Dateline 23-10-09 - Shark Conservation Society (SCS), Richard Peirce

While Richard Peirce was on the SCS Adriatic expedition last week he got a call from Tigress Productions working with Monty Halls for his next BBC series.

They were on the trail of whether Great White sharks occur off Scotland’s western coasts. It is common knowledge that for some years Richard (now SCS) has been planning an expedition to this exact same area (the Monach Islands) at this time of the year (pupping season). A major 14day stay at sea expedition is planned involving 24 hour round the clock chumming and photographing seals to record scars. A White shark would be a lucky “needle in a haystack” find, so the expedition will be a general shark search recording all species encountered.

Some years ago Richard wrote a proposal for a documentary film along detective story lines examining whether GWS visited our shores. The proposal was sent to the BBC and others. A year later Richard got a call from the BBC asking for help as they were planning to make the same film! Coincidence?! (Sadly the resulting production “Great Whites - Great Britain” failed to even put linked events in chronological order, and ignored major pieces of evidence).

Tigress advised that they were spending a few days in the Outer Hebrides doing interviews with those who have possible GWS tales to tell, and were planning to tow a lure up and down off the Monach’s to attract a Great White shark! Richard advised that, while good for the camera, these antics would have an almost zero chance of success, and that the only way to do the job properly is intensive 24hour chumming and seal photography. Let's see what they do.

On a serious note SCS is currently talking to potential sponsors for their expedition, and while it would be great if “for the camera lure towing” succeeds, if it fails we hope it doesn’t impact negatively on our sponsorship chances.

Note. Monty Halls is an Honorary Life Member of the Shark Conservation Society (SCS) and was fully briefed in February on the planned SCS Monach Islands expedition. While failure might impact negatively on the SCS expedition, success would be wonderful – Good luck.