Shark Whisperer

This is very well-put-together documentary on a woman who has a quest to know and help sharks.

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Born and raised in Hawaii, Ocean Ramsey has been pushing tirelessly for many years to try and change people’s perception of sharks, especially in Hawaii where for decades it has been legal to kill sharks of all kinds in unlimited quantities.

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The 'shark whisperer' happens to be a very conventionally-attractive young blonde woman with a soft-spoken voice. Being Netflix, they did a great job interviewing both people who agree with her approach and people who dislike her a lot.

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From my perspective, the two guys who dislike who she is and what she is doing are either jealous or they’re misogynists. It’s true that she didn’t graduate with a degree that confers on her the title of ’scientist’, but what she is doing, day in an day out, is science. She is observing, cataloguing, spending every day in the water learning how the sharks communicate, she is engaging with them, even befriending a few special ones that are particularly curious or friendly - and all of that with the proper respect to the shark’s capabilities.

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Further, Ms. Ramsey is knowingly using her attractiveness to gain followers on her social media accounts in order to spread the idea that sharks should be protected animals. She points out, correctly, that as apex animals their presence is necessary for the eco-system to survive in a healthy balance.

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Initially, she managed her social media accounts wearing wetsuits and posting pictures of the sharks she’d see on her dives. But very few people saw those posts, so she changed her strategy: she began to wear bikinis into the water and began posting not just pictures of the sharks but pictures of herself with the sharks. Of course, the number of followers shot up!

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She’s well aware of how she is leveraging her beauty to get her message across, and she’s aware that just because she feels comfortable around sharks and can successfully interact with them doesn’t mean she might never get bitten or even killed. She’s no dummy.

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Her strategy is working. With her information, images, video, and organization, she was able to lobby her community and her government representatives to successfully pass a law that protects the sharks around Hawaii. It was a long time coming and only happened because of Ocean Ramsey’s tireless work.

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I enjoyed this. Ocean looks fragile but she’s a strong woman doing work that most people in the world are terrified of. Kudos to her.

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