The Western Australian shark cull does not make any sense! Who in their right mind orders a cull on an endangered species? It seems the only people that are in favour of it, it are the local government, and even in the face of some really serious protests and international criticism, it is still going on….

Another dangerous and downright stupid activity that is currently headlining is the crazy antics of the illegal free diving and touching of White Sharks in Guadalupe Mexico. It seems like we are living in the age of “The Selfie”.

"And if you ask me, the photos are stunning! He didn't touch or ride the shark. If you want to be mad at someone, blame the diver, not the photographer."

I guess you have me there. Since the photos are stunning in your opinion, everything is justified to get them.” Is an extract of the great article written by Martin Graf on what can easily be voted as one of the most selfish selfies of the year. Screw the sharks, screw it if it possibly leads to attacks, and screw it if it potentially changes the White Sharks behaviour towards humans in the long run.

I have been working on a documentary Shark Central for a couple of years now. In False Bay Cape Town, there is an undercurrent of an opinion that shark cage diving, or at least the illegal practices associated with the "Adrenaline Day Out" could be having a negative impact on the behaviour of the White Shark. After finding out about the illegal practices highlighted in the Code of Conduct that I obtained from the leading researchers & scientists, I headed off to a cage dive to see if the operators are behaving themselves.

No was the answer. The White Sharks regularly get rewarded - eating the bait, which they are not supposed to. If that was not bad enough; the cage dive operators much to the delight of the paying audience, reached out and touched the shark on its nose and like a good circus animal, the shark rose out of the water mesmerised with its jaws wide open. It is my humble opinion that once an industry generates large sums of money, the regulatory process in place seems to be less important.

Another lesser-known fact: If you drag artificial lures behind a boat like they do in the triangle of death - near Seal Island in False Bay; you can observe and film the Great White Shark breaching -“Air Jaws” (National Geographic do this, they do have a permit, but does this mean that it is an acceptable practice?).  Motor launches also rush to the kill zone once a White Shark has attacked a seal, quite often scaring the shark away before it can complete feeding. With these 2 activities mentioned, us humans seriously mess with The Great White Shark’s energy budget. The net result is that the sharks sometimes leave the island venturing further inshore, thus leading to way more encounters with us humans…

My documentary Shark Central (you can check out the trailer here: http://www.sharkcentral.org/), started out as a documentary focused on False Bay, and the unprecedented change in behaviour of the Great White, around the same time as the cage diving industry took off. Investigating the human animal conflict that has manifested itself. And now, the Cull in Western Australia, as well as what is happening in Guadalupe have also both become seriously relevant topics that we would like to cover in this documentary.

With the co production of Greg Vogt, an award winning conservation education ethicist, who will also be facilitating in obtaining interviews with of experts in the field, giving their invaluable input into the best way to (and not to) interact with the Great White Shark. This documentary is intended to be the first episode of a series that forms an integral part of a global conservation ethics program. This documentary, and the following series of episodes, will be taking the first step in reaching tens of thousands of people who can make a difference through the aforementioned Global Conservation Ethics program that is being launched.

We are in the process of running a crowd funding campaign (you can check out the campaign here: http://bit.ly/1d3hFAs), and we are reaching out to you and your members asking for your valuable support and donations.