Researchers reportedly told The Washington Post that Discovery Channel's famous weeklong block of shark-related content isn't diverse enough.

In an article titled "‘Shark Week’ lacks diversity, overrepresents men named Mike, scientists say," WaPo's Daniel Wu spoke with the leader of a team of scientists who examined hundreds of "Shark Week" episodes.

Researchers say Discovery’s programming overwhelmingly featured white men as experts while emphasizing negative messages about sharks," WaPo writes.

The research team's leader, Lisa Whitenack, is a biology professor at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. WaPo writes that Whitenack "loved sharks as a kid," but "rarely saw any women she could look up to" when she was watching "Shark Week."

Whitenack reportedly ended up researching sharks anyways, and when the pandemic hit, she found time "to study the source of her old misconceptions," WaPo writes, referring to Discovery's annual Shark-focused programming event.

The study was published last month by the Public Library of Science. Whitenack and her team reportedly studied 272 episodes of "Shark Week" that had aired from 1988 to 2020.

Whitenack's research team says that their findings show Discovery's "Shark Week" actually pushed negative messaging about sharks, which they call "fearmongering," and many of the "experts" featured on the programming were "white male non-scientists."

Shark Week is a high-profile, international programming event that has potentially enormous influence on public perceptions of sharks, shark research, shark researchers, and shark conservation," the study's abstract says. "However, Shark Week has received regular criticism for poor factual accuracy, fearmongering, bias, and inaccurate representations of science and scientists."

One co-author of the study, David Shiffman, said that "Shark Week" programming had "more white experts and commentators named 'Mike' than women," according to WaPo. Shiffman reportedly mused that perhaps "maybe it’s not an accident anymore that they’re only featuring white men."

Over 90% of "Shark Week's" 229 experts were white, the study says, adding that 78 percent of the experts were men.

Marine biologist and co-founder of "Minorities in Shark Sciences" Carlee Bohannon praised the study for "putting numbers to her and her colleagues’ long-standing concerns about diversity in both the media and shark science," the article says.

We all grew up seeing one type of person on TV... 'Shark Week' was really the biggest thing, and it was always filled with white men," Bohannon reportedly said.

Diversity in people brings diversity in thought, which ultimately brings innovation,” Bohannon added, according to WaPo. “Being able to see someone who looks like you in this field really has an impact."

Discovery reportedly didn't respond to WaPo's request for comment on the study, but the company did tell NBC Boston in 2021 that it would not comment on research "that has yet to pass any scientific approvals" when the study's preliminary version was presented. Since then, the study has undergone a scientific review, Whitenack told WaPo.

The study does admit that "Shark Week" contains "limited conservation messaging" in the analyzed episodes and says "relatively small" changes are all that's needed to improve the presentation of "shark science" to public audiences.

Results suggest that as a whole, while Shark Week is likely contributing to the collective public perception of sharks as bad, even relatively small alterations to programming decisions could substantially improve the presentation of sharks and shark science and conservation issues," the study says at the end of its abstract.

"Shark Week" usually appears on television every year in July or August. In 2022, "Shark Week" aired on July 24-30.