NEWS DAILY

00:07 COMM: With terrifying speed, a great whiteshark attacks another great white, something that's rarely seen. And even more rarely caughton camera. 00:29 COMM: On a diving trip to learn more aboutgreat white sharks, Adam Malski gets plenty of up close experience with the ocean's mostformidable predator. 00:44 COMM: From the safety of his cage 20 metresbelow the surface, the sharks he encounters seem more inquisitive than aggressive. 00:55 COMM: But later when Adam is back on the boat,the species reasserts it's fearsome reputation as just feet from his camera a large greatwhite brutally attacks a smaller one. 01:12 COMM: Did the bigger shark deliberately targetthe smaller one? Or had it committed itself to striking the bait trailing from the boat,and on reaching the surface find the other shark in it's line of attack?01:23 COMM: While great whites tend to avoid conflict,cannibalism is not unheard of. Deliberate or not, the shark on shark attack is stillan incredible attack to have caught on camera.

 

In the Galapagos Islands, during certain times of the year, large aggregations of ScallopedHammerheads come together to circle around Darwin Island.  Scalloped Hammerheads normallylive in the open ocean, but here at Darwin Island they come close to shore in large numbers. Considering the vast numbers of fish here, it would be logical to assume that the sharkscome to feed.  Yet, nobody has ever witnessed the sharks feeding.  Instead they just seemto be swim slowly by the reef.  What are these sharks up to?I'm hoping to find out.  I have come all the way to the Galapagos Islands to investigatethese strange and magnificent sharks. The Galapagos Islands are a remote archipelago 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador in thePacific Ocean. Many incredible animals live here, both above and below the water.  It is famous for thelargest fish on Earth—the whale shark—which inhabits these waters.  But divers also flockhere to see hammerheads—and lots of them!Hammerheads are most common at the northern island of Darwin, famous for its stone arch. Rolling into the water, my assistant Gator and I head down to the reef to wait for thesharks. Soon a huge school is swimming by my lens. Hammerheads are of course known for their strange, flattened heads.  But you have towonder. . . what is that flat head for?Shark biologists put their own heads together to figure it out.  At first, they speculatedthat it gave the hammerhead wider stereoscopic vision.  But that didn't work: hammerheadeyes face in opposite directions, meaning they can't see in stereo.  The wide headprobably has nothing to do with eyesight. So maybe it has to do with the sense of smell.  Wider spaced olfactory organs would help thehungry shark sniff out prey more accurately. Well, not really. Although the nostrils and olfactory organs are widely spaced, a groove along the frontof the head effectively connects them together.  Therefore, they don't give the hammerheada better sense of directional smell than any other shark. Scientists finally hit upon a graceful reason for the awkward head: It helps the hammerheadturn faster by eliminating the need for large pectoral fins. Some sharks, like white tip reef sharks can rest all day if they want, just gulping waterto ventilate their gills, the shark equivalent of breathing. Hammerheads, on the other hand, cannot accomplish this.  Like most pelagic sharks, they mustkeep swimming not only to stay up off the bottom, but to breathe.  In an ironic twistof fate, if a hammerhead stops swimming, it will drown.  The big flat head is a wing tokeep the hammerhead up off the bottom. Researcher Kanesa Duncan at the University of Hawaii is studying Scalloped hammerheads. She catches the sharks when they are just pups, only a few weeks old, in Kaneohe Bayon Oahu. She uses a hand line and a barbless hook baited with squid to catch the baby hammerheads. By holding the shark upside down, she places it in a kind of trance called Tonic Immobility. Many sharks can be immobilized for handling in this way.  Nobody knows why it works, butit makes shark handling a lot easier. She frequently puts the pup back in the water to aerate the gills. Once aboard the boat, she first measures the shark while an assistant records the data. KANESA: PCL is 38. 3.  Fork Length: 42. 7.  Total length: 56. 5.  It's going to be tag number2315. Next she implants a small visual tag with a number on it through the shark's dorsalfin.  This does not hurt the shark at all.  The fin is almost completely made of cartilage. Next, she weighs the pup. KANESA: 750 on the dot. Finally, Duncan releases the baby hammerhead back into the ocean.  Hopefully, she will catchit again in a few months and be able to determine how much it grew. Back at the lab, Duncan has several captive hammerhead pups that she is working with todetermine growth patterns.  She wants to learn, among other things, how fast baby Hammerheadsgrow. But I still want to know what they are all doing at Darwin Island in the Galapagos, andI finally get a clue when I see a shark being investigated by a fish. The strong current at Darwin Island allows a hammerhead to swim in place, like a runneron a treadmill, yet hold a fixed position over the reef. King Angelfish make their homes on this reef and they serve as cleaner fish for the sharks. Because the sharks get cuts and scrapes, not to mention parasites, that need cleaning,they come to a cleaning station where a King Angelfish is waiting to clean the wounds andeat the parasites.  Everyone gets something out of the deal. . . theangelfish get food and the sharks get cleaned.  The sharks never eat their cleaner fish. . . that'sjust considered bad form. A shark looking to be cleaned often swims at an angle, with its white belly showing. This body language tells the angelfish to come on over. Angelfish looking to clean a shark swim up and down in the water to attract the shark'sattention.  Often, something seems amiss to the sharkand it rebuffs the fish.  The sharks feel vulnerable while they are being cleaned, so they picka cleaning station carefully.  If anything doesn't seem right, they move on. But patience pays off and eventually the right shark meets up with the right fish in theright place, and everything goes according to plan.  It's love at first bite. Sometimes a really grungy shark needs a whole team of angelfish to complete the task. Darwin Island is one of my favorite places in the whole world to dive, and hammerheadsare one of the most beautiful sharks in the ocean.  But alas, the dive must come to anend and we head back to the surface.  I'm sad to leave but happy to have learned the secretbehind the mysterious school of hammerheads here in the blue waters of the Galapagos.

Hi, I'm Jonathan Bird and welcome to my world!Sharks are perhaps the most misunderstood animals in the ocean. In spite of the factthat people are only very rarely attacked by sharks, they suffer with a bad reputation. While the world’s largest shark, the whale shark, is known to be harmless to people becauseit’s a filter feeder, other sharks have been known to attack people occasionally. The Tiger shark and the White shark are two of the largest so-called “man eaters,”and they have an equally large bad reputation for being extremely dangerous to people. But what if I told you that these are not the most dangerous sharks? In fact, statistically,the most dangerous shark in the world is probably the Bull shark. It might seem hard to believe. The Bull shark looks just like a reef shark, but a littlebigger. It doesn’t seem all that intimidating. So what’s the big deal?As it turns out, Bull sharks are responsible for more documented attacks on people thanany other species of shark. The famous blockbuster movie Jaws, about a man-eating Great White shark was the big-screenadaptation of Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel of the same name. It was actually inspiredby a true story. In 1916, there were several people killed by one or more sharks off New Jersey in thespan of two weeks. At the time, most people suspected a Great White shark. But one of the attacks occurredmore then ten miles up a river, and white sharks are not known to venture that far fromsalt water. It’s much more likely that the attack came from a Bull shark. The Bull shark is the only species of shark that regularly moves between salt water andfresh water. In fact, it has been caught by fishermen more than 500 miles up the MississippiRiver…in Illinois!Shark attacks are rare, and most often they are believed to be a case of mistaken identitysince attacks on swimmers often occur in shallow, silty water where the shark has a hard timeseeing its prey. Nonetheless, Bull sharks are considered extremely dangerous animals under some conditions. Which is why I was so excited when my friend Jorge Loria from Phantom Divers in Playa delCarmen invited me to come film these sharks! He’s hand-feeding them!I fly on down to Mexico, landing in Cancun, then heading south to Playa del Carmen—abeach-lover’s paradise, and my favorite place in the world for cenote diving!But this time I’m not diving the cenotes. I’m heading out to a secret dive site inthe ocean—hopefully filled with sharks. Big sharks. I make my way over to Phantom Divers to meet my old buddies Jorge and Charlie. “Hey Jorge! Charlie! How ya doing? You guys ready to film some sharks?”Charlie and Jorge have been feeding Bull sharks for a few years and they give me a few tipson what to expect and the best way to film it. And of course, some safety tips!It’s very important, never lose sight of that bait. Don’t have the bait and be lookingthis way. You have got to be looking at the bait the whole time. Because it could be theshark comes the other way. Usually they come from the front. My wife Christine and I head down to the beach to climb aboard the Phantom Divers boat. Then it’s off to the dive site on a beautiful sunny Mexico day! (Music up)Before long we have reached dive site and Charlie suits up in his stainless steel sharksuit. He’ll drop down a few minutes before the rest of us to get the chumming startedin advance. This saves us some bottom time for filming. Now the rest of us get suited up and prepare to dive. As usual when diving with sharks,I cover up to I don’t have much skin showing. Well, lets go see some sharks!I descend towards the bottom through crystal clear warm water and eventually end up ona sandy sea floor at a depth of 80 feet. A stingray glides past—it can smell the fishCharlie brought down. Jorge takes over for Charlie and hand feeds a growing school of hungry mouths. I stayback a ways so I won’t spook the sharks. I know it’s hard to believe, but our scubabubbles are loud and scary to sharks. It doesn’t take long for the first couple of Bull sharks to arrive, but they keep theirdistance, not sure what to expect from us. A few minutes later, they approach Jorge closer to see where the yummy smell is coming from. But they are not ready to trust him enough to take the fish from his hands. Even the stingray has managed to procure a snack from Jorge. I’m starting to thinkthese sharks are wimps!At last the first shark makes her move. She takes the fish right from Jorge’s hand. The next shark actually misses the fish, and doesn’t have the maneuverability to turnaround and get it, so she finally gives up and goes around again. Now that the sharks have figured out that we are not a threat, I can move a little closerto Jorge for filming, and the sharks won’t mind. Jorge’s steel mesh gloves protect him from the sharks’ teeth just in case his fingersget too close to their mouths. Cameraman Tim has floated up above the action for the Bird’s eye view. The sharks have a voracious appetite. They keep eating until we are out of fishy snacks. I can’t help but notice are monstrous they are compared to a diver. Bull sharks mightlook like reef sharks, but they get a lot bigger!At last we have reached our bottom time limit and it’s time to ascend towards the surface. While we do a safety decompression stop near the surface, the sharks come up to investigate. Clearly they have overcome their apprehension about us. In fact, it kind of seems like theydon’t want to see us go. Jorge has one last piece of fish and he offers it to the sharks as a parting gift. At the end of an exciting dive like this, I can’t help but be totally pumped!Whoa! Those sharks are huge! I can’t believe I’m going to get a chance to feed them. Later, back at the dive shop, I chat with Jorge and Charlie about what I’ll be doingtomorrow—wearing the chain mail shark suit!Have you ever worn chain mail before?No, never. Well, these things are very heavy, they are about 30 pounds for the full suit. So we’regoing to put on the suit. It’s very important that you put your boots over the suit, becauseif not, on the boat it’s super slippery and you can hurt your ankle like I did yesterday. Okay, good advice!So put the boots on, and when we go in the water, it’s very important that you puta lot of air in your BCD, so you can sink like a rock. When we get to the bottom, completelydeflate that BCD and I’m going to start the feeding part, you know, so the sharksget close to us, and once we’ve got the action, I’ll hand the chum bucket to you. Me and Charlie will be right behind you. You’ll be fine man. I’ll be fine. I’m gonna wear chain mail man, that’s gonna be so cool!The next morning we head back to the same dive site, on another beautiful, flat calmday. Boy do I love diving in Mexico!Once again Charlie gets in first with his container of bait, to get the action startedin advance, while I learn how to put on the chain mail. The chain mail suit is made of thousands of interlocking rings of stainless steel whichform a kind of fabric. It’s super flexible, but the sharp teeth of a shark can’t bitethrough it. Unfortunately it weighs 30 pounds, so I will sink like a rock when I hit thewater if I’m not prepared. Jorge of course is diving with me, as is a shark biologist named Mauricio Padilla, whowill be attempting to take a tissue sample from a shark!“One, two three!”I sink rapidly down to the bottom in my 30 pound shark suit. When we arrive, Jorge hands me a piece of fish and now it’s my job to entice the sharksover. We were feeding yesterday so it doesn’t take them as long to come over. As I wave my piece of fish around, Mauricio is behind me, waiting for his chance to takehis tissue sample. Soon a big Bull sharks comes up and takes a close look at the piece of fish I’m offering. She likes what she sees because she makes another pass around and takes it gently frommy hand. Jorge takes a turn next, while I grab another piece of bait. Then I feed again, and the shark makes a nice close pass to a few other divers that arewatching. The sharks are calm and relaxed, just like us. All this time, Mauricio has been hanging back, watching the sharks and making notes. He knowswhich shark he needs the tissue sample from and now it’s time to make his move. He has with him a spear gun. But instead of a spear, it has a special tip designed tograb a tiny sample of skin and muscle from a shark. The heavy chain mail makes my job really easy, I’m planted on the bottom!Mauricio has to be patient. The shark has to be really close because its skin is sotough. He has a camera mounted on the speargun so he can identify the shark later. At last the right shark comes close…and Mauricio fires!The gun camera footage shows perfect aim. The tissue sample came right from the thickskin at the base of the dorsal fin. The shark absolutely feels a pinch, but the sample does not harm the animal, and in factshe comes around and feeds again. Inside the tip of this instrument is a tiny sample the shark’s tissue that will be usedto learn what these sharks normally feed upon, and if they are interbreeding with other populationsof Bull sharks around the Caribbean. Later, a chat with Mauricio about his research project. Bull sharks are only one of the specieshe is studying in Mexico. He shows me the tissue sample we got. So this is the core, and you can see the muscle. That’s the red thing, that’s the muscle. And also we have the skin. We are going to do two kinds of analysis. With the skin, geneticanalysis, in order to know if this population is related with other populations. And withthe muscle, we are going to do an analysis that is called Stable Isotope Analysis. Withthat, you can know if the sharks when they are here are feeding on Coronado or remorasor whatever. So how many have you taken so far?Eleven. That’s probably not enough to learn much yet. No, we need at least 30. Mauricio’s sampling program, combined with some satellite tagging, is already sheddingsome light on the mysteries of the Bull shark. And Jorge’s hand feeding is helping to dispel some myths about these sharks. Well, there ya go. I fed the most dangerous sharks in the world. Man eaters? What do youthink? I don’t think so. In fact, I had so much fun, I’m going to go see them again.