Is The Mermaid Documentary On Animal Planet Real
No, Mermaids Practise Not Exist
What Beast Planet'southward fake documentaries don't tell y'all about the ocean.
Courtesy of Animal Planet
This week, Animal Planet aired two fake documentaries challenge to show scientific bear witness of mermaids. I say "fake documentaries" because that's exactly what The Body Found and The New Prove are. The "scientists" interviewed in the bear witness are actors, and there's a brief disclaimer during the end credits. However, the Twitter chat surrounding the show (#Mermaids) reveals that many viewers are unaware that the prove isn't existent. (Sample Tweets: "After watching the documentary #Mermaids the body constitute … I believe there are mermaids!!!" and "90% of the ocean is unexplored and you're telling me #mermaids don't exist"—which has been retweeted more than 800 times.) It is, subsequently all, airing on a network that claims to focus on educating viewers well-nigh the natural globe. "The Torso Found" was rightfully described "the rotting carcass of scientific discipline telly," and I was shocked to see Animal Planet air a sequel.
Equally a marine biologist, I can tell you unequivocally that despite millennia of humans exploring the ocean, no apparent evidence of the existence of mermaids has ever been constitute. Some claim that manatees are the source of the legend, but yous'd have to exist at sea an clumsily long time to think that a manatee is a cute woman. Certain, new species are discovered all the fourth dimension, but while a new species of bird or insect is fascinating, it doesn't mean "anything is possible," and information technology is certainly non equivalent to finding a group of talking, thinking humanoids with fish tails covering half of their bodies. The confusion generated by "The Body Found" got to be so pregnant that the U.s. government issued an official statement on the affair.
When I started angrily posting about this on Facebook and Twitter, many of my nonscientist friends asked me why it matters if people believe in mermaids. It matters because the body of water is extremely important. Information technology provides jobs for tens of millions of people and food for billions. However, many marine resources are existence overexploited and mismanaged, leaving us in serious danger of losing them forever. Policy solutions can help, simply if you are and then ignorant about what is really happening in the bounding main that you lot believe that in that location are organisms that are one-half human and half fish, you're most certainly unaware of the important problems, much less how to solve them. Even if you don't believe in mythical creatures, you may be unaware of the severity of the crises facing our oceans. Now that we've established that mermaids aren't real, hither are 5 other important things about the ocean that anybody should know.
1. The oceans are non inexhaustible, we're currently overharvesting many resource, and the consequences can exist disastrous.
According to the United Nations Nutrient and Agronomics Arrangement, 32 per centum of all global fisheries are "overexploited, depleted, or recovering" and some other 50 percent are fully exploited (as of 2010). Overfishing is the single greatest threat to the ocean environment, but this isn't only an environmental problem. Fish are a critically important natural resource, with more than iii billion people getting at least 15 percentage of their poly peptide from the ocean. Although man population growth is nevertheless increasing, nosotros won't be able to increase the amount of fish nosotros're taking from the ocean.*
2. Electric current fishing practices aren't but problematic for the fish species we are trying to take hold of.
Most commercial fisheries don't use a rod and reel, communicable one fish at a time and throwing back what they don't want (or aren't allowed to sell). A single longline can be many miles long and have tens of thousands of baited hooks; purse seine nets can be miles across; and the largest trawl net on the market can fit several 747 airplanes in its opening. Bycatch, which occurs when fishermen catch animals swimming nearly their target catch, is unavoidable with line-fishing gear this large, just the problem can be unexpectedly severe. In some fisheries, 90 percent of the catch by weight is bycatch, which includes endangered sea turtles and bounding main birds likewise as marine mammals. Some types of fishing, such as dynamite fishing and cyanide fishing, tin can heavily damage the environment. Dragging a heavy trawl internet over the seafloor destroys endless delicate and ecologically important organisms, the equivalent of hunting for rabbits by bulldozing a wood and killing all the deer, birds, insects, and plants that live there. The FAO estimates that 7 million tons of bycatch are defenseless and discarded every yr.
iii. Merely because a fish is from "the ocean" doesn't mean you should release it in the nearest body of salt h2o.
Invasive species are not-native organisms released into a new region. In the example of invasive fish, they are frequently introduced by aquarium hobbyists who release a fish when it gets as well big for its tank. Often, there are no predators in the new habitat capable of eating these newly introduced animals. Lionfish, native to the Indo-Pacific, are believed to have been introduced to the Atlantic declension of the United states of america by aquarium hobbyists in the final few decades. Lionfish have no native predators in the Atlantic, and non-native predators are often deterred past their venomous spines. A single female lionfish can release millions of eggs in a year, and so information technology's no surprise that lionfish are now found throughout the Caribbean and equally far n as New York, and they are outcompeting or eating native, economically important fishes such equally snapper and grouper.
4. Sharks aren't a threat to you lot, they're of import, and they're in problem
The average American has only a ane in three,800,000 run a risk of beingness killed by a shark. You're more probable to be killed by a lawnmower or a vending machine, and more likely to be bitten by a stranger on the subway. Similar all predators, sharks help keep the sea in residual by eating the sick, the weak, and the dying. However, sharks are suffering from overfishing more than about marine species, with i in 6 species of shark, skate, or ray (and 1 in 3 species of open ocean shark) considered "Threatened with Extinction" by the IUCN Scarlet List.
5. A lthough mermaids don't exist, the ocean is still full of wonder, and it needs your help!
What you practice affects the ocean fifty-fifty if you lot alive far abroad, and there'due south a lot that you tin can do to help. Buy sustainable seafood. Apply reusable grocery numberless instead of single-use plastic numberless, which can choke sea turtles or sea birds. Back up politicians who support bounding main conservation, or encourage your current elected officials to support the ocean. Most importantly, inquire your friends and family unit to do the aforementioned.
If I've ruined your sense of wonder about the oceans, don't fret. The absence of mermaids certainly doesn't mean that the oceans are boring. As deep sea ecologist Andrew David Thaler said, "Look, the ocean is a vast, unexplored borderland. The deep sea is Earth's terminal groovy wilderness. When we do venture into the abyss, we find creatures more than various and incredible that our relatively limited imaginations can excogitate. Don't insult that wonder with something as utterly mundane as 'human being with fish tail.' "
Several of my marine scientist colleagues and I subjected ourselves to iii hours of fake mermaid documentaries, alive-tweeting and correcting inaccuracies as we watched. Click hither to read a Storify of this discussion.
An earlier version of this article appeared on Southern Fried Science .
Correction, Sept. three, 2013: This article originally stated that nine of the ten most-fished species have been exploited and then heavily that they are at 10 percent or less of their historical populations. The information on fish populations are non extensive enough to substantiate this merits. (Return to the corrected sentnece.)
Source: https://slate.com/technology/2013/05/mermaids-arent-real-animal-planets-fake-documentaries-misrepresent-ocean-life.html
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