Rona can’t stop Shark Week HOO HAHA!
Welcome Back to Shark Week friends! Congratulations you survived 2020 long enough to reach August. Whatever fresh Hell is ahead of us we have achieved the Shark Week ability. Early in the year there were rumors that we might not have it this year but the sharks will not be denied. My name is Sylly, and I am here to swim the waters of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week as your guide again this year. I offer socially distanced air hugs and thoroughly hand sanitized self fives to everyone joining me on the journey. We may have lost our gyms, movie theatres, bars, and ability to breathe freely; but we didn’t lose Shark Week to 2020.
Shark Week began on July 17, 1988 with 10 episodes. This is the 32nd Shark Week and Discovery Channel is offering up a record breaking 24 all new episodes for us! They have finally realized that the Shark After Dark show was trash and done away with it. In its place will be Expedition Unknown host Josh Gates Tonight: Shark Week at 11 pm E.T. from Sunday to Thursday. Here’s hoping it’s an improvement. The celebrity shark dives lined up for this year include, Mike Tyson, (insert joke about him biting a shark) Snoop, Will Smith, Shaq, Adam Devine, Anders Holm, and Blake Anderson. I am not a fan of celebrity shark dives but I give kudos to them for finding something awesome to do during quarantine, and lending their names and status to shark research and conservation. 2020 also marks the 20 year anniversary of Air Jaws.
Time for the stats: in 2019 there were 64 unprovoked shark attacks on humans globally. Two were fatal. There were 100,000,000 sharks slaughtered by humans in 2019. The staggering amount of sharks are killed for their fins. A practice called shark finning. It is the brutal act of slicing off a shark’s fins, often for shark fin soup an Asian delicacy. The shark is still alive when it is dumped back into the ocean. Unable to swim, they sink to the bottom to die of suffocation.
Shark Week 2020 Lineup:
Sunday, August 9 starting at 8pm E.T.
Air Jaws Ultimate Breach Off
Tyson vs. Jaws Rumble on the Reef
Shark Lockdown
Monday August 10 starting at 8pm E.T.
Shark Lockdown
Abandoned Waters
Shaq Attack
Jaws Awakens
Tuesday August 11 Starting at 8pm E.T.
Extinct or Alive: Land of the Lost Sharks
Will Smith: Off the Deep End
Great White Serial Killer Extinction
Wednesday August 12 starting at 8pm E.T.
Monster Under the Bridge
Adam Devine’s Secret Shark Lair
Great White Double Trouble
Thursday August 13 starting ay 8pm E.T.
Air Jaws 2020
Sharkadelic Summer
Mako Nation
Friday August 14 starting at 8pm E.T.
Alien Sharks: First Contact
Lair of the Great White
Tiger Shark King
I was Prey Shark Week 2
Saturday August 15 starting at 8 pm E.T.
Sharks of Ghost Island
Wicked Sharks
Sharks Gone Wild 3
I was Prey: Terrors From the Deep.
The eighth night of shark week every year is the overly advertised opening of one of Discovery Channel’s shows that actually has nothing to do with sharks….. Unless you like the show don’t bother.
I am curious how the quarantine and lack of human interaction during the COVID-19 lockdown has impacted the lives and behaviors of sharks.
Sylvia Papineau is an Arcade resident and self-proclaimed Shark Week ‘finatic.’ Watch All WNY all week for her take on Shark Week 2020 specials. And share our Shark Week features on social media with the tag #AllWNYSharkWeek for a chance to win an All WNY Shark Week mask.
