us. And as you read through them, imagine you are that government official; imagine you are searching for a reason or reasons to make a case for MMAs.

We need personal commitment but we also need government action. Science2Action.org is helping to put the information in the hands of decision-makers that will produce proactive steps to insure the preservation of vital ocean resources. Check out their website, it's one that I am bookmarking.

Census of Marine Life: milestone 10-year study releases results

After 10 years of study, involving 2,700 scientists from 80 nations, the results from the Census of Marine Life was released today. Ocean animals were cataloged, photographed, tagged and tracked or whatever was needed to be able to get a more accurate picture as to the size and scope of marine life worldwide. And the results are both a source of awe and inspiration and a reason for concern.

Scientists have identified around 250,000 marine species but estimate that the total number is probably closer to one million. The census collated data on nearly 17,000 species of fish but scientists estimates there are another 5,000 yet to be discovered. And that's excluding the oceans vast array of microbes, which are estimated alone to total up to a billion.

Over the study's ten-year period, scientists explored shallow reefs and some of the ocean's deepest canyons, from frigid Arctic waters to warm lagoons. Much was learned and much was realized to be, as yet, undiscovered. One of the cornerstone's of the study's research is the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), a central database of observations dating back centuries which forms a baseline of data constructed from 28 million observations and growing by approximately 5 million observations each year.

"The census enlarged the known world. Life astonished us everywhere we looked. In the deep sea we found luxuriant communities despite extreme conditions," said Myriam Sibuet, vice-chair of the study's Steering Committee.

As I had mentioned in a previous post on the Marine Census, the amazing pictures that we will be seeing in the news, magazines, and books in the weeks and months to come will portray an ecosystem that is vibrant with life of all kinds. But we must not think that with this multitude of life that all is well in the seas.

Jesse Asubel, co-founder of the Census, said, "The Census encountered an ocean growing more crowded with commerce and transparent through technology. Setting out to draw baselines of the diversity, distribution, and abundance of species, the first Census of Marine Life documented a changing ocean, richer in diversity, more connected through distribution and movements, more impacted by humans, and yet less explored than we had known."

The Census of Marine Life is a major milestone in ocean biology. Future census studies will add more data and uncover more surprises. There's much we know, much more we need to learn, and all of it we need to conserve and protect.

With the release of the Census' final report, three books will soon be available:
Discoveries of the Census of Marine Life (Cambridge University Press)
Life in the World's Oceans: Diversity, Distribution and Abundance (Blackwell Publishing)
Citizens of the Sea: Wondrous Creatures from the Census of Marine Life (National Geographic)

Read news article on the Census of Marine Life from CNN.com.

Congress Squabbles Over Conservation: biodiversity protections held up while Senators debate merits

Discovery's Tree Hugger blog site and Washington DC's The Hill both ran important news items on several pieces of conservation legislation being stalled in the U.S. Senate, primarily due to the efforts of one Senator Tom Coburn (R.-Okla.). His position was that the five bills, supported by several key Republican colleagues and ranging from issues regarding shark finning to marine mammals to great cats and canids to cranes, were a waste of money.

"The problems that are facing this country are so big and so massive that our attention ought to be focused on those large problems, not on five separate bills that have been proffered for special interest groups," the senator was quoted as saying.

While the current economic situation in the United States, and globally, is without question one of the more pressing issues today and will garner greater priority and attention than longer term environmental issues, the politics of fear combined with the campaign jargon of the moment must not derail responsible policymakers from making decisions that have implications, both environmental and economic, far beyond simply the conservation of a particular species. Maintaining a healthy biodiversity is not just a feel good moral issue, it is one that has concrete implications over a range of industries and worldwide economies.

As noted in Tree Hugger, The Huffington Post described Senator Coburn's actions this way, "Cautious spending is an important value, but so is the defense of animals from cruelty, the rescue of marine creatures injured by human actions, or the protection of wild species from extinction. Coburn has corrupted a laudable principle of fiscal conservatism, and used it to negate and nullify valuable initiatives designed to protect vulnerable species at serious risk."

Read the entire article in Discovery's Tree Hugger.
Read the entire article in The Hill.
Read the entire article in The Huffington Post.

Shooting In The Wild: the ethics of wildlife filmmaking comes under scrutiny

Nature filmmaking is an important form of media arts, particularly in this day and age when environmental issues are becoming more and more the focus of politicians, policymakers and the general public. Nature films are visual literature that typically have a position or point-of-view they wish to express - even the most matter-of-fact presentations are intended to get the viewer to understand something about the film's subject that perhaps they did not know or appreciate before. So, by design they have an agenda.

But with that agenda comes an ethical responsibility toward accuracy and realism. And for the nature documentary filmmaker, who must contend with the logistical realities of the film process combined with the pressures of satisfying the demands of an entertainment media business, this ethical responsibility can sometimes be a challenge.

Shooting In The Wild (Sierra Club Books), written by veteran nature film producer Chris Palmer, takes an in-depth look at the world of wildlife filmmaking to expose the ethical dilemmas faced by filmmakers who manipulate, fabricate, and deceive - all in the name of presenting nature "realistically." The book has been generating a fair amount of media buzz with its recounting of staged animal sequences to coax certain behaviors, use of captive animals from animal farms or zoos, and even animal abuse - all for the sake of "getting the shot." In fact, ironically, while the book condemns over-sensationalism and attempts to establish a foundation for ethical responsibility in nature filmmaking, the majority of the media reporting has focused on the book being a tell-all expose that rips the mask of respectability off the nature filmmaker, showing them to be manipulative charlatans. Well, it makes for a good headline on the evening news, but I think it misses the point of Palmer's book.

The ethics of accuracy and realism exist throughout all forms of expression. We accept that fiction almost by definition is a manipulation or fabrication. And in non-fiction books and films, we accept fabricated dialog or scenes that convey the essence of historical truth. We even tolerate a measure of hyperbole from our leaders in their speeches and their political campaigns. Up to a point. . . and that's where the slippery slope of ethical responsibility versus manipulated fakery rears its head. Can a black and white line be drawn within what is often a subjective gray area?

This is what Palmer discusses in Shooting In The Wild by sighting many examples of nature filmmaking that deviate from precise realism: forced predations, unnaturally-induced animal behaviors, reproduced sounds, and even whether or not the use of music in a nature film is a manipulation of reality.

In describing a filmmaker's staged predation sequence between a king snake and a diamondback rattlesnake (as the intended prey), Palmer writes, "When the king snake ignored the rattlesnake, the filmmaker tried again and again to engage them in combat, with no success. Finally, a crewmate came up with an idea: he put the rattlesnake into an empty mouse cage for a day so it smelled like a mouse. Problem solved - the king snake soon seized and ate the rattler."

As engrossing as it is to read of these cinematic machinations, Palmer is not setting out to give nature filmmakers (or himself for that matter, as an accomplished producer of award-winning films) simply a black eye. Rather, he wants everyone, from viewers to filmmakers to network executives, to consider both the difficulty and importance in trying to find where one draws the line between truth and deception. It is an important topic to debate because nature films are too important of an educational resource to suffer from a lack of credibility with the audience.

As a filmmaker myself, I am continually having to make decisions as to how best to make my point, to fulfill my agenda as it were, without portraying animals in a false or deceptive light. Sometimes the decisions are dictated by the difficulty of the film process. Take sound for instance.

When I film underwater, it is virtually a silent world. Underwater camera housings often have hydrophones (underwater microphones) but the sounds they record are usually just the bubbles emanating from the cameraman's dive gear, which has nothing to do with what's going on in front of the camera. While topside, one can be filming an animal at a great distance, far beyond what the microphone can effectively pick up. So, a soundtrack is compiled after the fact using pre-recorded sounds or ones that are artificially produced. Palmer notes that opening and closing an umbrella can be a substitute sound source for an eagle's wings flapping. I often use sounds of splashing at a community pool for the sounds of sharks breaking the surface. Logistical necessity or deception?

Or what of the lush music scores that accompany many nature films? As a former composer, I greatly appreciate the power of music to support the visual image or the spoken word. We seem to have no qualms about the impact that music can have on the many non-nature films we watch - the ability to make us laugh, cry, or jump out of our seats - but is it right for a nature film? Reality dictates that there are no Aaron Copland-esque refrains heard when we stand before a panoramic view of the Sierras, so is the use of music, as some cynics would say, a manipulation of our feelings? A cheap deception meant to further the filmmaker's agenda? Well, perhaps someone did not get enough hugs as a child.

While the use of sound may not be the most egregious of manipulations, the issue of artificially-induced behaviors certainly is one that can take a filmmaker down the slippery slope. Take, for instance, the practice of baiting or chumming for sharks. Many shark programs have been criticized for favoring sensationalism over reality by providing food stimulus that provokes the shark to act in ways that are not natural, except perhaps in the most extreme and infrequent of situations. The shark's exaggerated behavior is then portrayed as the norm and the stereotypical image of the malevolent predator is, once again, perpetuated.

In my first shark documentary, Island of the Great Shark, I went to great pains to film white sharks acting in as natural of a behavior as possible. Rather than edit together a series of powerful scavenger attacks on floating bait that would present an image of a voracious, aggressive predator continually on the attack; I chose images that made up the vast majority of what actually occurred time and time again, that of a wary and cautious animal that would gracefully move through the water - investigating, curious, but not hell-bent on devouring everything in sight. It was my call to portray these animals based on both what I actually experienced and what I had learned from speaking with recognized shark experts. But it also meant that a portion of my potential audience would be disappointed because I chose not to support the pre-conceived stereotype.

In Shooting In The Wild, Chris Palmer goes beyond listing past sins by nature filmmakers caught up in the struggle to capture images by whatever means necessary (and some, like animal abuse or staged predations, are certainly inexcusable). Palmer broadens the discussion with recommendations that amount to a road map to ethical wildlife filming. One of his recommendations is for filmmakers to work closely with reputable scientists. I couldn't agree more, but it's not always easy to do so.

Programs are typically pitched to networks and that pitch must resonate with executives who are concerned with audience appeal and ratings. And sometimes these program pitches are ideas that were hatched by production company staff members who are not scientifically-trained or oriented at all but know what will catch the attention of the network's program developers. It is then, after they have sold their idea, that they look for someone - a scientist or other subject matter expert - who can provide some credibility to the project. This kind of approach, where one backs into the science, can lend itself to an ethical dilemma for the producer who finds himself stuck between the expectations for what has been sold and what the scientists say is the actual reality. Again, I have seen this many times in shark programs and it has made more than one qualified shark expert leery of working with filmmakers because of some preposterous film premise or because of how they themselves were represented in some prior film.

Palmer writes, "But while a good scientist-filmmaker relationship can be mutually beneficial, it's important to choose partners carefully. Before they begin, the parties need to agree on both the goals of the project and the most ethical way to accomplish them."

Shooting In The Wild is a fascinating book for all the interesting stories that Palmer tells and for his examination and recommendations on the ethical dilemma that nature filmmakers routinely face. I would recommend it to all who appreciate wildlife films - filmmakers, conservationists, and just viewers at large. It serves as a guide for how nature filmmakers should conduct themselves and for what viewers should come to expect from this unique entertainment genre.