Feeding frenzy

Cover story, page 2

Dan Riskin and Ziya Tong host “Daily Planet’s” Shark Week coverage

June 25 - July 1, 2016June 25 - July 1, 2016June 25 - July 1, 2016June 25 - July 1, 2016

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Cover Story

By Cassie DreschTV Media

Jaw-some. Shark ‘n’ awe. Fin-tastic. Go ahead, mako my

day. I’ve got shark puns all day, every day — and so does Dis-covery Canada because it’s Shark Week, and that means wall-to-wall (or, more aptly, tank-to-tank) prime-time cover-age of some of the most fear-some beasts in the sea. Begin-ning Sunday, June 26, catch all of the shark-erific action on Dis-covery.

From investigating how reef sharks ended up in Bikini Atoll with Philippe Cousteau, the grandson of legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau, to listening to “Game of Thrones” star Lena Headey narrate how great whites hunt in the dark, there’s a little something for everyone during the week-long shark-stravaganza.

Viewers in Canada are in for an extra special treat, though, as “Daily Planet” hosts Dan Riskin and Ziya Tong turn the studio into shark central each weeknight beginning Monday, June 27, and present compelling stories from around the globe about the massive monsters on top of Discovery’s full prime-time lineup.

“It’s neat when some-thing you’re familiar with gives you another sur-prise, and that’s one of the things about Shark Week,” Riskin said in an interview with TV Media. “People tune in every year, but if you watch the ‘Daily Planet’ compo-

nent of it, you’re going to learn new shark facts that have just been discovered that give even more context.”

Some of the exciting new things lined up for “Daily Planet’s” week of fishy fun in-clude travelling to Australia to see how drones are helping identify sharks in the water sur-rounding beaches; visiting the North Atlantic and free diver Chris Gillette, who is using his abilities to get up close to sharks without scaring them off; and meeting up with a British biolo-gist who is really sinking his teeth into, well, teeth.

“One of the things that we’re investigating is how it is that sharks are able to regenerate their teeth,” Tong said. “We meet up with a scientist who’s been looking into this — his name is Gareth Fraser — and that’s the big query. Every two weeks, [sharks] regrow rows and rows of teeth that are al-most on a conveyer belt. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if hu-man beings could regrow their teeth as well?”

It’s questions like this that really motivate

scientists to keep studying the toothy terrors, and it’s the an-swers that keeps fans coming back for more.

“The more you know, the more curious you get,” Riskin said. “It’s not that you finally know enough about sharks that you don’t want to learn anymore. People who learn things about sharks want to know more about sharks, and that’s exactly the challenge that we’re trying to meet with ‘Daily Planet’ this week.”

It also helps that, as hu-mans, we get curious about things that are not only bigger than ourselves, but could also pose a lot of danger to us.

“I think as human beings, we feel as though we are rul-ers of the Earth, and occasion-ally we’re reminded that there’s another species that could actually kick our butts,” Tong said. “In this instance, we still know that sharks could kick our butts. There’s a little bit of humble pie, so we still are in awe of them, and that’s

why when we talk about Shark Week we call it a ‘jaw-some’ week.”

Sink your teeth‘Daily Planet’ bolsters another ‘jaw-some’ Shark Week

Ziya Tong and Dan Riskin as

seen in “Daily Planet”

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