Shark N’ Awe: Welcome to the 30th Shark Week
IT’S THE DISCOVERY Channel’s showpiece and this year’s Shark Week, which started on Monday is not disappointing. Now in its 30th anniversary season, the network is celebrating with all-new jaw-dropping shark stories that take viewers to unexplored locations and give you extensive insight into the mysterious world of sharks.
Perhaps the week’s highlight, which airs today, follows on from Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps’ attempt last year to race a Great White. Uncaged: Shark vs Ronda
Rousey sees Olympian, MMA champion and current WWE Superstar Ronda Rousey be trained by shark conservationist, motivational speaker and shark attack survivor, Paul de Gelder, to face her fiercest opponent yet: the fastest, bitiest shark in the world, and the ultimate fighter of the sea, the Mako shark. First, Rousey, in a cage, dives into the ring with several lightweight shark species in the waters off Fiji and then moves onto the main event in New Zealand where she’ll “free dive uncaged” with the heavyweight Mako shark. Ronda is out to prove through harnessing the fighting spirit she has developed throughout her career, she and everyone watching can confront their greatest fears and be victorious in the face of those doubts.
We spoke to Paul de Gelder to find out more.
Can you tell us more about how you’ve been involved in Shark Week and with Ronda?
This year is the second year where I’ve had multiple TV shows that we’ve shot and I’m really pushing the boundaries on my comfort levels dealing with sharks and expanding my knowledge and awareness about sharks as well. We got to take Ronda Rousey, who had never dived in her life, teach her from the ground up how to scuba dive and then do a training process working her all the way up through diving a hundred feet down with Bull sharks and getting out of the cage with Mako sharks and Blue sharks off the coast of New Zealand in a very remote, prehistoric looking area.
I am really looking forward to everyone seeing that, and seeing a different side of Ronda Rousey. She truly is a world champion in everything that she does.
What does Shark Week mean to you, given your relationship with the animals? Do you believe these fish are misunderstood and do you think the show addresses this problem?
I definitely think sharks are misunderstood. Just for example, I believe on the East Coast of America recently in Long Island, someone was bitten by a shark. And so mobs of people went down to the beach to fish for them and they ended up killing a shark that isn’t even dangerous to humans. That’s just like hearing about someone getting bitten by a dog and going out into the street and killing the first dog that you find. I think a lot of that is media driven which influences a lot of people to create this perception of sharks that they are monsters and man-eaters and they are lurking trying to kill us. And they just aren’t. They’re just animals in the ocean, in the wild, in their own environment surviving. Trying to survive against all odds, because humans are hunting them, and killing them by the tens of millions.
I think we need to be more aware. We all get to be a part of this and we get to talk about our conservation messages as well. I think that’s very important for us because we have a voice. One of the greatest failings is to have a voice and not use it.
What made you go back into the water after what happened to you?
I think I’m just silly to be honest. I grew up around the water. For me, it’s kind of like home. It’s my peaceful place. It used to be my safe space as well until I got bitten, but for a navy diver to be out of the water for three months is a very long time. And by the time I had the stitches and staples out of my leg, I was just dying to get back in. So as soon as that happened, I had two of my friends take me down to the beach.
I was still on one leg, but I could carry my surfboard under my arm, and I hopped down the soft sand
to the water at Bondi Beach. Everyone was staring at me. And I was very embarrassed and ashamed. But I swore to myself I wasn’t going to let the things I was afraid of stop me from doing the things that I loved. So I just kept going and I hopped down to the water on one leg and nearly drowned a couple of times.
But it was three months to the day after the shark attack. And I just so badly wanted to feel that and be totally encompassed in nature again. So that was what drove me to do it. And so honestly after being attacked by a shark and living most people’s worst nightmares, there’s really not much left to be afraid of. So, I really wasn’t afraid of sharks any more.
What would be your best advice to not get attacked by sharks?
Well, we all need to have some personal responsibility. Everyone thinks that it’s up to the government to protect us and we should kill the sharks. But it’s not true; the sharks have a very special place in the ocean. They need to be looked after. Otherwise the balance of the fish stocks is going to be thrown out of balance. It’s up to us. We need to be aware of the local area that we’re swimming.
We should talk to the lifeguards to find out if there have been sharks spotted in the area. Look at the newspapers. Look online; find out if there has been shark sightings or shark interactions recently where you are. It doesn’t really take that long. We have this amazing thing called Google these days. So we can Google anything we want. Google the beach. Google to find out if there are sharks there. That’s what personal responsibility is all about. And it means that we don’t have to kill these animals to remain safe.
What has been your favourite memory so far working with Discovery?
One of the things that definitely stands out was the fact that the first show I got to cohost with Andy Casagrande was also the first time that I’d ever seen a Great White shark. And it was a little baby. And then in the same show we got to go to do my first Great White cage dive. We were in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Western Australia and a place where very few people have even been. We dropped our cage to 110 feet down, opened up the side and got out and swam with four male Great White sharks without any protection whatsoever. I think that’s probably one of the greatest memories I’ve had from all of the years I’ve been working on this.
What shark species is your favourite and why?
I think it’s probably the Hammerhead shark just because it’s so weird looking, but it’s also really interactive. They will literally swim directly into you. And you have to grab them by their head, that big boney head and redirect them, so that they just don’t keep pushing you along the sea floor. So I love them. I love the way they look. I love the way that they swim. And I’ve even been taught how to hand feed them as well. So I’ve had this very intimate relationship with Hammerhead sharks.