GREAT WHITE SHARKS AND MARINE CONSERVATION
Like many of my fellow Bay Area residents, I am a transplant. I first moved to Northern California in 2003, drawn here by the allure of the dramatic coastline and a deep-seated desire to live near the ocean. In addition to establishing myself as a singer/songwriter and gaining recognition in the Bay Area music scene, I set out to learn how to surf. Having never experienced the pleasure of surfing in warm, shark-free, water, I fell in love with surfing in Northern California. I managed to rationalize my risk in these waters with the justification that I was much more likely to be injured in a car accident driving to the beach than bitten by a Great White Shark. Still, I could not resist my fascination with the local resident and apex predator -- Mr. White, Carcharodon Carcharias, the White Pointer, the man in the grey suit...---or, more commonly known as the Great White Shark.
In January of this year, I went cage diving with Great White Sharks for the first time in South Africa. I was astounded with the magnificence of these creatures and decided that I wanted to figure out a way to use my music and role in the community to become involved in raising a greater awareness towards Great White Sharks in the Bay Area.
I have spent the past year realizing this goal. Upon returning to California in January, I began my quest in a strange place. The Marine Mammal Center, located in the Marin Headlands north of the Golden Gate Bridge, rescues wounded and/or stranded elephant seals and sea lions (the most common local food source for Great White Sharks) among other pinniped (seal species), transports them to the Center, and attempts to nurture them back into good health. There, the seals are diagnosed and treated by vets, while biologists gather data on the animals, searching for patterns that reveal information not only about the animals themselves, but also about the health of the greater local marine ecosystems. Volunteers, like myself, run much of the day-to-day work (feeding the animals, washing the pens, etc.).
While the Center is not a direct route to furthering my shark advocacy, it has proven to be a fantastic place to become involved in the local marine community . Granted, most of the other volunteers were working at the Center to "save" the seals, while I secretly felt as though I was merely helping to fatten the little guys up so that the "food supply" would remain stocked and healthy. My work at the Center was featured on the PBS television series NOVA in 2008, in an episode entitled Ocean Animal Emergency. In addition to volunteering at the Center, I also became involved with the Tiburon Salmon Institute, a local non-profit group that raises thousands of young chinook salmon and releases them into the Bay every year. This past September, my band performed at the release ceremony, as 25,000 salmon were released from the salmon pens in Marin County.
Through the Marine Mammal Center, one of the biologists introduced me to David McGuire, a local filmmaker and shark activist who had recently released a documentary on local sharks. After speaking with David, I was excited to discover that we had many parallel interests and that there was great potential for us to work together. Through David I have been able to incorporate my music into my shark advocacy. Further, David had secured funding (through the Aquarium of the Bay and through the California Academy of Sciences) to produce two more documentaries, one on local California sharks, and the other specifically on Great White Sharks.
At this point, David's film "City of the Shark" has been selected to premiere at the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival in January of 2009. The film will feature my music and I will be performing at the event. David's film on Great White Sharks is currently still in progress and is expected to be released sometime in 2009.
As I move forward, I am interested in working to raise money for further Great White Shark research and conservation efforts, locally, nationally and internationally. I was recently inspired by a presentation featuring Scot Anderson, an Emmy-Award nominated Great White Shark researcher and biologist, in which he discussed the work he is doing with T.O.P.P (Tagging of Pacific Predators) to further understand the DNA structure, migratory patterns, and communal behaviors of California's Great White Sharks. Northern California has a number of organizations like T.O.P.P that are doing groundbreaking research on understanding and protecting our oceans and the fragile ecosystems that dwell within them. My intention is to raise public advocacy and funding for these projects through my musical endeavors, thus hoping to alter the skewed public perception towards the Great White Shark and instead raise an awareness towards the vital importance of their role in maintaining a healthy ocean.
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San Francisco Ocean Film Festival
