During the seven days of Shark Week an estimated 1,923,077 sharks were slaughtered for their fins globally. If humans were killed at that same rate, the last human would have 76-years to live. This film, “Love Story,” aims to provide a different narrative about sharks. If humans can be romantic about baseball, surely, humans can be romantic, about sharks.

Senator Cory Booker and Representative Ed Royce put forth the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act of 2017, it has not yet passed. There are many voices to its opposition but one is that we need a more comprehensive, multi-faceted solution, as the issues are complex and people on both sides are fully fueled with fire breathing passion. President Bill Clinton signed into law the Shark Finning Prohibition Act in 2000, banning the physical act of shark finning on any vessel within United States waters and on United States flagged vessels. But it stopped short of ending the trade entirely, so importing/exporting has still has gone on since.

Is the Fin Trade Elimination Act the right thing or wrong thing? That’s a different conversation. The bigger picture and reality is that sharks are disappearing at an infuriating rate. So much so that divers who have been diving the same location for as little as 10-years, can visibly notice the difference, the decline, or in some cases the absence, of their presence. While politicians are arguing, why don’t we show the true nature of sharks and make masses of people love them as they do dolphins. If we can be romantic about baseball, surely we can be romantic about sharks. If humans have one critical weakness, it's that the species protects, and holds dear, what it loves.

This is also a call on Discovery Channel to use Shark Week’s voice to be the leader of this new narrative, dedicating one episode per year to start and while doing so, maybe recapture some of the show’s original audience that has long left it. After all, can there be a Shark Week if there are no sharks? What Jaws did to create the false shark narrative would take generations to undo, but we’re out of time, so it must, be us.

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Filmed by Shawn Mahoney – Wetsuit by HECS Aquatic – Shot on Canon 1DX MKII, Paralenz, GoPro Hero 6 – Lens: Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L III – Aerial footage on DJI Mavic – Music by Julian Cisneros