VIDEOLIGHTS

©2008 Roger Roth

Shark Week ‘08

            In 1975, Peter Benchley produced a movie entitled “Jaws” that stunned the world and instilled fear in most everyone who watched the movie.  Peter has since almost regretted the outcome he created and has worked diligently to turn around many misconceptions about sharks.  His efforts have also led to a widespread awareness of sharks and shark behavior that has snowballed and finally begun to replace fantasy with fact.

Knowing that sharks are endangered as apex predators in the oceans, and knowing their demise would set off a total imbalance in the marine food chain, it’s good to see TV programs educating the public about sharks.  Discovery Channel’s Shark Week has been a forerunner in producing numerous programs about sharks, their place in the ocean environment, their behaviors, as well as what shark diving is all about.  These programs have become instrumental in painting more realistic pictures about sharks so that people can care more for them instead of hate them and hunt them for no good reason.

In Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe has learned how to repair a “torn” chain mail suit used to protect divers on shark dives.  Then he wore the suit that he repaired so that he could participate in a shark dive and allow the sharks to wrap their jaws around his arms and hands.  As much as this show was produced to create a sense of danger while diving with sharks, he was also able to show that with the right precautions, diving with sharks isn’t necessarily as dangerous as some people might think.

In another episode, Mike travels with scientists towards the Arctic Circle in search of the Greenland shark to learn more about this large, slow-moving shark.  Mike helped tag and release a Greenland shark so that it could be tracked.  This knowledge can help with a bigger picture of the ecological changes in that part of the world as well as this sharks place within the ecosystem there.

The Mythbusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, stayed true to their style by doing tests to see what might attract sharks, whether it might be dogs or a flapping injured fish.  They also looked into what might repel sharks testing things like chili powder and electric current.  (Unfortunately, I don’t think they tested whether exhalation bubbles would repel a shark’s bite, but from personal experience, I personally think they do.)  They even built a large enough robo-shark for Jamie to put himself in its jaws to see if a person could punch the eye of a shark while being thrashed around in a shark’s mouth.

Survivorman’s Les Stroud studied Caribbean Reef Sharks and Great White Sharks to test survival techniques when in shark-infested waters.   One technique he tested was whether it’s better to swim away or remain still, and found that remaining still seemed to work best.  He also found that it’s better to remain in a group rather than tread water alone.

In other programs, new and better types of chain mail were tested and stories were told about actual survivors of shark attacks that didn’t have protective suits.  They discussed what things helped their survival and suggested why these things helped.  All in all, these programs are interesting, educational, and most importantly of all they bring attention to a need for more conservation efforts for sharks of all kinds.

Having logged close to 30 hours diving specifically with sharks, I’ve seen and filmed everything from sharks acting as tame as puppy dogs to shark frenzies that have turned truly dangerous (fortunately with no one getting hurt).  My shark diving experience began with nurse and Caribbean Reef Sharks, progressed to Blues and Silkies, and also included white tips, silver tips, black tips and others not so well-known.  I’ve dived with sharks during the mornings, afternoons, and even at night using regular scuba tanks as well as rebreathers.

One Discovery Channel program tested whether sharks would be attracted or repelled by night lights on night feeds.  They seemed to find that sharks were in fact attracted to night lights.  I had one night experience where a juvenile shark was attracted (or bothered) by my video lights and made continual aggressive passes at me until I turned the lights off.

However, when I did a night feed and shoot with a Brazilian TV filmmaker at Stuart Cove’s years ago, we couldn’t keep even one shark around once we turned our lights on.  Since the above-mentioned show was also filmed at Stuart Cove’s I emailed Stuart to ask his opinion on the show’s finding reminding him of our own uneventful night feed at the same site they do day feeds and always attract sharks.  Stuart’s photo pro emailed me back relaying that sometimes on night dives the lights will repel the sharks and sometimes they’ll attract them.

My Blue Shark dives began in a cage, but within 90 seconds of being inside a bouncing cage, I motioned to the captain (who was outside the cage) that I was getting outside the cage and would shoot more comfortably from there.  The Blue Sharks seemed to have personalities much like most Caribbean Reef Sharks, being more curious than aggressive.  Staying relatively close to the cage, I got some great shots showing this curious nature that so many sharks exhibit.

With that said, I’ve also dived with a renegade school of Caribbean Reef Sharks in the Exuma Islands that have been documented as being more aggressive than most other Caribbean Reef sharks.  They approached much closer than I’d ever experienced before and they remained around even after the bait was gone, which isn’t found to be the case on most shark dives.  Sharks in this school were also ones I filmed during a frenzy where all hell broke loose.

With all this good press in favor of conservation for sharks, there are still a few programs out there that seem to be counter-productive.  ESPN and Disney are seemingly “violating their own code of ethics by continuing their involvement in the broadcast of the Quiznos Madfin Shark Tournament on ESPN2.”  For more information on this go to

http://www.divephotoguide.com/articles/disney_responds_regarding_shark_tournament_involvement

Sea Ya!

Critter corner: Sharks are killed at a rate of over 270,000 per day which adds up to over 100 million annually.  There are numerous conservation programs that divers can participate in that will help curtail over-fishing, habitat destruction, and the overall decimation of shark populations.  Get involved!

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