'Shark Week' Criticized for Lies and Deception

Remember when "Shark Week" was about education, information, and just a basic celebration of the bad-a**ery that is the shark?

The Discovery Channel annual special is garnering more criticism than support these days, relying on pseudo-science and fake documentaries.

Now, scientists who have appeared on these "documentaries" are coming forward to say that they were misled by "Shark Week" producers, and that much of what they said was taken out of context and twisted for the benefit of producers.

Jonathan Davis, who now works for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, is one of these scientists. His interviews aired during last year's special "Voodoo Shark," about a mythical monster shark called "Rooken" that supposedly lives in the Bayous of Louisiana.

Davis says he was approached by a film crew while studying bull sharks in the Gulf of Mexico for his Masters research.

"They were interested in the sharks of Louisiana, and I was the person doing research there," he says.

"I asked a few of the crew members, including the producer, what the show was going to be about. I never got a straight answer and the producer seemed to avoid the question. I was just told it would be combined with some other filming to make one show about Louisiana shark research."

He was understandably surprised to see himself speaking on "Voodoo Shark," with editing done to make it appear that his team of researchers were in competition with fisherman to see who could catch the legendary shark. Davis says his answers to unrelated questions were altered and edited to make it seem that he was searching for the Rooken.

"Throughout the interview I was fed certain words to rephrase my sentences in ways that the producer thought would spark more interest. Some words or phrases they asked me to say were beyond anything I would say on my own and I refused. However, they were clever in their questioning by getting me to respond to a vague question with a response that could be used as an answer to a completely different question.

"The prime example that was used on the show was towards the very beginning of 'Voodoo Sharks.' The voice-over introduced my researchers and I as we were riding in a boat and looking out for sharks on the edge of the Lake. They said, 'They believe that if there is a monster shark entering Lake Pontchartrain it is likely sticking to this area...' and then it pans to a clip from my interview where they ask me, 'Do you think there are large Bull Sharks in these bayous and swamps around Lake Pontchartrain?' So my response was to that question... They used my response to one question to make it sound like I believed in this monster shark 'Rooken' that they had just laid the groundwork for being real as a preface for the whole show."

This year's "Shark Week" is following the same deceptive tactics. Kristine Stump, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, will appear in the documentary "Monster Hammerhead," which hunts a legendary hammerhead shark that has been "patrolling Florida's shores for the past 60 years," according to the description.

This is not, says Stump, the premise of a documentary she was lead to believe she was participating in.

"The basic premise was a camera crew was dropping in on real scientists doing actual hammerhead research. 'Monster Hammerhead' does not match the description of what we filmed."

Sorry, folks. As fun as it might be to think about, scientists are not exploring the possibility of a monster hammerhead or Rooken. At least, not as far as they know.