Tonight will kick off the much-anticipated annual Shark Week on Discovery Channel. Thrill seekers and scaredy-cats alike gather round yearly to watch hours of shows featuring these mesmerizing animals.
‘Air Jaws: The Countdown to Shark Week 2013’ will kick off the week. It’s a documentary that follows sharks in South Africa around Seal Island, the only place in the world where they are known to jump out of the water and attack seals.
Another feature, ‘Shark After Dark’ will air every day of the week and wrap things up each night. It’s the first live talk show ever on Discovery channel and it will acknowledge all things shark. Comedian Josh Wolf is hosting and the show will feature guests including shark experts and celebrities.
Shark Week is known for shows that feature survivors. This year viewers can catch ‘I Escaped Jaws’, a documentary featuring first hand accounts of shark attacks on Tuesday at 9.
The purpose of this week isn’t only to entertain or even frighten viewers, but also to educate. An article from USA Today discusses the increasing number of shark sightings on the East Coast, bringing light to the fact that shark populations are decreasing all over the world, yet the number of attacks are increasing. ‘Spawn of Jaws’ and ‘Sharkpocalyspse’ are two shows in the line up this week that focus on the concern of the dwindling population of the animals and their migration closer to shorelines.
Viewers can get more involved than ever this year with multiplatform media including the live Shark Cam, following @SharkWeek on twitter and watching the first ever Shark Week online web series. The week is finally back and will feature more hours of shark programming than ever before.