Who is White Mike?

06/01/2009

A White Mike poster on the streets of West Hollywood, California/ Copyright (c) 2009 unurth.com

Big bold color posters of "great white" sharks keep popping up throughout three major U.S. cities – Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. What’s next? Who is responsible? What is the real story behind this? I first heard of this over a month ago, and I can’t get this story out of my head. I kept going back to the White Mike website, http://thisiswhitey.wordpress.com, hoping to find some more juicy nuggets about what this is really all about. I wanted to wait until more information rolled in before blogging about it. But after watching Sharks 3D at the Houston Museum of Natural Science IMAX theater the other day, which was totally cool by the way, I decided I’d finally blog about White Mike.

The White Mike blog says, “This blog is a guerrilla movement meant to spark the curiosity and collective humanistic action with regards to saving the dire state of Great White Sharks and their near extinction in our planet.”

Who is this guy? Is he really flying solo, or does he have a funding organization behind him? Or is it a even a guy? Maybe a shark girl? My guess is he or she hails from Australia, because whitey is a nickname Aussies give white sharks in the land down under. Whoever it is, they want to remain anonymous. Apparently plastering these posters around town, even in the name of street art, isn’t legal.

Discovery Channel sent me to Australia last April to dive with sharks for the Expedition Shark blog while scientists lassoed sharks and filmmakers filmed the documentary Mysteries of the Shark Coast, and as I wrote about in the first post, Fear, sharks truly have far more to fear from us, then we do from them. Though people sometimes deeply fear the infamous great white shark, people kill far more sharks than they kill people. Fishermen relentlessly slaughter sharks throughout the world’s oceans, and we’ve reduced the total shark population by over 70%. One of the most tragic situations is shark finning. Fishermen haul sharks on board, cut off their fins, and dump the live shark overboard, which then bleeds to death– all to feed Asian demand for shark fin soup.

Diving with sharks was literally the coolest experience of my life, outside of the birth of my children, but I didn’t see any white sharks. They aren’t known to hang out in tropical waters. We did see a hammerhead and a tiger shark, and mostly grey reef sharks, whitetip reef sharks, and silvertip sharks – all of which are still pretty formidable predators. I am not quite sure I’d want to jump in the ocean with white sharks! But I think they’re gorgeous, and I hope that the campaign to raise awareness of their plight succeeds in some small way - or in a big way! There's some controversy surrounding cage diving with white sharks - whether it helps people appreciate the sharks more, or whether it increases aggression in them.

And so the possibilities with White Mike are endless. He could be trying to promote a white shark cage diving company, and in fact a link on his site goes to one. The bloggers at unurth.com recently spotted a White Mike poster at a Guy Hepner gallery selling for $9,995, and they blogged, "I really hope this is an awareness campaign for shark population declines, and not for overpriced art." Or the person behind it could really be just what he says, a person on a mission to raise awareness of the plight of the world's white sharks.

As anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote in her famous line, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

What do you think of guerilla conservation movements like this one? Have you seen any white shark posters around town? Apparently, White Mike is headed to Oklahoma at this moment.

Learn more about sharks

Comments

[SteveN]

Right, he's probably an Aussie. They've got quite the community of White Snappers down under. As for the legality... I'm all for guerrilla messages. Maybe the graffito Banksy will someday start incorporating endangered species into his artwork.

[unurth]

it will be fascinating to see how White Mike's work develops... I really hope it becomes a successful grass-roots campaign that raises awareness.

I hope the $9,995 print release is just the artist/ gallery (Michael Muller/ Guy Hepner gallery) looking to cash in on the publicity White Mike is generating through the street art, and not the point of the campaign.

[Justin]

He just added pix with jessica alba on the white mike blog!!! so sick!!!!

[Dude who thinks Mike White is a phony]

It's hilarious that out of one gazillion animals in the animal kingdom that have declined in numbers, you chose a shark to exploit. If you've been in Los Angeles for the past 3 years you would know where this Mike White dude possibly got his idea for the image from.

Furthermore, Your raising awareness of sharks is laughable. It's more like raising awareness of yourself. Just admit you want to be a street artist, it's okay. But don't pretend you care about sharks man. There is very little information on the matter on your page, considering all you have to do is cut and paste research material. Instead, there's a flamboyancy of all this Twittering. Like hey, PLEASE stroke my ego and tell me where you've seen my shark effigy.

This type of false altruism makes me as sick as people selling images on t shirts of famous dead people and not giving any of the proceeds to the dead peoples foundations or charities.

[Jim]

"White Mike" is Michael Muller, a California photographer. His website is here:

http://www.krop.com/muller/

[Wendee Holtcamp]

I saw his website but are you sure it's him?

[Jim]

Yes I am 100% certain it's him.

[Wendee Holtcamp]

So do you know why he is doing this? Is he really trying to promote the conservation of white sharks or promoting his art?