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Inspiration January 27, 2017
When you hear the word, “shark,” you might initially imagine screaming beach-goers, the “Jaws” soundtrack or your terrifying first trip to the aquarium. However, while sharks may frighten you, they are Erika Wunch’s greatest passion – and she’s determined to save sharks from harmful stereotypes and hunting.
She is the Vice President of Shark Allies, a nonprofit organization that strives to protect sharks and correct dangerous shark stereotypes and myths. Wunch also creates films that educate people about wildlife and the importance of conservation. Furthermore she has made conservation fashionable by designing a jewelry line called Stick Sand Bones, which mixes prehistoric fossils with precious gems and metals. All of the proceeds are donated to shark and ocean conservation efforts.
How did she go from Cali girl to conservation expert? What should you really know about sharks? And how can you get involved in saving sharks’ lives? ENTITY sat down with Erika Wunch to find out those answers and much more!
ENTITY: Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood, your parents and their influence on you, especially as a conservationist?
ERIKA WUNCH: I was raised in Huntington Beach, California. My dad grew up very poor on a farm in Kansas. Everything he has in this life, he’s earned himself. He had his first job at age five when he sold candy bars to soldiers during World War II. Nothing came easy in his life, and through his influence, I was taught responsibility and work ethic. He always told my sister and I that no matter what job you have, you do it to the best of your ability. Dad also taught us to have respect for our things, that taking care of our belongings and surroundings would essentially keep them alive, and you never know when you may really need those things.
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My mom was a happy-go-lucky surfer girl, born in Burbank, California, but spent a lot of her time in Huntington Beach where my grandfather lived. She has always appreciated the outdoors and animals and spent her childhood camping in the woods and relaxing at the beach. Mom always was eager to go on road trips, and as we drove, we would stare out the window trying to spot animals out in the wild. Whether it was a coyote or bunny, the search for wildlife would often be more exciting than our actual destination. My parents’ split when I was eight-years-old; however, I was fortunate to continue to have incredible relationships with both of them.
My grandmother, a nature-loving Scandinavian, was also a huge influence on me. She taught me a lot about wildlife and flora, especially in the mountains. Grandma explained that every creature is necessary to keep the balance of nature. Whether you like that animal or not, it is part of the web and you must respect that. This little token of wisdom has always stuck with me. Every one of our actions has consequences, whether it be a positive or negative outcome.
ENTITY: You’ve been described as a “lifelong animal lover and conservationist.” Where did this passion for animals and conservation come from?
ERIKA WUNCH: I grew up with every pet imaginable: dogs, cats, hamsters, fish, birds, reptiles and even a tortoise at one point. If there was any stray animal in the neighborhood, it would find our house and we would take it in. So, yes, I was raised to respect and appreciate animals, but I do believe some people have a stronger natural connection with animals, and I am definitely one of those people. I spent a lot of my childhood out in nature and I always felt honored if a wild animal would let me get near it without running away.
Gaining that level of trust, without words, is truly an awesome feeling. It’s primal, and real, and making that connection was always magic for me.
In my world, the word “conservation” means respect. I was always taught not to waste. It strikes me as strange that wasting in general would be okay to anyone, anywhere. If you were walking down the street and saw a waterspout that was left on for no reason, would you take a moment to turn it off? Absolutely! Same thing goes for picking up a plastic bag blowing by in the wind or a piece of glass in a playground. It’s just the right thing to do. So when I see so many species of wildlife rapidly becoming endangered and even extinct, I want to help stop that leak. We are all connected and we are all part of nature. It’s time we behave like it.
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ENTITY: Do you think living in Southern California helped nurture these interests? Was there something about your environment or the people who surrounded you that encouraged you to pursue these interests?
ERIKA WUNCH: Absolutely. The Pacific Ocean, the desert and the mountains are all a short drive away, so I was very fortunate to be exposed to a lot of wildlife and natural environments early in life. We have a unique culture and an appreciation for nature, and the majority of people tend to be environmentally-conscious. Growing in up in Southern California, there are little things you always do. You always conserve water and you always recycle. It’s something that is instilled in me and that I’m very grateful for.
California is so eco-conscious that every recycling bin is at least 1.5 times bigger than the trash can nearby
— Monica Stanwick (@MonicaFaith4) January 24, 2017
I *saw* a wild California Condor today. Never thought this would happen. Conservation and captive breeding can make a difference! pic.twitter.com/bIYWTgvkO0
— Pamela L. Gay (@starstryder) January 9, 2017
California may be out of drought but we need to continue our water conservation methods and environmental conservation efforts too
— Chern-san??? (@TokenChern) January 14, 2017
ENTITY: Did you take up marine biology, environmental science, or any other related fields exclusively? Or did you try to pursue something else?
ERIKA WUNCH: Although I was always inspired by the sea and its creatures, and loved learning about the ocean, ironically I never did pursue a formal education in the subject. My knowledge and love of the ocean comes solely from experience and an independent quest to learn more. When I was eight, I wrote a letter to Sea World asking what the requirements were to become a trainer. They courteously responded with a very lengthy letter full of certifications needed to work with the animals. Thankfully, as I grew older and more aware of what captivity actually means for animals, my aspirations to train wild marine life evolved into a desire to protect their natural habitats and prevent them from being exploited for human entertainment.
ENTITY: What led you to become more interested in sharks?
ERIKA WUNCH: It started when I was a kid. I think most children have a fascination with sharks… and dinosaurs. They are so beautiful and mysterious. Anytime there was a shark special on TV, I had to see it…movies…I had to watch them.
I seem to root for the underdog, and in the world of animals, you really can’t have a worse image than sharks.
I learned how to scuba dive while on a trip to Fiji. The only thing I wanted to see was a shark…and, luckily, I did. They are highly intelligent and precise animals, and their grace and presence is truly awe-inspiring. I left that dive wanting to learn more about sharks and to find out why everyone but divers seemed to be scared of them.
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I started volunteering for a marine conservation group and joined the team for a diving expedition in Cocos Island, Costa Rica. This is about 400 miles off the west coast of Costa Rica in the Pacific. The strong currents bring an abundance of food, and, at the time, I believe it had the largest congregation of sharks in the world. These waters were literally thriving with life…healthy schools of fish, corals, rays and sharks. The schools of hammerheads in particular were staggering. There were hundreds of them, congregating for mating purposes. I had never been so impressed with nature in all my life, and I wished I could spend hours at a time underwater watching the ballet.
This expedition turned into a pivotal milestone for me. It was day two of the expedition. I was diving and came upon, literally hundreds of feet of fishing line strewn about the rocks about 20 meters underwater. This filament was strung with menacing steel hooks every few feet. These were long lines, used to by poachers and fishermen to illegally catch sharks for finning. There I was, in a protected World Heritage site, hundreds of miles from land, with the devastation of humans all around. It was a very disheartening moment for me but one that transformed my life.
I had heard of shark finning, but it was then that I started to realize the actual number of sharks that were slaughtered every year to make shark fin soup. I never imagined that over 73 million sharks a year were being killed for something like soup. And they were – they are.
I started to understand the complexities of poaching, the profit, the levels of corruption, the shocking number of animals illegally killed worldwide each year, and I decided that I would dedicate myself to exposing the situation and I would do everything in my power to help put a stop to the massacre.
ENTITY: You’ve worked in film/television production for more than ten years, and now you’re a producer. What pushed you to make this transition?
ERIKA WUNCH: I love film and TV and see both as gigantic opportunities to educate and entertain the world. I got my start in the industry working for a small post-production sound facility in a seedy part of LA. From there I went to Warner Bros. Studios and continued in post production for over a decade. As my experience in the industry grew, so did my creativity and passion for conservation. I wanted to create projects I was passionate about and help shed light on issues that were important to me. I realized I could switch gears and combine work with my personal interests by producing my own projects, which tend to focus on animals and nature.
#planetearth2 bingo
how did they film that?!
i should donate to conservation efforts
our planet is beautiful
i don’t know who I want to win— ✨ Amy Jane ? (@heyamyjane) December 4, 2016
Don’t understand how shark week is about shark conservation awareness but the majority of the shows are about serial killer sharks
— Chris (@Official_ccop) July 3, 2016
ENTITY: Shark Week has become a huge deal on TV, do you think that the programs aired during Shark Week have shaped perceptions of sharks in a positive or negative way?
ERIKA WUNCH: This is a tricky question…I’ve watched Shark Week since I was a kid, and I used to count down the days to Shark Week like other kids would before Christmas. There has never been very much programming based on sharks, and Shark Week was always like this piñata filled with juicy bits of these elusive animals. Again, as a kid, I thought it was awesome.
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Most people do not have the opportunity to personally encounter sharks, so how sharks are portrayed in film and on Shark Week hugely affects our opinion of them. Discovery actually started producing what seemed to be fact driven, docu-style material for Shark Week, but it was predominantly fictional and extremely sensationalized. These types of productions are detrimental to sharks. Creating and broadcasting fictional and misleading content about a species that is rapidly becoming endangered, while presenting it like factual content, is dangerous and irresponsible.
Shark Week has recently had a shift in executives, and Discovery has claimed that they are dedicated to producing factual shows. I am continually disappointed, with painfully ridiculous show titles like “The Great White Serial Killer,” etc., but remain optimistic that they will change their programming in future years. As the audience becomes more educated and aware of true shark behaviors, programming will be forced to evolve as well. Until then, we have to remember these shows are not real. They’re just another product of Hollywood.
ENTITY: In thinking about Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” and how it portrayed men exclusively chasing after the sharks, when you began to pursue an interest in sharks, their protection and destigmatization, as a woman did you ever feel like people thought you were out of place?
ERIKA WUNCH: Because of my career in the entertainment industry, and my passion for extreme adventure, I’m accustomed to being one of the few women in a male-dominant field. It’s never been an issue for me. I’m very comfortable in my own skin and have no problem holding my own. Thankfully, one of the great things about conservation in general is that it breaks these gender roles and stereotypes. I work alongside many dynamic women and men that fight for sharks. Shark Allies was founded by a woman and is exclusively run by women. Not by design, but by happenstance.
Bravado and feminism have no place in the world of nonprofits because everything we do is for a greater cause, and we all must work collaboratively.
It is the people outside of the nonprofit world who are shocked I’m involved with protecting sharks. It’s a different perspective I suppose: one where people perceive sharks to be dangerous, and therefore see work related to sharks as a man’s world. In reality, there’s not much of a difference between protecting sharks and protecting any other wild animal. There are many women out there swimming with and advocating for sharks. I’m happy to be amongst them and in some way change the subject from what seems appropriate to what is necessary.
ENTITY: You’re involved in Shark Allies, own your own fine jewelry line that donates a portion of its proceeds to shark conservation and you’re creating shark-related media projects as a producer. Is there anything else you’re involved in, shark-related or not?
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ERIKA WUNCH: I am also passionate and involved with protecting African wildlife from illegal poaching and trophy hunting. I currently serve on the Advisory Board for the non-governmental organization Silent Heroes Foundation, and I have traveled to Namibia on a project to help protect rhinos. I am in development on a couple projects that focus on elephant and rhino orphans, the heartbreaking result of poaching.
I also serve as an active member of No To Dog Meat, which focuses on ending the dog and cat meat trade. My personal objective is to help put an end the horrific Yulin Dog Meat Festival, and other similar festivals, in which animals are tortured, skinned and boiled alive. There is no place in this world for animal cruelty and torture.
ENTITY: At an individual level, how can we contribute to the work that you and the Shark Allies team do?
ERIKA WUNCH: Shark Allies is a volunteer based, grassroots organization, and we rely solely on donations to keep us running. In addition to funds, we always need more volunteers. Whatever your skill is, we can probably use it. The most helpful way to contribute to our efforts in protecting sharks and their habitat is to spread awareness. Obviously, don’t eat shark meat or shark fin soup. It’s not good for sharks and it’s definitely not good for your health.
Last year, a new federal bill, the bipartisan Shark Fin Elimination Act of 2016, was introduced in the U.S., proposing a nationwide ban on the trade of shark fins. Supporting local and federal legislation is another powerful way to help our cause.
A great step in the right direction for shark conservation!!!! Selling shark fins made illegal in Rhode Island!!!! https://t.co/0iixzWlbaj
— jewlz Ⓥ (@jewiwee) January 5, 2017
@jimwharton a lot of my work focuses on risk perception/communication around human-shark conflict, and improving conservation/policy
— Meghan Elizabeth (@Sharkiologist) January 5, 2017
I started a volunteer position at a Marine Conservation center and I just got into my first Shark Research Lab BLESSINGS ?
— Val (@valerietovar2) January 25, 2017
ENTITY: Any parting thoughts for our readers?
ERIKA WUNCH: Don’t believe the hype you see projected in the media. Less than 10 humans are killed by sharks each year worldwide, and yet we kill over 73 million sharks just for their fins alone. Sharks have been part of this world for 400 million years, and have survived through five mass extinctions on this planet. Let’s not be the species responsible for their demise.
The truth is, sharks seem to be typically seen as a the bullies or even killers of the ocean. As Erika Wunch shows, however, sharks are just as worthy of conservation efforts as any other animal – and perhaps need even more help than other species, considering their negative reputation.
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Sure, maybe you love “Jaws” and would never want to swim with the sharks. But perhaps we should take a hint from “Finding Nemo” and vow that “fish [especially sharks] are friends, not food” in 2017!
