Shark Week: Inside the First Trip to Cuba [Video] Shark Week: Inside the First Trip to Cuba Mandi Bierly Yahoo TV• July 7, 2015 Seventy years ago, a great white measured at 21-feet long was captured off the coast of Cuba. The largest white shark ever caught, it was dubbed “El Monstruo.” In the new Shark Week special Tiburones: Sharks of Cuba (premiering July 7 at 10 p.m. on Discovery), a joint U.S.-Cuba expedition ventures into the largely-untouched waters, which are home to more than 50 shark species, to search for another mega shark and gather intel that will be used to inform Cuba’s first ever national plan of action for the conservation of sharks. Cinematographer Andy Casagrande, a Shark Week vet who worked on half of this year’s new specials, was there to film those dives and spoke to Yahoo TV about the historic trip, which took a year and a half of paperwork to arrange. Related: Shark Week: Inside ‘Bride of Jaws,’ the Search for Joan of Shark You’ve been filming sharks for 15-plus years.

At this point in your career, how exciting is it to go to a place you’ve never been — and end up filming a shark for the first time, the elusive longfin mako (which become only the second of its species to ever be tagged)? It was amazing. Just getting the call, “Hey, Andy, do you want to go to Cuba for Shark Week?” I was like, “Well, wait a second, I don’t even think that I’m allowed to go to Cuba as an American.” They’re like, “No, no, we got it sorted. We got the permits. We got the Visas. It’s good to go.” This is sort of a dream come true. I’ve done a lot of really amazing projects around the world, but to be honest, I often go back to the same places: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Mexico, Bahamas, New Zealand — it keeps continuing through that cycle. To have this new location, this sort of pristine, unspoiled paradise that’s full of sharks — on top of just being able to go to a place where previously we weren’t allowed — was just amazing.

To be able to encounter a shark that’s incredibly rare and be a part of a research project involving Cuba and America was just an all-around awesome experience. It was breaking down the barriers, all in the name of sharks and Shark Week. For me, it’s like, wow, I don’t have to be some U.N. worker or some news journalist, I can be a wildlife cameraman and do these amazing things that inspire people. I think people will like it because most of America has never had the opportunity to go to Cuba or really see what it’s like there. You often hear Cuba referred to as, “Oh, man, it’s like frozen in time 50 years ago.” What’s cool about the underwater world is it’s very similar. Because they’ve had so few divers from the States coming in like you get in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos — people come in constantly and it’s a very touristic attraction — here it’s very rustic and off-the-beaten path, so to speak. Because you’re in Cuba, you don’t have the kind of boats you’d normally use — nor do you have any cages. You dive in and immediately encounter large silkys.

You’ve been cage-less with great whites, so this is probably nothing too crazy for you. But how did the rest of the team react? Because I’ve done a lot of diving with sharks without cages, I was pretty comfortable there, but a lot of the scientists don’t have as much in-water experience. They spend a lot of time in the lab and writing the papers. They do some field work, but as a cameraman, I think I spend a lot more time underwater with the animals than a lot of scientists do. I was filming the whole scene, and I see these divers and the silkys, and then I noticed, “Wait a second, all the silkys just disappeared, and these two big remoras just showed up.” I know that remora hang on to very large predators, and they were too big to be hanging on to any of the silky sharks, so something big had moved into the area. Read More Often the remoras will peel off and check things out, and then go back to their host.

I definitely thought, “OK, something big is around here, and the water is getting murkier, the sun’s going down, multiple people in the water…” I just thought it was common sense that we had enough footage, and if the shark was gonna show up, we’ll wait around a little bit, but with the visibility decreasing it’s not a good idea to be in the water where potentially a very big great white is hanging around. One of the most memorable sequences in the special is when local divemaster Noel Lopez Fernandez starts using his technique (grabbing a shark by its tail, bending the tail gently, and rubbing its belly to sedate it) so the scientists could successfully tag a shark in Cuba for the first time ever. I had seen people put sharks in tonic before, but mainly sharks in the Bahamas where they’re baiting the sharks and bringing them in for tourists — they’re almost conditioned to come in and go through these interactions. But in a place like Cuba, where they do have some tourism but nothing to the scale of these other locations, it was funny. I actually convinced the scientists [to give Noel a try].

At first, they were catching a lot of these [Caribbean reef sharks, too small for the satellite tags], and I said one night over dinner, “I’ve been hearing these stories about Noel being this shark whisperer and being able to put these sharks in tonic. Why don’t we let him work his magic and see if we can non-evasively tag these sharks, as in not have to hook them and pull them out of the water.” We convinced the scientists that it sounded like a good idea. It was awesome. But when they got the first shark into tonic and tried to pierce the shark’s skin with the tag, it woke up and freaked out and swam away. We were a little bit like, “OK, maybe this is not gonna work.” But when they finally all did it, it was pretty joyous, glorious, or whatever. [Laughs.] I was definitely excited because it was just a nice change of pace, working with a different shark species, not just great whites, which I’m often focused on. To me, it was just an all-around awesome trip. Plus, tack on some mojitos, and Cuban cigars, and good food — it was pretty amazing. Were you worried for Noel’s safety?

You said in the special that you’d never seen silkys this large before. They’re not used to being around humans. Noel’s a pretty big guy, too. I wasn’t too worried. Most of the time, when sharks are in one of these situations, they generally try to flee. They can, of course, lash out in defense and swing back and try to bite someone. That was definitely on our radar. But sharks, although they can be dangerous, they’re generally not malicious. In my opinion, they’re never malicious. They’re just simply predators trying to survive. I think it was worth some of the risks, and Noel is kind of known as the shark whisperer there, so he knew what he was doing, and it was an honor to be there to film and capture some of this historic, groundbreaking stuff between America and Cuba and Shark Week. Hopefully it opens up further doors for other wildlife projects and other shark projects down there. I’m based in Florida, and it’s very, very close to me. 5 Shark Species That Should Be Revered, Not Feared - EcoWatch 5 Shark Species That Should Be Revered, Not Feared Jul.

04, 2016 02:11PM EST LIKE ECOWATCH ON FACEBOOK Newsletter By Diana Tarrazo This week is the Discovery Channel's highly-anticipated Shark Week , which features programs about one of the ocean's top predators. The week's star-studded cast includes the great white and the tiger shark , which are featured in programs with names like The Killing Games,Deadliest Shark and Wrath of a Great White Serial Killer. In the spirit of Shark Week, we've compiled a list of five lesser-known shark species that are nevertheless important members of our oceans' ecosystems. Photo credit: SolarSeven / Shutterstock While these skin-crawling names might make you tune in for a night filled with bloodthirsty man-eaters, they're dangerously misleading. The vast majority of sharks don't deserve their bad reputation —of the 400 species of sharks , only a handful pose any real threat to humans. In fact, with more than a third of all shark species at risk of extinction from commercial fishing, bycatch and habitat degradation , sharks are usually the ones who need protection—from us.

In honor of shark week, we've compiled a list of five delightfully strange shark species that prove these amazing creatures should be revered, not feared. 1. Goblin Shark Goblin shark. Photo credit: Dianne Bray / Museum Victoria Though it didn't get a casting call for the movie Jaws, the goblin shark may edge out the great white shark thanks to its terrifying jaws. This bizarre shark is widely distributed, swimming in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans and its soft, flabby, bubblegum-pink body can reach up to 12 feet in length . It also boasts highly protrusive jaws bursting with needle-sharp teeth meant to trap, not slice. In fact, this is one of the only species of sharks whose teeth are visible even when its mouth is fully closed. When the goblin shark is ready to feed, it inches toward its prey, stopping when its lunch swims just out of reach. Then, the shark makes its killer move, extending its jaw three inches out of its mouth to trap its meal. Your odds of catching one of these sharks in action, however, are slim.

The goblin shark eludes human eyes with its affinity for the deep-sea, swimming at depths of more than 4,265 feet and only rising near the surface at night. There are very few recorded observations of these curious creatures and the bulk of scientific knowledge about these sharks is the result of their accidental capture in fisheries. 2. Dusky Shark Dusky shark. Photo credit: Richard Ling Weighing in at around 400 pounds, the dusky shark is one of the largest shark species to call the U.S. Atlantic coast its home. As formidable long-distance swimmers with major wanderlust, the dusky shark's seasonal migrations can take it on sea voyages that can top 2,000 miles. Its strength extends to its jaws, possessing one of the most powerful bites of any shark species. But in spite of their bite, dusky sharks very rarely attack humans . Before regulations were enacted in 2000 to protect the dusky shark from being intentional capture, U.S. fishermen aggressively hunted the species to satisfy demand for shark fin soup and shark liver oil.

While the 2000 ban stopped direct hunting, thousands of dusty sharks are regularly caught as bycatch in commercial bottom longline fishing gear. This fishing method targets fish like tuna , groupers and snappers, but many other species, including dusky sharks, become trapped, too. As a result, the dusky shark population remains very low and the species' recovery is gravely imperiled. Government data suggests that as many as 4,000 dusky sharks are caught and discarded as bycatch each year. Last year, Earthjustice represented Oceana in suing the federal government to finally put an end to the overfishing of dusky sharks in U.S. waters. In May 2016, Earthjustice secured a major settlement victory : the National Marine Fisheries Service agreed to complete new rulemaking at developing measures to address dusky shark conservation. 3. Longnose Sawshark Sketch of a longnose sawshark. True to its name, the longnose sawshark has a long, flat snout protruding from its heads that closely resembles a saw blade flanked with large teeth.

Native to waters in southern Australia , these sharks aggressively move their saws from side to side, slashing at unsuspecting pray swimming by. While this saw makes for a daunting weapon, it is also a highly adapted sensory organ . The shark's snout is covered with specialized cells capable of detecting the small electric fields put out by other fish. When a sawshark detects fish hidden in the sand or mud of the seabed, it can use its saw to dig them out. Thankfully for us humans, these sharks prefer feeding primarily on small fish, squid and crustaceans. 4. Whale Shark Whale shark. Photo credit: Rich Carey / Shutterstock Reaching lengths of more than 40 feet (about the size of a school bus), whale sharks are the largest fish in the sea . Contrary to their name, whale sharks are not whales at all—they're sharks. But unlike their carnivorous counterparts, these are filter feeders . They gracefully swim with their mouths open and stretched as wide as five feet filtering tiny plankton and fish eggs out of the water. While their size alone can be alarming, these sharks are docile.

These gentle marine giants gracefully roam tropical seas and are distinguishable from other large marine mammals by the white spots that speckle their brown and gray sides. Much like human fingerprints, spot patterns on whale sharks display uniquely on each individual. This allows scientists and researchers to identify whale sharks based on their spot patterns using computer software originally made for mapping stars . 5. Frilled Shark Frilled shark. Photo credit: Criton With a long, serpent-like body and more than 25 rows of razor-sharp teeth , the deep-water frilled shark looks like it has come straight out of a horror movie. The frilled shark's ancestry dates back 80 million years and its prehistoric origins are clearly visible in its primitive shape. Scientists often refer to it as living fossil because it closely resembles species otherwise only known from the fossil record. Nearly all of this rare animal's relatives are long extinct . Humans rarely catch a glimpse of these shark serpents in their natural habitat—the dark waters up to 5,000 feet below the ocean's surface. Relatively little is known about this species, making it all the more mythical and mysterious.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE The Shark Attacks That Were the Inspiration for Jaws | History | Smithsonian Contact Privacy Policy Terms of Use The Shark Attacks That Were the Inspiration for Jaws One rogue shark. Five victims. A mysterious threat. And the era of the killer great white was born In 1916, a great white shark attacked five people near the Jersey Shore. (Library of Congress) smithsonian.com August 6, 2012 In the summer of 1916, panic struck the Jersey Shore. A shark sunk its teeth into Charles Vansant, the 25-year-old son of a Philadelphia businessman, out for an evening swim in the resort town of Beach Haven on July 1. A lifeguard pulled him ashore, but he quickly bled to death. Five days later, and 45 miles to the north, in Spring Lake, New Jersey, Charles Bruder, a young bellhop at a local hotel, met a similar fate. Then, something even stranger happened. The rogue great white traveled 30 miles north of Spring Lake and into Matawan Creek.

On July 12, Lester Stillwell, 11, was playing in the creek 16 miles inland when the shark attacked. A young man named Watson Stanley Fisher attempted to save the boy, but was fatally injured in the process. Joseph Dunn was luckier. The teenager, the shark’s fifth victim, was bitten in the creek less than a half-hour later and survived. The shark’s ferocious spree is said to have served as inspiration for Jaws—both Peter Benchley’s novel and Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster film. (Update: In 2001, however, Benchley denied the connection in a correction to a New York Times article.) Ichthyologist George Burgess calls it the “most unique set of shark attacks that ever have occurred.” He would know. As curator of the International Shark Attack File, kept at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Burgess is an expert on shark attacks. He presides over the archive, which includes case files for more than 5,000 attacks that occurred from the 16th century up to today.

When a shark strikes somewhere in the world, as one did in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, two weeks ago, Burgess and his colleagues “investigate much like a detective would investigate a crime.” They interview the victim and any witnesses, collect medical records and study photographs of the wounds to determine the size and perhaps the species of shark responsible. I recently spoke with Burgess about the circumstances surrounding the historic attacks of 1916. A photo from July 1916 of a man and his catch, a 300 pound 10 foot shark. (© Bettmann/CORBIS) The front page of the Evening Public Ledger (Philadelphia, PA), July 7, 1916. (Library of Congress) From the records that exist, what is your sense of how the general public reacted to the attacks? I see a common pattern around the world. When shark attacks occur, there is obviously shock. Then, the second phase is denial—denial that it was done by a shark. It has to be done by something else. The third phase is the feeling that if we shuffle it under the rug, maybe it will disappear.

The fourth phase is realizing that none of those things are working and that we probably need to go kill some sharks. Then, in the fifth phase, the reality sets in, finally, that that’s not the solution and we probably ought to bring in a scientist that knows what’s going on. The phases they went through in New Jersey were the same. These days, there is more of a level view of sharks. Back then, this was brand-new and terror-driven. In 1916, the rallying cry was “Let’s go kill some sharks!” People didn’t even know what predator caused the attacks at first, though, right? What were some of the theories? The thinking was it couldn’t be a shark, because we don’t have sharks here. It must be a sea turtle. Someone suggested it was a school of turtles that was coming in and biting things. Of course, turtles don’t school, and they don’t bite human beings, but it sounded good. A killer whale was suggested as well. The theories abounded and were allowed to get out unchecked into the media simply because there was not a forceful scientific authority that really knew what was going on to step right in and try to level the conversation.

There were a few scientists, regarded as experts, who weighed in. John Treadwell Nichols was a well-known ichthyologist at the American Museum of Natural History. He knew something about sharks. Then, there was the director of the New York Aquarium, Charles Haskins Townsend, who was a good ichthyologist as well. He knew his sharks and dealt with them in an aquarium. Robert Cushman Murphy, another American Museum of Natural History guy, was working with sharks in Long Island and knew something about what sharks were there and when. What were these scientists saying? They very accurately portrayed the suite of species that were found in the area. They knew some of the timing of when the species appeared. So, they went through the checklist the same way I did, frankly, with a bunch of media calling me about the recent Cape Cod attack. I said, look, here are basically the four species you are likely to see in this area. These two species are basically offshore species, and they only occasionally will wander into near-shore waters. You can probably eliminate those two. This one here is a ground shark that lives on the bottom and is not known to attack humans. We can probably eliminate that one.

That means that your most logical one is this species. They were doing that same kind of thing. One of them suggested that the white shark was the most likely candidate based on his knowledge of the sharks of the area and the habits of the shark. In order to see if sharks are following fishermen's boats, two shark experts use acoustic telemetry to see if the sharks have learned to associate the noise of a motor with the expectation of food. How would you describe scientists’ knowledge of sharks at the time? Very poor. Back in those days, sharks were basically unknown. There was little known about what was going on in terms of their movement patterns and their ecology. There were a lot of preconceptions out there that were quite erroneous, particularly in the public sector where the only source of information was anecdotal stories, newspapers and books, which usually portrayed the sharks in a negative way. Historically, money went to study those animals that were economically most important. There has always been money put into salmon, and there is money put into tuna and cod. Sharks, by contrast, never had a market per se and, in fact, had just the opposite.

They were eating these important food fishes and were therefore not only of no concern from a management standpoint but something we really didn’t want to have around. Those darn things are eating the good fish! As a result, research on sharks lagged far behind that of other fishes all the way until the 1990s. In newspaper accounts of the 1916 attacks, the shark is referred to as a “sea monster” and a “sea wolf.” Exactly. It is unfortunate when we still see remnants of that today. I’ll have a little game with you. You drink a beer every time you hear the expression “shark-infested waters.” See how drunk you get. Whenever a boat goes down or an airplane goes down, we hear that kind of thing. I correct folks all the time. Sharks don’t infest waters, they live in them. Lice infest; they are parasites. There is still bias in that sort of thought process today. What drew the shark close to shore for the attacks? One of the most popular theories was one that we hear today. That is, there is not enough fish for the sharks to eat, so therefore they are going to eat humans.

The people who are most likely to say it today are sport fishermen, who aren’t catching the same amount or the same size fish that they once did. Back in 1916, it was commercial fishermen who were saying it. It’s not a real defensible argument. There was a guy who wrote in to the editor of the New York Times saying that these sharks were following U-boats across from the Eastern Atlantic. It was almost an implication that it was a German plot. The world was at war in Europe and the anti-German sentiment was high. All kinds of strange things. Although it is hard to go back in time and always dangerous to make analogies like this, it could have been a shark that was either injured or had some sort of deformity. It became a deranged killer. We know, for instance, that lions or elephants, with injuries to their feet or a rotten tooth, have sometimes been implicated in attacks on humans because they are feeling pain from these other things. A same kind of thing can occur in a white shark. It is very unusual for sharks though. We don’t have very many instances in all of our studies on sharks where we can attribute multiple attacks to a single individual, the so-called rogue shark.

That theory was in vogue in the 1950s as a result of a researcher in Australia who pushed it, but it fell by the wayside since then, and the general feeling is that shark attacks are one-off kind of events. The 1916 shark attack spree began with an unsuspecting young man going for a leisurely swim off the Jersey Shore. What actions were taken in these New Jersey towns after the string of attacks began? On the coast, many communities put up fences around their beaches. Other communities put up money or rewards to people who could bring in sharks—so much a head per shark, which prompted a bunch of fishermen to go out and fish. Shark fishing became the rage. One of the newspapers declared it a new sport. It is like what happened when the book and the movie Jaws came out in the 1970s. It spawned a huge upswing in recreational fishing for sharks with fishing tournaments. There was this collective testosterone rush that occurred on the East Coast of the United States following those events because every guy wanted to go out and catch a shark, have his picture taken with his foot on the head of a shark and have a shark jaw hanging up in his house.

The rogue shark was ultimately caught, right? The final story was that a white shark was caught nearby. According to the newspapers of the time, it yielded body parts of two of the victims from Matawan Creek. The shark itself was put on display in somebody’s shop in New York and yielded a nice dividend of money for the owner, who charged so much per head to see it. The question we at the International Shark Attack File have is, how good was the report that the animal was, one, a white shark and, two, really had human remains that could be identified as those two people? Of course, we don’t have the benefit of the kinds of things we would have today, such as good photographs of that shark. We could have used photographs to confirm the species. Also, there was no coroner’s report to prove the human remains part. All we can do is believe what was said in the press at the time. The press identified it as a white shark. Did the 1916 shark attacks inspire Peter Benchley’s Jaws? Certainly, Benchley was aware of the 1916 stuff. As part of his book, he had done some looking back at the attacks.

It was inspirational to him in terms of getting the feeling of the social terror. The first Jaws movie was a masterpiece in capturing those feelings. The Steven Spielberg classic terrified millions in 1975, and decades later, the film still has teeth. Like this article? 6 Shark Attack Myths from 'The Shallows' 6 Shark Attack Myths from 'The Shallows' Before you get in the water this season, learn how to tell the shark-related facts from fiction in this new summer thriller. View Images Blake Lively stars in the summer thriller The Shallows, which aspires to be "Jaws for a New Generation." Photograph courtesy Sony Pictures On one level, The Shallows is not a bad survival film. Blake Lively plays a young woman reeling from family tragedy who finds solace through surfing and a secluded beach in picturesque Mexico… only to find her getaway morphed into a nightmare by a giant, man-eating shark. The film is more Cast Away or 127 Hours than Sharknado or Lake Placid, with a serious tone and decent production values. The film aspires to be "Jaws for a New Generation," according to its backers, Columbia Pictures.

But that comparison has some shark scientists madder than a great white on a line. "This is a film 40 years behind its time," says Francesco Ferrettii, a shark researcher at Stanford who has penned an open letter to Columbia criticizing the film, along with six other scientists from several institutions. "While this reference [to 1975's Jaws] no doubt works well to launch The Shallows, it is also a reference that deeply concerns us in the marine science community given the precarious state of global shark populations," the scientists wrote in their letter, noting that people kill an estimated 100 million sharks a year , driving a quarter of shark species to the status of threatened or worse. The late Peter Benchley himself, who wrote the book Jaws was based on, regretted doing so after it caused many people to fear and hate sharks. (See " Sizing Up Sharks .") "This mischaracterization spawned interest in popularizing recreational killing of sharks and bred apathy amongst the public regarding spikes in shark mortality associated with the global shark fin trade and bycatch of sharks in the commercial fishing industry," the scientists wrote. The same thing could result from The Shallows, they argue.

Of course, another interpretation is that the movie is actually a revenge story, with the shark striking back at the human race for everything we have done to their kind and the ocean. There is a detail in the film that supports this theory (we won't give it away), but it's also possible such a nuanced reading would be lost on the majority of people who head to theaters for escapism and a relief from the summer heat. This is Hollywood, folks, so we don't really expect everything on screen to behave as it does in the real world. Still, we thought it might be informative to look at some of the myths of shark attacks that the movie draws on. If nothing else, you might feel a little better when you step out onto the sand (or get into the bath, in the case of my friend's sister, who was terrified by the original Jaws.) Myth 1: Sharks Are Cold-Blooded Killers That Come After People Like the Terminator The idea of the shark intent on killing people can make exciting cinema, but it's far from reality, scientists caution.

"Jaws started at the boundary of reality and fiction, but it had nowhere else to go from there but down," says George Burgess , a shark attack expert at the Florida Museum of Natural History. "In an effort to one-up the last shark movie, they get more and more unreal." The reality is that most shark attacks are caused by relatively small sharks, says Burgess ( see where they happen ). Instead of seeking out people to munch on, they are chasing their usual prey, which in most cases is fish. People splashing around can confuse the sharks, who may take an exploratory bite. When they realize it is human flesh—yuck—they usually get the heck out of there. The few species of large sharks that do hunt man-sized prey, particularly tiger, bull and great whites (the species apparently featured in The Shallows), most likely bite people because we may act and look similar to seals, says Burgess. But the fact that sharks rarely take more than one bite also suggests they aren't satisfied with their choice, and are probably not trying to target us per se. Myth 2: Sharks Leap Out of the Water to Knock People Off Boats, Rocks, etc.

This is a common trope in shark attack movies, because it makes them extra scary. You're not even safe out of the water. But in reality, "we've never seen sharks do that," says Burgess. Great whites are known to hang out around the beach where seals are present, waiting for them to let their guard down. And they are sometimes seen leaping into the air to snag prey . But they don't grab them off the land. "Sometimes we see killer whales doing that, but that's a special behavior by a special animal, and one that has a lot more brain cells than a shark," says Burgess. Myth 3: Sharks Kill as Much as They Can as Fast as They Can In Wyoming in March, a wolf pack took down 19 elk in a "surplus killing ," in an effort that is thought to save up plentiful food for later use. But sharks aren't known to do that, says Burgess. In fact, sharks frequently lose much of their catch to other sharks. The idea that they would try to take out as many people as possible in quick succession is pure fiction, says Burgess.

Myth 4: You Can Avoid a Shark Attack by Hiding in Jellyfish This is unlikely, says Burgess, because shark skin is so tough (in fact, it is closely related to their teeth, and is where their teeth probably evolved from in the first place). "The only place where jellyfish might have an effect is if it got in their eyes, but most sharks have tough membranes they can close over them, so they wouldn't worry about that." Sorry, gringa. Myth 5: Surfers Are Fresh Meat Surfing can put people into closer contact with sharks, as can spear fishing, diving, and a few other activities. A person on a surfboard can resemble a seal from a distance, and it's true there have been some high-profile exploratory bites on surfers, even during major competitions . But studies show that a surfer in California has a 1 in 17 million chance of being bitten by a shark. "Your odds are higher of winning the lottery," the scientists wrote in their open letter. And thanks in part to education campaigns, the risk has been dropping . In California, the chances of a surfer being bitten have dropped by 91 percent over the past six decades, the scientists wrote.

( Get shark safety tips here .) Myth 6: Sharks Are Hell-Bent on Revenge The idea of the vengeful shark plays a role in the Jaws movies, and it may appear in The Shallows. Certainly, fish have a few bones to pick with human beings. But what's the reality? We know sharks can learn. For instance, those that are fed by controversial baiting dives may learn to associate people with free food. But the idea that they could hold a grudge or seek revenge is without evidence, says Burgess. "It's important that people remember fiction is fiction," he adds. "Sharks have much more to fear from us than we do from them." Comment on This Story Great White Shark - The Daily Catch | The Daily Catch | TerraMar Project Great White Shark Source: One Species at a Time/Ari Daniel - November 14, 2016 in Radio Photo: Elias Levy/Flickr (CC by 2.0) This mighty shark is often mistakenly thought of as the most voracious predator of the seas, and even has a reputation as a ferocious man-eater, something that sadly has been hugely exaggerated by the media.

Their powerful body is supported by a cartilaginous skeleton (as opposed to the bone skeleton of most other vertebrates), is streamlined for efficient movement through the water, and has a pointed snout, two large, sickle-shaped pectoral fins and a large triangular first dorsal fin. The mouth is armed with an array of sharply pointed, serrated teeth; indeed the generic name is derived from the Greek word carcharos for ragged and odon for tooth. These sharks are grey or bronze on the upper surface of the body and are white underneath. They have an acute sense of smell and are able to sense electric fields through sensors in the snout. To learn more about the Great White Shark, visit TerraMar’s species page and become its ambassador! Transcript: Ari: I’m Ari Daniel, and this is the One Species at a Time, the story of Earth’s biodiversity, one organism at a time. This time, we’re gonna talk about one of the most charismatic and well known predators out there: great white sharks. And for that, we’re going to Greg Skomal.

He’s one of the foremost shark experts in the world, and he works as a biologist just around the corner from me, with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Instead of me doing the interviewing, we’re gonna hear questions from students at two schools. Elliott Bennett’s Island Natural History class at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School in Massachusetts. And Jeff Danielian’s middle school biology classes at LaSalle Academy in Providence, Rhode Island. Alright, lemme turn this over to the students. Margaret: I was wondering how many great white sharks are in the wild today. Skomal: The problem with white sharks is we really don’t have good population assessment information. And therefore, it’s a very difficult question for us to answer, because the white shark, at least in the Atlantic, is so elusive that it’s hard for us to count them. Ashley: Hi, I was just wondering what great white sharks usually eat. Skomal: It depends on the age of the shark: what we found is that young white sharks feed primarily on fish and their teeth are very well adapted for grabbing fish. They have sharply pointed long teeth, not the typical teeth we think about with white sharks.

But when they get to be about 8, 9, 10 feet long, their teeth change in structure, and move from those sharply pointed long teeth to broader, serrated cutting teeth. And at this point in the shark’s life, it goes over to these larger prey items, which include marine mammals, whale carcasses, seals, sea lions. Jacob: I was wondering what eats them or what kills them? Skomal: Ah, what preys on great white sharks? What kills the apex predator? What kills the killer, if you will. Most likely, in the case of white sharks, it’s a bigger shark. So small white sharks are probably going to be attacked and killed by larger white sharks or larger sharks in general. We do also know that very large white sharks have been attacked by killer whales. Seneca: Do great white sharks mate for life? Skomal: There’s no evidence whatsoever that any shark species mates for life. White sharks, like most if not all species of sharks, mate with multiple individuals and there’s absolutely no fidelity to each other, and no parental care as well.

Yeah, the white shark is a nomadic animal that tends to travel alone and when it encounters a member of the opposite sex, and if it’s the right time of year, it will mate and then move on. Katie: Is there anything that swimming people should do or not do to avoid being attacked by a shark? Skomal: The probability of a shark attack is extremely low. But indeed there are steps people can take if you are concerned about shark attack. It really boils down to common sense. We know that attacks occur primarily at dawn and dusk. So one of the steps you can take is don’t swim during those transitional periods from daylight to nighttime when the lighting is very dim. Don’t swim alone. Don’t go far offshore alone. I mean, these are steps you want to take anyway. ’Cause the most dangerous thing in the water is not necessarily going to be the shark: it’s going to be tides and currents. And you want to make sure that you’re in a place where you are either with multiple people or at least being watched by somebody in case you run into some kind of dangerous situation. Kyle: What’s the biggest great white shark ever found? Skomal: The largest great white shark.

I mean, you get estimates of 25, 30 feet long. And of course, in the movie Jaws, it was a 30-foot great white shark, which is completely an exaggeration. The largest reliably measured great white shark was 21 feet long weighing several thousand pounds. I saw a photo of it, an old black and white photo. It was landed in Cuba, of all places. And there is about 30 people standing on the shark and around the shark. The people are sitting on this beast that looks like they’re sitting on a table or on the hood of a car. I say only 21-feet long, but that’s a big shark. So, you know a 21-foot long fish armed with teeth is a pretty formidable beast. Ari: That was shark researcher Greg Skomal. And the students asking those questions were Margaret Mahoney, Ashley Cimeno, Jacob Kusiak, Seneca Craig, Katie Mayhew and Kyle Mercer. Come visit us online if you want to hear about the kinds of dreams Greg Skomal’s had about great white sharks. Skomal: I must say, at times they border on nightmares.

Ari: We’ve also got a couple more questions and answers about great whites we couldn’t fit here. The Encyclopedia of Life has gathered information from all over the world to create the largest repository of species known to science. Their mission is to increase awareness and understanding of living nature through an Encyclopedia of Life that gathers, generates, and shares knowledge in an open, freely accessible and trusted digital resource. Shark Attacks Shark Attacks Go Dreaded Encounter Gore is something certain people are drawn to on the big screen, but an ocean full of blood has got to be a horrifying real-life situation. Before 1916 and the first episode of shark terror in New Jersey, the notion of a man-eating fish had not even entered anyone's mind. Today, shark attacks -- particularly those by Carcharodon carcharias, better known as the great white and whose Latin name derives from "jagged tooth" -- have become a popular horror-film and TV news topic, sometimes used to perk up an otherwise boring summer.

Andrea Lynch of Florida, 2007 attacked by a bull shark Surfer bitten by a great white Todd Endris's story was featured in the July 2008 issue of Reader's Digest for their estimated 3000 self-replacing serrated teeth White sharks are intelligent. They are also problem solvers, not just ravenous eating machines as Hollywood lore depicts them. Yes, they have multiple rows of replacement teeth and they are apex predators with no known enemies, but they are also powerful and majestic and sensitive, as well as being a kind of natural housekeeping force for the marine world. They frequent seas and oceans where water temperatures range from 54dF to 75dF (12C - 24C), but are known to venture inland along tributaries in search of their prey.

(Their large mass enables them to briefly sustain the effects of fresh water, with the inlet tidal exchange of fresh and salt water helping as well.) The very first famous "killer shark" of 1916, featured in an August 2001 Reader's Digest headliner titled "Jaws: The Prequel," made its way a mile and a half up the Matawan Creek with the ocean tide, where it came upon a swimming hole and a bevy of boys. (Read story here.) Preferring to feed on marine mammals once they grow toward maturity (12 feet plus), white sharks are frequently found in coastal shallows where seals, sea lions and elephant seals provide their primary source of fuel. Although classified as a "pelagic" or open-ocean fish, whites tend to concentrate near the coasts of Australia, California, South Africa, the northeastern United States, New Zealand and around the Mediterranean.

Architecture of the jaw of a great white with its rows of replacement snap-up teeth Visit for more The famous documentary Blue Water, White Death tells the story of a film crew that sought great whites in what is known as "the deep." All they found were oceanic white tip sharks, now nearly gone thanks to years of rampant over-fishing. Still, the sight of divers leaving their cages and their tireless attempts to capture close-up footage makes this documentary a shark-lover's classic. In the end, guess where they find Carcharodon carcharias, their coveted prize? Near Australia's Great Barrier Reef, in the coastal shallows, where food is always found. (Order DVD here.) In this video by Eric Cheng, watch tiger and bull sharks feeding in the Bahamas. Notice the nictating membrane that passes over the shark's eye for protection as it hunts. On the Radar Great Whites and other sharks are radar experts, thanks to a profusion of electroreceptors in the form of tiny jelly-filled black dots in their noses and heads that enable them to sense electromagnetic fields generated by living creatures around them. These dots are known as the ampullae of Lorenzini -- sensitive to one half of a billionth of a volt (source Wikipedia).

A white shark's sensors are accurate enough to detect the beating of a human heart. Ampullae of Lorenzini A white shark's nose is only used for scenting. To breathe, whites filter oxygen from the water through their gill slits. As it swims, the shark moves its head from side to side, literally forcing water through its nose and smelling what's around it in the ocean. A great white's warm-bloodedness allows it the working muscles to hunt other warm-blooded mammals like seals and sea lions. In the need to convert mammalian fat to squalene (shark liver oil), its digestive system does not fare well on muscle, gristle and bone. The plumper the prey, the better. The legend of the hungry shark that hasn't eaten for weeks derives from a white shark's search for the food that serves it best -- the whiskered pinniped, fattened from basking on rocks and the beach. This seal survived an attack by a great white (Click to enlarge) Just as white sharks frequent coastal shallows in search of seals and sea lions, their feeding patterns tend to follow the activity of their prey. Seals are early morning surface-water "fishers" themselves.

White sharks will cruise the shadowy bottom, camouflaged in its depths by their dark gray coloring, and scout for seals hunting at the surface. The entire ocean is busily catching -- all the way down the food chain. Three Kinds of Shark Attacks The movie Jaws terrified the masses who sat before the big screen, their adrenaline pumped by the trademark musical theme. But Carcharodon carcharias does not normally rip swimmers to pieces, sneaking up from beneath them with its giant gaping mouth and beady eyes. Yes, its serrated teeth are backed up with rows of replacements for those that break off. Yes, a shark tosses its head from side to side, tearing off its victim's flesh. And yes, it will circle and scope and come back once it has made its plan. All this is part of its nature, and we are at its mercy when we are in its world. By the year 2000, 80% of America's population had moved to within an hour's drive of the coast. More people than ever before now live closer to the ocean, and in their unfamiliarity with it, do not realize that it is truly a different realm.

The ocean operates on hierarchy, expediency and opportunity. Small fish hustle to escape bigger fish, birds swoop down from the air to catch prey, and marine mammals flop off rocks to feed themselves. Schooling (herding) keeps the odds of getting nailed much lower, which is why swimmers are advised to venture out in groups or pairs. There are shark sightings and shark attacks. Sightings can consist of a glimpse of a dorsal or tail fin, a vision of a shape beneath you in the water, or an actual encounter. Many encounters involve sharks that come closer for inspection or a look-see and then swim away. There are millions and millions of sharks in the ocean. And the ocean is enormous. Don't expect a shark to know what a human being is. They have the right to take a look, just as you like to see them on TV or in aquariums at the zoo. Shark tagged in Chatham, Mass. September 2009 Shark encounters are non-violent. A shark may cruise closer to or circle the object of its interest, its movement slow and leisurely. But that may only be Part 1.

Once a shark decides to strike, it summons up enormous speed, usually hurtling upward from the murky sea bottom. This is how sharks hunt seals who play around at the surface -- spotting them from below and moving in fast. However, the vast majority of shark encounters result in the shark swimming away. In fact, the entire number of shark attacks in the 20th century (that's 100 years) on the West Coast of the US was only 108, with only 8 incidents being fatal. Think about the numbers of car accidents and dog bites that we risk just walking about in our ordinary world ... those statistics are much, much higher. Shark attacks are generally considered to be provoked or unprovoked. "Provoking" means aggression or some action on the part of the human to engage the shark. If a shark pursues a human without having been engaged in some way and a strike ensues ... well, there you have an "unprovoked" shark attack. New terms for shark attacks have been popularized by the media in recent years: hit and run, bump and bite and the sneak attack. However, with built-in inferences, these terms may be more dramatic than accurate.

Researchers in the field of shark/human interactions prefer a different set of terms: mistaken identity, investigation and a territorial or displacement attack. When sharks attack humans, the five species most often involved are the great white, the tiger shark, the bull shark, the sand tiger and the oceanic white tip. Bull shark Shark Is Efficient Killer, but Picky Eater - The New York Times The New York Times Science |Shark Is Efficient Killer, but Picky Eater Search Continue reading the main story FEW animals have the power to frighten people into the cold terror of being eaten alive. But the great white shark does so effortlessly. Its reputation for blood lust is rooted in images of jaws gleaming with rows of razor-sharp teeth, their edges nicely serrated to ease the job of tearing through bone and flesh. Nature's great killing machine grows to lengths of 20 feet or more and is often viewed as crude and mindlessly malevolent, feeding just as heartily on humans as on fish, seals, whales and sea lions. But new research is challenging that notion and shedding light on the hidden life of the great white, revealing a finicky eater that may find people unpalatable.

Though it is pitiless with prey, lunging and slashing in red-stained water, the species can be quite civil among its own. Scientists have found what appears to be a ritualized competition over kills in which two great whites will forgo attacking one another for a genteel bout of slapping tails on the sea's surface. The biggest splash decides the winner. Such finesse stands in stark contrast to the raw violence among predators like wolves, which can engage one another in bloody fights to the death. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Over all, scientists say, great whites have been badly misunderstood, wrongly making them the demons of movies and nightmares. Some research has even found evidence that the killers, when thwarted in feeding, get visibly frustrated and agitated, perhaps even sad and dejected. ''We're dispelling myths and learning a lot about how they really live,'' said Dr. A. Peter Klimley, a biologist at the University of California Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay, Calif., who is a prominent expert on the infamous shark. ''They're not stupid feeding machines,'' he said. ''They're exquisitely adapted.'' Dr. Douglas J.

Long, a fish scientist at the California Academy of Sciences who studies great whites, said the new insights, while substantial, still left a greater number of riddles. ''For instance,'' Dr. Long said, ''we know virtually nothing about how and where they mate.'' Even as scientists seek to unravel the great white's biology, behavior and ecology, a political push is accelerating to protect the beast. The top predator of the sea, it appears to be declining in numbers because of assaults by sport fishermen as well as commercial interests serving a growing international market for white-shark jaws and teeth. California, South Africa and Australia have taken steps to try to save the great white, and other states and countries are considering such conservation efforts. Its numbers ''will inevitably dwindle unless prudent controls are enacted,'' Dr. Richard C. Murphy, a marine ecologist at the Cousteau Society in Chesapeake, Va., wrote in ''Great White Sharks,'' a collection of scientific reports published late last year by Academic Press. ''In addition to being increasingly rare,'' Dr. Murphy said, ''they are majestic preeminent participants in a complicated food web which we, as yet, only partially understand.'' The willingness and ability of humans to protect the killer, Dr.

Murphy said, ''are indicators of the economic, political and sociological health of our own species.'' The mythology of terror surrounding the great white is even wider and more ominous than the shark's jaws are in real life. In ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,'' Jules Verne tells how Professor Aronnax was taken by Captain Nemo for a global submarine tour, the two men finding themselves face to face with some of the razor-toothed giants during an underwater walk. Advertisement Continue reading the main story ''The blood froze in my veins,'' the professor said, as ''silver bellies and huge mouths bristling with teeth'' rushed out of the darkness. After a narrow escape, the professor later told his companions of reports that fishermen had cut open the stomachs of great white sharks and found a buffalo head, a whole calf and ''a sailor still in uniform.'' More recently, the beast achieved fame as the villain of ''Jaws,'' the best-selling book by Peter Benchley and the blockbuster movie by Steven Spielberg. Both featured a marauding great white that terrorized swimmers near crowded beaches.

The great white is ''firmly ensconced in the pantheon of sea monsters,'' Richard Ellis wrote in ''Monsters of the Sea,'' (Knopf, 1994). ''It is the largest predatory fish in the world,'' he said, with some specimens weighing ''as much as a full-grown rhinoceros.'' Sharks are ancient animals, long predating the dinosaurs and myriad types of modern creatures. Carcharodon carcharias, or ''ragged tooth'' in scholarly Latin, is found in temperate waters throughout the world's seas. To find prey, it has acute sensors known as lateral-line organs that apparently can detect disturbances in seawater at ranges of a mile or more. Closer to a victim (exactly how close is uncertain), its keen ears can hear thrashing, its sensitive nose can sniff blood, and its eerie black eyes can spy flesh. Powerful muscles send it lunging. The triangular teeth grow to lengths of two or more inches and are extraordinarily strong. Three layers of enamel crisscross in different directions so the teeth can better withstand impact as well as twisting and bending. If a tooth is lost, a replacement directly behind it will rotate forward in a day or so.

New teeth are constantly being formed in this replacement process. Judging from stomach contents, the beast can indeed devour prey whole, including other sharks and sea lions. Though one of its nicknames is ''man-eater'' (another is ''white death''), no one knows for certain if people are in fact a preferred food. Advertisement Continue reading the main story To explore such questions, scientists in the last decade have increasingly studied the beast's predatory habits. Dr. Klimley of the Bodega Marine Laboratory, working with Peter Pyle and Scot D. Anderson, did a pioneering study near the Farallon Islands, which lie some 30 miles west of San Francisco in one of the most productive fisheries on the West Coast. Video recordings were made of 129 great-white attacks on seals and sea lions, the assaults rich in explosive splashes in bloodstained water. An analysis suggested that a shark near the surface would bite its victim, drag it down bleeding, carry it underwater and perhaps take another bite, then let the carcass float upward. If the victim was still alive, the act might be repeated. The shark's aim, the scientists deduced, was to have the prey bleed to death as soon as possible, minimizing a violent struggle.

In an interview, Dr. Klimley noted that attacks on people often followed a similar pattern -- but the sharks, after dragging humans down, bleeding, often let them go. Dr. Klimley said white sharks might spit out humans, birds and sea otters because their bodies lacked the energy-rich layers of fat possessed by animals like seals and whales. ''If they ingest something that's not energetically profitable, then they're stuck with that for a few days'' of slow digestion, he said. ''Fat has twice the energy value of muscle.'' Dr. Klimley noted three recent attacks along the northern California coast near Bodega Bay in which people had been quickly let go. ''Can you imagine?'' he said. ''These sharks are seizing people and holding them very gingerly to make this decision. They strike and hold and release -- and that's for big sharks, three or four meters long.'' A meter is equal to 3.3 feet. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Worldwide, great white sharks attack people four or five times a year, perhaps killing one of them. An even more subtle side of predation involves the tail-slapping ritual, which Dr. Klimley discovered and has described.

One white competing with another over a kill will often twist its body to the side, lift its tail and slap the sea surface, often splashing water in the direction of the rival. ''A shark was permitted to feed further on a seal only if the vigor and frequency of its tail slaps were greater than those of its opponent,'' Dr. Klimley wrote in a paper on the ritual in the Academic Press book ''Great White Sharks.'' To study the shark's feeding habits, scientists are about to inaugurate a system of acoustic tags and buoys that will reveal the position of seals and great whites as they battle under the sea. The first-of-its-kind experiment is to begin this fall along the California coast near Santa Cruz and Ano Nuevo, a rocky isle that is the year-round home of 1,500 to 5,000 elephant seals. It and is a stop-and-shop for great whites. Twenty acoustic transmitters will be attached to as many sharks and elephant seals, and the underwater signals will be picked up by three electronic buoys and radioed to scientists on shore.

The work is financed by the University of California at Davis, which runs the Bodega Marine Laboratory, and the National Science Foundation, a Federal agency that supports basic research. Heading the investigation are Dr. Klimley, the shark specialist, and Dr. Burney J. Le Boeuf, a seal expert at the University of California at Santa Cruz. ''It's difficult to know what the predator is doing and the evasive tactics of the prey,'' Dr. Le Boeuf said in an interview. ''Now we have a chance to understand that very well. ''I think we can find out some fundamental things about this animal that have eluded us -- basic things like how many there are around a seal rookery. It's like a supermarket. The seals are coming and going at all times. So why don't the sharks live there all year round?'' Advertisement Continue reading the main story The speculation, Dr. Le Boeuf said, is that the great whites breed in the south and move north for easy feeding. ''But even so, once in central California,'' he said, ''how do they divide the food among themselves? We don't have a clue.

Whether it is the most dominant individuals and families, or more random, no one knows.'' Scientists say a better understanding of the life history of the white terror will ultimately help it survive the increasingly crowded seas of the next century. ''If we want to conserve them, we have to figure out where they go,'' said Dr. Long, of the California Academy of Sciences. ''There's still a lot of mysteries.'' There Are Other Sharks in the Sea | NRDC Scroll to the top There Are Other Sharks in the Sea Shark Week has been running for 28 years, and yet so many endangered sharks are still waiting for their close-up. July 08, 2015 Jason Bittel Great white shark I’ve been patiently waiting for a great white shark to separate my legs from my torso since my parents let me watch Jaws back in the early 1990s. The ocean, murky ponds, pools at night, suspiciously deep puddles—all these are the potential scenes for my gulping demise. Even now, just about any patch of dark water triggers a fight-or-flight reflex that I, as a rational adult, must work to suppress. I do not fear bull sharks.

Hammerheads, makos, and tigers likewise do not faze me. No, it is the great white that always haunts my imagination; it is the great white that will someday, somehow bisect me. It will be the first such attack Pittsburgh will ever see. All of which is to say that I understand why Discovery Channel’s 28th annual Shark Week is made up of mostly of great white shark programming. Tiburones: Sharks of Cuba, Island of the Mega Shark, Bride of Jaws, Return of the Great White Serial Killer—Shark Week’s schedule is full of the breaching beast. Great whites leaping, great whites eating, great whites chomping and gnashing and great white–ing so hard, it’s easy to forget other sharks even exist. Of course, that’s part of the problem. “It’s always amazing to see a 15-foot fish breach out of the water in HD on my big screen,” says David Shiffman , a PhD candidate at the University of Miami studying shark ecology and conservation.

“But there are more than 500 species of shark, and the ones that people have heard of are the ones that people care about, and that leads to conservation pressure and research funding.” A few quick searches on Google Scholar back this up. Choosing 1988, the year Shark Week debuted, as a start date, I looked up how many scientific studies had been published on some of the most popular shark species. Tiger sharks: 2,780. Hammerheads: 2,130. Bull sharks: 2,620. Great whites lead the pack with 4,010. Study numbers are far from conclusive evidence that watching great whites fly through the air leads to funding, but public awareness is unquestionably valuable. Take the dusky shark, one of the species featured below: 1,630 studies since 1988. Or the angel shark, a sea floor lounger with essentially no PR: just 581 studies. And it’s not that these species don’t need or deserve some attention—a full quarter of all shark, skate, and ray species are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species .

The beloved great white is on there, too, but the list is also rife with shark species that don’t get their own week of dedicated programming. Here are a few of my favorites. Whale Sharks (Vulnerable) Photo: Justin Henry/Flickr These spotted behemoths can grow to 40 feet long, migrate up to 5,000 miles to give birth, and subsist entirely on plankton and roe. Remind me again why the whale shark isn’t shoved down the throat of every kidnergartener in America? I’m serious. Our whole perception of sharks is based on the orgy of blood and the biting with the teeth and the “hey, hey, hey, it hurts me.” Shark attacks of any kind are exceedingly rare. Even the gap-toothed great whites of my nightmares only “nibble” on humans occasionally. You’re far more likely to be injured by a toilet (see "A Short Sampling of Things More Likely to Kill You Than Sharks," below). And whale sharks? These guys are the biggest dang sharks we’ve got—and among the most peaceful. So peaceful, in fact, that a whole slew of human terrors have filmed themselves riding, surfing, and otherwise harassing them .

People, this is why we can’t have nice things. According to the World Wildlife Fund , whale sharks are also victims of unregulated fisheries where they are sought for their meat, oil, and fins. Frilled Sharks (Near Threatened) Photo: Mario Sánchez Bueno/Flickr Frilled sharks live more than 5,000 feet below sea level, a depth well past where sunlight can penetrate. That we only caught our first glimpse of this species alive in its own habitat as recently as 2004 is no coincidence. Most of the frilled shark’s history is a mystery, but there is evidence to suggest that the females have the longest gestational period of any vertebrate—up to 42 months, or 3.5 years . That means the frilled shark is pregnant longer than the average NFL player’s career , and the species has impressive offensive skills to boot. Boasting a huge liver that helps keep the animals naturally buoyant, frilled sharks, scientists believe, hover in the water column, waiting to lunge at their squid and octopus prey like a rattlesnake striking a squirrel. Teeth that look like caterpillars made out of needles ensure there’s no escape for those cephalopods.

No one seems to be specifically targeting frilled sharks yet, but the species is under threat from various fishing methods—namely trawling, longlines, and deep-set gillnets —that inadvertently catch and kill bottom dwellers and midwater species. Dusky Sharks (Vulnerable) Photo: Steve Garner/Wikimedia Commons So maybe gentle giants and toothy float-and-strikers aren’t your thing. How about the dusky shark, a 12-foot, 400-pound carnivore with the most powerful bite of any shark? Oh yeah, did I mention duskies might hunt in packs in order to take down bigger prey, like humpback whale calves? (Warning: photos of nature doing its best “red in tooth and claw” thing here .) Duskies can be found all over, along the coasts of North and South America, East Africa, the Mediterranean, China, and Australia. The IUCN lists dusky sharks as vulnerable globally, but their Atlantic population has declined by at least 80 percent since the 1970s.

Though the United States officially banned commercial and recreational fishing for duskies in 2000, their numbers have only now begun to recover, and just barely. This is likely due to the shark’s low reproductive rate, one of the slowest of any shark. Duskies live up to half a century but don’t reproduce until they’re 20 and then only give birth every one to three years. According to stats on the U.S. Federal Register, America’s dusky population will take around 400 years to recover at its current rate. Shiffman points out that this is much, much longer than the register or the federal government has even existed. In other words, the odds aren’t great. River Sharks (Critically Endangered) Photo: Bill Harrison/Wikimedia Commons Speaking of dismal prospects, the Ganges and New Guinea river sharks are both critically endangered. As is the Irrawaddy river shark, though even that listing seems generous considering the only known specimen was collected back in 1896 in Myanmar (then Burma). We know surprisingly little about any of these sharks, which would probably make a weeklong television event pretty speculative.

(Of course, Shark Week has included plenty of speculation in years past .) But, Discovery, there’s plenty for viewers to love here, too. When we think of sharks, we envision dorsal fins slicing through coral reefs and open oceans. Yet the river sharks swim some of the gloomiest, most polluted waters on earth. And it’s freshwater, or fresh(ish), at that! Bull sharks, which many mistake Ganges sharks for, are infamous for finding their way up rivers. But unlike the bull, the Ganges lives almost exclusively in freshwater. I want a special about that. And I don’t mean that horrible Lou Diamond Phillips vehicle, Red Water . Don’t even talk to me about that steaming pile of chum. Angel Sharks (Vulnerable to Critically Endangered) Photo: Ryo Sato/Wikimedia Commons There are 23 known species of angel sharks (genus: Squatina), 11 of which you can find on the IUCN’s Red List. Three are critically endangered. Like the peaceful plankton eaters, angel sharks push the boundaries of what’s normally considered sharkdom.

These guys can be flat as a pancake and are more likely to be found buried under the sand and mud than bursting out of the waves in pursuit of seal sashimi . Even though they’re bottom-feeders, angel sharks can get pretty big. Females from one of the critically endangered species, Squatina squatina, can reach almost eight feet in length. Imagine swimming along the sea floor and seeing one of those rear up out of the mud. Luckily, angel sharks much prefer to eat lobsters, crabs, or fish. They pose almost no threat to humans unless you seriously mess with them. This, though, is true for almost every shark species. So, again, don’t mess with them! But we do. Trawling is a major killer of the angel sharks, since these nets indiscriminately drag up anything that lives near the ocean floor. Everything Else Photo: Elias Levy/FlickrTasselled wobbegong shark Give me tasselled wobbegongs ( near threatened ) with their camouflage spots and threshers ( vulnerable ) with that crazy, comic-book-villain tail.

I want basking sharks ( vulnerable ) with mouths like whoa and the sharpnose sevengill ( near threatened ) with its huge, fluorescent green eyes. While we’re at it, how about a week on rays and skates? Many of those lesser-known elasmobranches are hurting, too, and in need of some public exposure. And what about sawfish—those crazy-faced ray cousins whose numbers are so low, they’ve apparently started reproducing by virgin birth . “Honestly, my dream Shark Week would be pretty similar to what they’re already doing with the Alien Sharks series,” says Shiffman who spends each Shark Week critiquing the validity of each show. (Note: Shark Week is way better with Shiffman’s companion tweets .) Alien Sharks aired Monday night and included glimpses of many of the species mentioned above. But for most of the rest of the week, it’s back to the same ol’ great white grind.

Question: What species of shark featured as the killer in the book/film Jaws?
Answer: Great White