Man has probably feared sharks in our waters since the first aborginal had a foot bitten off while fishing from his canoe. Fortunately women have had little to fear since the media only refers to man-eating sharks in the waters off our coasts. Of course sharks have far more to fear from us since humans kill about 100 million of them a year compared to their measely average toll of just 5-10 human fatalities annually.

Long misunderstood, sharks and their cartilaginous relatives including rays are important members of global ecosystems. The tremendous reductions in their numbers world-wide due to gill netting, long-lining and other techniques for shark fin soup and as bycatch in fisheries for other target species has caused serious imbalance and degradation in ecosystems from tropical coral reefs to icy polar seas.

This two disc DVD set introduces the viewer to the natural history of most of the common species in southern California. It is over 2 1/2 hours long, but covers the sharks and rays in seven different 22-minute episodes. These include the electric or torpedo ray, round stingray, thornback ray, shovelnose guitarfish and bat ray plus sharks including the horn, swell, angel, leopard, soupfin, blue, mako... and (from the safety of a cage off Guadalupe Island) the great white! The four episodes on sharks are contained on one of the discs and the three episodes on rays on the second

Since the sharks in our waters are extremely shy, this DVD set contains almost no mating behavior. Yep, there's a lot more "munching" in it than "mating." Since there is so little sex, I'm giving this DVD a "G" rating because violence is so much more acceptable on our public airwaves than nuzzling up to one another and doing the wild thing.

This DVD is $50.00. Postage via first class mail is $2.50. Other options include USPS Priority Mail. State sales tax of $5.13 (10.25%) is required if shipped to a California address. My DVDs may be ordered on-line using PAYPAL with payments made to my account, bushing@post.harvard.edu. Be sure to include shipping and California state sales tax (if applicable), your mailing address and the name of the specific DVD or DVDs you are ordering. Payments made via credit or debit card on Paypal are subject to an additional charge of $2.00 due to Paypal fees.You may also send a personal check to Dr. Bill Bushing, P. O. Box 849, Avalon, CA 90704.

Note: these videos are produced on DVD-R media which is playable on most home DVD players. Verify that your player can play this format before purchase.

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This web page last updated September 29, 2010

This document maintained by Dr. Bill Bushing.
Material © 2005 Star Thrower Educational Multimedia