Shark vs. Surfer (2020) Movie Script
1
Sharing the ocean with nature,
is not without risks.
One of the most frightening
is a shark attack.
The top half of her leg's gone.
And on the frontline surfers and
others using boards make
up over 50% of attacks.
We have to get out of the water,
I'm bleeding.
You don't think it's real,
blood everywhere.
Oh, shark!
It's Spring, 2017.
Surfer, Dusty Phillips and
his partner,
Leeanne Ericson have been together
for three and a half years.
As a weekend break they
chose San Onofre Beach.
A magnet for swimmers, surfers...
And sharks.
Some 60 varieties swim off
the coast of California.
Mostly harmless to humans.
But lurking in the depths.
The tiger shark and great white.
It was so beautiful that weekend.
The water so blue and sparkly.
All the guys had their boards,
I was the only one swimming.
Leanne and I were about 100
yards out floating around
in the water having our fun.
We had noticed a sea lion
had surfaced to my left
and looked right at us and
I looked at Dusty and I said,
"That sea lion looks a
little panicked to me,"
and then right away he dipped
back down under and was gone.
I pull the board out from under
to turn to paddle for a wave.
I started to turn away back
to shore to swim in.
As soon as I turn to start to paddle.
A shark had grabbed me by my
right upper thigh,
I felt this razor
blades go into my leg,
I screamed as loud as I could.
And the scream disappeared
under the water.
A scream that piercing, you
know sends chills up your spine.
I remember thinking
about Dusty not knowing
where I was or what
was happening to me.
I looked around, waited,
waited, waited.
She never surfaced, wasn't
nowhere to be found, she's gone.
I remember trying to push the
shark off of my leg.
I went maybe 25, 30 feet, it
was deep enough that I could
notice the, the light change
and it was getting darker and
darker the further I was
going down.
I jump off my board and look
for her under the water
and she wasn't under the water.
It was very quiet and calm and
peaceful it was under the water.
The only thing I could find
was its eye
and so my whole hand
just went into his eye and
I stuck it in as deep as I could
and it was super soft;
it felt like I stuck my hand
in a cup of Jell-o and then
the shark jerked its face away
from me and I was swimming to
the surface.
I pick her up out of
the water to set her up on
my surfboard and the top
half of her leg's gone.
That's when... Got real.
I was just in a red blood
pool and
little bits of my fat was
floating around in the water.
I yell multiple times,
"Shark, help!"
Everybody was still
playing football on the beach,
the kids were still running around.
Nobody knew what was happening.
We get into waist
to knee high deep water,
and we are getting some people
coming out and helping us.
Paramedic!
What is the emergency.
Somebody was bit by a shark.
Lucky for Leeanne,
there's a marine base nearby
with an emergency
medical team ready to go.
By the time we
get her up onto the beach
the paramedics are pulling in.
So, we are literally setting
her down in a cloud of dust.
She wasn't even
really bleeding anymore,
I mean, at that point she
had really lost all her blood,
she was just completely pale white.
And actually lifted
up her leg at one time and
my first thought was, uh,
that there is a chance her leg
could come off, there was
no way she'd save that leg.
What's going through my head
is like, "This is it."
You know I'd never told her
I loved her before, till then.
And that was the first time
he's ever told me that,
and I was thinking like,
this of all times,
this is the time that you pick
to tell me that you love me,
of all the times in the world,
but you know at least
if I were to die at least
I would have heard it.
Leeanne is airlifted to a nearby
hospital clinging to life.
The medic tells me, uh,
they induced her into a coma,
we gotta' go now.
I'm sitting in the helicopter
staring down at my family and
friends scurrying around the campground.
None of them know where we
are going,
what condition she's in,
what condition I'm in.
That was tough for me.
Leeanne's attacker is likely
a juvenile,
three to four meter
great white shark.
Fully grown adults can
reach up to six meters.
Great whites are devastating hunters.
Reaching an attack speed
of 40 kilometers an hour,
snapping their jaws with a
strength of up to two tons.
If you had to imagine
the perfect predator:
Performance, size, speed,
teeth, intelligence;
Then it would be
the great white shark.
If they want to hunt seals
they will adopt one strategy
and they burst up.
Even juvenile, smaller, two
and a half to three meter,
ten foot white sharks,
if given the opportunity,
will have a go at bigger prey.
As surfers often wear black
wetsuits they could
be mistaken for a seal the
outcome could be deadly.
The great white, they have
that dentition which is
that their teeth act like saws
to pull big chunks out of prey.
It's very easy for
them to hit arteries,
to open up arteries and
the reason that people die
is because of blood loss.
Since 2001,
sharks have attacked 55 people
along the Californian Coast.
In Leeanne's case, there
may be a logical explanation.
In California, the sea lions
are protected and the
population is growing,
the great whites are also protected.
The likelihood of those two
species coming into contact,
is growing every year.
If you choose to go and
swim around these sea lions,
where you know great whites are,
I would say it's not
a really smart move.
The great white is patrolling,
what he's looking for is
a silhouette of a sea lion.
If you're looking for an
explanation of why that
great white shark attacked
Leeanne, the fact that she was
swimming in an area
abundant with sea lions,
then the explanation is
probably mistaken identity.
Leeanne spent nine weeks in hospital
undergoing multiple surgeries,
blood transfusions and skin grafts.
I'm just going to put it here.
Most of my hamstring
and my glutes are gone,
my quad is gone.
It looks good, I think
this is the best outcome,
he didn't go deep
enough to get to the bone.
Pretty much everything is gone.
Probably at the seven week
mark is when I finally started
looking back at my leg,
at what it looked like.
There is some here.
That was the graft
that went over the nerve.
See this?
Yeah.
This is where...
Right here.
They took the skin graft from
my left leg to put over
my right to close the wound.
Good, that's really good.
And I said, "Oh my God,
thank God you didn't
take my leg off."
There's no cushion over my hip
joint anymore so laying on my side...
I can only do that for so long,
I can only sit for so long,
I can only stand for so long.
Besides mistaken identity,
there's another factor
linked to attacks on surfers.
And that's time of day.
Considered the birthplace
of big wave surfing, Hawaii,
is known for some of
the best waves on the planet.
But here to, there's danger below,
with 120 attacks in the past
25 years.
Oh my God!
Oh, he's going to swim right
into it.
Many from the second
most deadly shark species
known to kill humans.
The tiger shark.
Brazilian born,
Marjorie Mariano has been
surfing Oahu Island
for over 20 years.
I kind of made
my life focus on surfing
because I consider myself a surfaholic.
I live and breathe for surfing.
In December, 2017,
Marjorie's world shattered.
A community is in
mourning tonight after a
well known mom was brutally murdered
inside a North Shore Home.
I had bad news that my best
friend Thelma got murdered.
She was my surf partner, my friend.
The most important person in
my life here in Hawaii.
Heartbroken, Marjorie
honors her lost friend
with a sunset surf on
the very last day of 2017.
My plan was to go and paddle
out to surf
to cleanse and forget
the whole sadness
at the incident with my best friend.
So I went surf to get myself
a little bit stronger.
I decided I'm gonna
go just for 30 minutes
just to do closure this year
and I am gonna go for Thelma.
I turn and try to catch a wave.
Suddenly my life changed
180 degrees.
Something hit me.
I never in my mind
thought it was a shark.
New Year's Eve, 2017.
Marjorie Mariano just lost her
best friend to a brutal murder.
She hopes a sunset surf
will bring her some peace.
But tragedy strikes again.
Suddenly my life changed
in a matter of seconds.
I never see fin.
I never see shadow.
I felt something
really hard on my leg.
It was just like boom.
I was in a shark jaws.
We heard Marjorie scream,
we turned immediately and
saw the shark latched onto
Marjorie trying to
turn her left and right.
Somehow my body
reacted to pull it away.
But when I turned,
I faced the shark.
It was eye to eye.
I felt that I was
looking into his soul.
I was horrified
feeling I'm on my own.
As suddenly as
the shark appeared it's gone.
Surfers Gray Spainhour and
James Tongg are 50 meters away.
When we got to Marjorie,
I could see that her, her leg
had been bitten just
below her left buttock.
She was hysterical, she was
screaming, she was frightened.
We knew that we had to
get her to shore fast.
My mind was just thinking
the shark's coming back.
We have to get out of the water
I'm bleeding.
James said, give me the leash,
and so I got into the water,
took off the leash,
gave it to James where he
began to tie the tourniquet.
And the next thing I know I felt
a really, really hardcore pain.
Harder than the
shark biting my leg.
Nearby, a paddle boarder
hears the commotion.
He has the one thing that could
help save Marjorie's life.
Grabbing the paddle board,
Marjorie quickly gets to shore.
Within minutes an ambulance
races her to Honolulu hospital.
Surgeons get the bleeding
under control just a few hours
before the New Year rings in.
Happy 2018 everyone.
I am okay, I'm alive.
I can hear a little
bit of the fireworks
going on outside the hospital.
It was good to look at the clock
and see that you know
I passed that
death to life again, you know,
I survive.
Woo hoo!
I made it to 2018!
Marjorie was likely
bitten by a tiger shark.
One of the main culprits of
shark attacks on surfers in Hawaii.
Tiger sharks tend to
be solitary hunters.
They are feeding on large
prey items,
and they have the, the
jaws and the hardware that
enable them to take
those big prey items.
But they're also not picky,
they'll eat whatever they can.
Known as the garbage can of
the ocean,
the tiger shark has the
hardware to chew up anything
it finds, even license
plates and old tires.
So here you have a set of
jaws from, uh, about a
12 foot tiger shark and you can see
you know, the, the numbers of teeth
that are here and
the size of the teeth,
you know, they're big,
they're heavily serrated,
even the serrations
have serrations on them.
As that jaw is moving, it's,
it's slicing across and
these become little blades
like on a chainsaw.
And not only do they
have a lot of teeth,
they have lots of
replacement teeth behind,
so they always have a
full set of teeth rolling in.
When they encounter soft,
squishy humans,
easily able to get severely damaged
by such strong powerful jaws.
On Marjorie's sunset surf,
time and
location worked against her.
Tiger sharks are
nocturnal hunters, and,
she was surfing in an area
inhabited by sea turtles.
So a sharks swimming along
and towards dusk or at night,
they see something
vaguely on the surface,
it's going to come
up and investigate.
You're sitting on this
board with your arms off
to the side which look
like little flippers,
and a shark coming up from
below might mistake this
person on a board for a turtle
that is flapping around,
and give you an investigatory bite.
While many
shark attacks on surfers,
seem to happen
through mistaken identity.
Other attacks could be deliberate.
With over 2.800 kilometers
of rugged coastline,
South Africa is a surfing paradise.
But it has its dangers.
Each year sharks are attracted
to a dramatic marine event.
The Sardine Run.
Hordes of sea birds, seals
and dolphins penetrate and
scatter the tightly packed
bait balls.
It's also a free for all for sharks.
And among them, the third
species known to kill surfers,
the bull shark.
With a reputation
for aggression, it is known
for many of South Africa's
shark fatalities.
In July the Sardine Run ends.
Bellies' full,
many sharks leave the area.
Much to the relief of local surfers.
Denver and Kristy Struwig are
just home from their honeymoon.
It's perfect timing to
celebrate with a surf.
We were on a total
high about being married.
Our main aim that Friday was to
spend time together in the sea.
We were young.
Just an exciting time,
a happy time.
We just surfed and surfed and surfed.
We normally judge the shark activity
and the sardine run
by like how many birds
are diving, the gannets.
This day was pretty mellow.
We couldn't believe
our luck that the sea was
as calm, as blue, and
as beautiful as it was.
After a few hours
Kristy heads back to shore.
Denver waits for one more wave,
with his friend Eric.
I was sitting there and then...
This shark just swims
straight underneath.
And, I'm like,
what this is not happening.
And the shark just
does this big u-turn
up around the side and the
shark disappeared.
As I put my legs down
the shark hits me
and swam me down to the bottom.
The past decade has seen more
shark attacks than any previous.
Newly weds, Denver and
Kristy Struwig are riding
the waves in South Africa.
But, tragedy strikes, leaving
Denver fighting for his life.
I remember seeing the shark's
nose and head like on my leg.
It was like surreal.
And I remember just shouting,
I've just been bitten,
I've just been bitten.
All of a sudden we saw the board
just being flipped in the air.
We didn't realize at that stage
who had been attacked.
Selfishly, I immediately thought
oh I hope it's not Denver.
As I turned around
and looked for my board
I saw my board literally
10 meters away from me.
He had bitten through my leg rope.
And then...
The shark came back
but through the back
of my shoulder like
and his head was
basically next to my head.
And just bit down again
and swam me down to the bottom.
I don't remember the point
where he actually let me go,
but I do remember like resurfacing.
When I realized it was him
my heart just sank.
It was a horrible feeling of
being completely helpless.
Denver makes it to shore.
By luck a paramedic and a
doctor happen to be nearby.
He suffers a deep
laceration on his inner thigh,
narrowly missing the Femoral Artery.
I was just hoping that
that it wasn't critical because
we had just got married
there was no way
something could happen two weeks,
three weeks after our wedding.
It just wasn't possible.
Denver suspects
a bull shark is to blame.
One of the main senses that
bull sharks have is that
ability to detect splashing
and movement in the water.
If you wanna attract in a bull shark you
take a little plastic bottle down and
start squeezing it and
cracking the plastic bottle.
That type of vibration in the water,
is essentially the signals
that a surfer can give off if
they're splashing
around at the surface.
But, another species
may be the real culprit.
When I look at this habitat
and I look at
the time of year there is a definitely
a chance that it was a great white.
The great whites will be been patrolling
this coast line all of the time
and unfortunately
that is also the area where
surfers spend a lot of time.
Examining the bite marks may give
a clue to Denver's attacker.
Okay, so it's quite distinct, um,
that was his, like,
left side of the jaw.
And then his...
Rest of his jaw came back,
right through to the back.
You can see this was the bad one
obviously, with the
Femoral Artery inside there,
which was very lucky.
Aye, aye, aye.
That was the first one.
So the second one was,
I'll just show you,
So you can see the spacing.
So, one, two, so that was the three.
Oh wow. But these ones here
are the intriguing ones,
because you find,
bull sharks have very thin,
piercing lower jaw, but these,
these scars are,
you know you can see they're spaced,
and they're long,
and they're very clean,
with the great whites they
have a lot more serrations on
these lower jaws that they
do mimic the sawing action,
and if this is definitely the
lower jaw,
it looks more great white
than it does bull shark.
The moment I saw those
bites on his shoulder
I am absolutely sure
it was a great white.
Why a shark like that would
bite Denver?
There's many reasons,
it could have been hungry,
it could have been a long time
since it left a seal colony.
It was willing to investigate
this big item in the water to
see if it was potential food.
It was a situation of Denver
being in the wrong place at
the wrong time and
meeting the wrong shark.
But that is part of
going into nature.
From South Africa,
great whites can
travel huge distances,
making a 11,000 kilometer
journey to West Australia.
Another hotspot for shark attacks.
With 13 fatalities over 100 years...
The reason for making
this epic journey?
The richest food source imaginable.
Often found right next to the
surf line.
It's April 15th, 2018.
Surfer, Alex Travaglini is at
his local surf break in Gracetown.
I had been working
for 20 days in a row,
so I was, I was pretty eager
to get out and get a few waves.
But today,
fellow surfers have bad news.
Apparently someone had
seen a fin pretty close.
It was likely that shark
was probably long gone.
Then suddenly there was
perfect waves,
I thought well,
it's probably safe by now,
pretty keen for a surf.
I managed to catch a wave,
I was very happy with that,
so I was keen to get some more,
as I was waiting I was having
a chat with my friend and
then I saw him get pretty startled.
I never saw the
shark before it bit.
The pain just radiated my
whole body.
Western Australia has seen
more shark attacks in
the last decade than any before.
But surfer, Alex Travaglini,
can't resist todays perfect waves.
But, out of nowhere,
he's under attack.
I was not expecting it at all.
I didn't see anything coming.
All we could see
was like a splashing and
he kinda of fighting with the shark.
The shark was underneath the board,
and all I was trying to do was
push the surfboard and try and
keep the shark away from me.
He was so focused on Alex,
he wanted Alex.
And it's popped it's
head out of the water,
and looking at me and
it started circling me again,
my emotion went from being
shocked to being angry,
and I just swore at the shark.
And then it started
coming back at me.
I grabbed my surfboard and
pushed it against its nose.
I'm not ready to let you eat me.
It probably had decided
that it had had enough.
The last thing I remember
was seeing the shark swimming
towards the horizon the
leash was in its mouth.
By chance a local photographer
manages to capture the scene.
Badly injured, and
without his surfboard,
Alex is now stuck
50 meters from shore.
Nearby, a fellow surfer,
instead of fleeing the scene
comes to the rescue.
Together they catch a wave,
with Alex body surfing
back to the shoreline.
We were all running to help,
we can't believe what is
going on,
you don't think it's real,
blood everywhere.
As Alex lies bleeding on the shore,
surfers use their leashes as
tourniquets on Alex's legs.
Alex was pretty calm, he didn't
panic, he didn't blink,
I think we were
screaming more than he was.
A helicopter is on it's way.
But still the surfers need to
get Alex to the parking lot
almost 800 meters away.
They improvise using a
surfboard as a stretcher.
The only way is across
boulders and steep dunes.
We were struggling quite a lot,
you step on everything,
you cut yourself,
it was definitely a mission.
I don't know how they didn't
drop me, I really do not know.
I congratulate them,
they did a great job.
As for the motivation behind
the attack.
The answer may not be far away.
Authorities are dealing with
a dead whale on the beach.
For any great whites in the area,
the smell could be luring
them in.
They can detect blood in the water
from over five kilometers away.
Not only is this carcass the
biggest source of energy available,
ever for great white sharks,
the ease in which it's
available is massive,
the shark doesn't have to
spend any energy except maybe
some jaw muscles to
acquire that blubber.
Every moment that whale is on
the beach it's leeching oil,
it's leeching scent into the water,
its attracting sharks to that beach.
If you're surfing out there
and big sharks are around and
they're looking for
this source of smell,
and you're there in
the middle of that,
chances that you get
bitten is really high.
So, in Alex's case that is
most probably what happened.
Whales have been protected in
Western Australia since 1979.
Their population is on the rise.
But that could have an
unfortunate consequence...
Increased shark attacks.
This whale populations
growing and growing and
growing every year.
That means more are
also going to be dying of
natural causes ending up on beaches.
The simple answer is stay out
of the water when that carcass
is there, even if it's on the beach.
After Alex's attack,
warning signs went
up around the beach.
Just hours later, a great white
was seen near the surf line.
Authorities ordered
everyone out of the water.
But one surfer decided the
waves were too good to resist.
Oh my God!
Holy...
Holy... No...
Oi! Oi, oi, shark!
Oh my God!
Western Australia.
Just hours after a surfer was attacked.
There's blood in the water again.
Holy... No...
Oi! Oi, oi, shark!
A Fisheries vessel had
approached some surfers in
the water to inform them that
there was a another shark
very close by and everyone
except one surfer got out,
and that one surfer was pretty
adamant that he was fine...
Within minutes he
got attacked himself.
Oh my God!
Holy...
Holy... No...
Oi! Oi, oi, shark!
He's gone?
Nah he's swimming.
He's swimming.
C'mon Mate!
Choppy's coming back!
Choppy's coming back.
Holy...
Get the leg rope off.
Incredibly, the bitten surfer
makes it back to shore on his own.
You alright Mate?
Yeah.
Thought we were going to have to
get you up as soon as possible.
Yeah, I'll have to go to the
docs I think.
That's not that bad,
it's gonna hurt but.
Bad enough.
You're pumped right now.
Oh my mate just gave me that board.
Oh I'm so lucky.
You alright?
My first thought
was who would be possibly
surfing again in that area.
Surfers are a funny bunch,
if the surf is good enough and
there's no one is around
I am sure some people would
sort of roll that dice and
have another crack at it, but,
I think a lot of lessons
were learnt that day.
18,000 kilometers away, in the
United States of America,
is the shark bite
capitol of the world.
Florida has 33% of
all unprovoked attacks.
Hey!
Get out of the water!
One of the main
culprits for the attacks...
The blacktip shark.
Growing up to
two and a half meters long,
it hunts just off
the Florida Coastline.
To study their habits,
Professor Stephen Kajiura
catches blacktips with baited drumlines.
Alright let's drop another one.
By tagging blacktips,
he discovered the
sharks hug the shoreline.
To hunt for baitfish.
And where it keeps
them from danger.
The blacktips are
able to get very shallow,
where the bigger sharks
are simply unable to go.
They are also staying out of the
way of some of the bigger predators,
you have like big hammerhead sharks.
From his aerial studies
Professor Kajiura has
made a startling discovery.
As you're flying along,
you can see people in the water
happily swimming or whatever,
and there's sharks are right there.
The people are totally oblivious,
they don't even realize
they're literally surrounded
by hundreds of sharks.
March 22nd, 2019.
Math teacher, Chris Bryan
finishes up in the classroom.
His perfect way to unwind,
a late afternoon surf.
There's a few beaches
here in Florida where you can
find fossilized sharks teeth.
I've got some bull sharks,
I've got a sand tiger.
They are still like needle sharp,
I mean it's just like razor blades.
I'm never really thinking
about sharks,
it's never really crossed my mind.
It was a Friday afternoon
and caught a handful of waves.
Nothing spectacular.
So I took one more wave in and
when I got to the inside sand bar,
jumped off my board and
as soon as I entered the water...
Wham, on my foot and just
sharp pain and it was gone.
I'm thinking I've just
been bitten by a shark and
my foots just aching, and
I saw blood coming down my leg.
So I started waving
and calling for help.
Nobody was responding.
I see this guy out in the ocean
like waving his hand,
so I say to my family, I said,
"I think that guy is yelling
for help."
And at that point we
saw the wave hit him and
the blood just flowing
through the water,
so we just took off running.
I knew that I was bleeding, I knew
that I had been bit pretty good.
And I saw that the top of
my foot was just ripped open.
That's when I knew that, it
wasn't just a little bite.
Over the last decade shark
attacks on surfers have risen.
Florida, more than any other place is
the shark bite capital of the world.
Math teacher, Chris Bryan, out
for a brief after school surf,
the latest victim.
It was just wham on my foot,
and just sharp pain.
I've just been bitten by a shark.
When I actually got up
onto the beach I was so
just physically drained
and woozy and nauseous.
We had taken a beach
towel and wrapped it around
his foot as he would continue to
lose blood he was very, very pale.
All of a sudden there was somebody
clapping in front of my face.
Come on Chris, stay
with us, stay with us.
I just said to Chris,
"I'll stay with you, I'll stay
with you until they get
you into the ambulance."
Chris's attacker
may have been a blacktip.
Surfing during the shark
migration increased his chance
for being bitten.
Turning a quick surf into
a complex operation with so
many stitches the
surgeon ran out of thread.
For the survivors of shark attacks,
the experience never leaves them.
Marjorie Mariano returns
for the first time to
the exact spot where she was bitten
by a four meter tiger shark.
Where that wave is breaking
right there
that's where the shark
attacked me.
I love this place and
now it put, like,
a scar in my heart.
I am challenged to heal that scar.
I never want to expose this
vulnerable...
Side of me.
There've been attempts to
stop shark attacks.
Including, extreme measures.
The idea of culling
a shark population and
expecting that stretch of coast to
be devoid of sharks is pretty nave,
all you're going to
have is new ones coming in.
Sharks as those top predators
maintain the balance,
if sharks go, the simple
conclusion is that the ocean
is going to die, the entire
human and earth ecosystem is
going to start breaking down.
Shark survivor, Alex Travaglini,
made it his mission to help surfers.
Six months after his attack,
a shark warning alarm was installed.
I'm not here trying to
say we should kill any sharks.
At random times of
the day I used to...
Just have flashbacks of the attack,
something would trigger it,
it could be a smell or something
that was said, or a noise.
I really wanted to make sure
that what happened to me
didn't happen to anyone else.
For Denver Struwig,
bitten just days after his wedding,
it's been a long journey to recovery.
This was supposed to be the
kick start,
and now we get halted by this incident.
And so she...
Whoa.
It's...
When I saw his nightmares,
I would wake up with
him shouting and shaking,
almost as if he was underwater.
And...
Absolute panic.
Kristy's reaction was
complete support.
It's like, we're going
to get through this,
and we're going to surf again.
For Leanne Ericson
and her partner Dusty,
returning to the
ocean has been difficult.
I don't feel any animosity
towards sharks and
I don't blame sharks.
I took a risk going in
the water which we all do
every time we get in.
I just try to talk myself to
getting back in the water.
Maybe one day.
Maybe someday I'll get Leanne back
out there with me, but we'll see.
Fortunately, most
surfers and swimmers never
fall prey to shark attacks.
With only four fatalities
each year.
Humans, on the other hand, are
responsible for the deaths of
over 100 million sharks.
Today, with stories about
attacks ever increasing.
Are we really in danger?
We are seeing more
attacks over the years.
Not because the sharks are
getting more aggressive,
because the human
population is going up.
With more people
in the water their chance of
being bitten just keeps rising.
You are much more likely to
kill yourself taking a selfie
than you are being killed by
a shark.
Sharks are not actually
targeting the humans,
they are not out to bite them.
We are not part of their menu.
These sharks are feeding on fish,
we do not taste the same.
It's possible to be in the
water with the sharks and
be totally unbothered by them.
Sharing the ocean with nature,
is not without risks.
One of the most frightening
is a shark attack.
The top half of her leg's gone.
And on the frontline surfers and
others using boards make
up over 50% of attacks.
We have to get out of the water,
I'm bleeding.
You don't think it's real,
blood everywhere.
Oh, shark!
It's Spring, 2017.
Surfer, Dusty Phillips and
his partner,
Leeanne Ericson have been together
for three and a half years.
As a weekend break they
chose San Onofre Beach.
A magnet for swimmers, surfers...
And sharks.
Some 60 varieties swim off
the coast of California.
Mostly harmless to humans.
But lurking in the depths.
The tiger shark and great white.
It was so beautiful that weekend.
The water so blue and sparkly.
All the guys had their boards,
I was the only one swimming.
Leanne and I were about 100
yards out floating around
in the water having our fun.
We had noticed a sea lion
had surfaced to my left
and looked right at us and
I looked at Dusty and I said,
"That sea lion looks a
little panicked to me,"
and then right away he dipped
back down under and was gone.
I pull the board out from under
to turn to paddle for a wave.
I started to turn away back
to shore to swim in.
As soon as I turn to start to paddle.
A shark had grabbed me by my
right upper thigh,
I felt this razor
blades go into my leg,
I screamed as loud as I could.
And the scream disappeared
under the water.
A scream that piercing, you
know sends chills up your spine.
I remember thinking
about Dusty not knowing
where I was or what
was happening to me.
I looked around, waited,
waited, waited.
She never surfaced, wasn't
nowhere to be found, she's gone.
I remember trying to push the
shark off of my leg.
I went maybe 25, 30 feet, it
was deep enough that I could
notice the, the light change
and it was getting darker and
darker the further I was
going down.
I jump off my board and look
for her under the water
and she wasn't under the water.
It was very quiet and calm and
peaceful it was under the water.
The only thing I could find
was its eye
and so my whole hand
just went into his eye and
I stuck it in as deep as I could
and it was super soft;
it felt like I stuck my hand
in a cup of Jell-o and then
the shark jerked its face away
from me and I was swimming to
the surface.
I pick her up out of
the water to set her up on
my surfboard and the top
half of her leg's gone.
That's when... Got real.
I was just in a red blood
pool and
little bits of my fat was
floating around in the water.
I yell multiple times,
"Shark, help!"
Everybody was still
playing football on the beach,
the kids were still running around.
Nobody knew what was happening.
We get into waist
to knee high deep water,
and we are getting some people
coming out and helping us.
Paramedic!
What is the emergency.
Somebody was bit by a shark.
Lucky for Leeanne,
there's a marine base nearby
with an emergency
medical team ready to go.
By the time we
get her up onto the beach
the paramedics are pulling in.
So, we are literally setting
her down in a cloud of dust.
She wasn't even
really bleeding anymore,
I mean, at that point she
had really lost all her blood,
she was just completely pale white.
And actually lifted
up her leg at one time and
my first thought was, uh,
that there is a chance her leg
could come off, there was
no way she'd save that leg.
What's going through my head
is like, "This is it."
You know I'd never told her
I loved her before, till then.
And that was the first time
he's ever told me that,
and I was thinking like,
this of all times,
this is the time that you pick
to tell me that you love me,
of all the times in the world,
but you know at least
if I were to die at least
I would have heard it.
Leeanne is airlifted to a nearby
hospital clinging to life.
The medic tells me, uh,
they induced her into a coma,
we gotta' go now.
I'm sitting in the helicopter
staring down at my family and
friends scurrying around the campground.
None of them know where we
are going,
what condition she's in,
what condition I'm in.
That was tough for me.
Leeanne's attacker is likely
a juvenile,
three to four meter
great white shark.
Fully grown adults can
reach up to six meters.
Great whites are devastating hunters.
Reaching an attack speed
of 40 kilometers an hour,
snapping their jaws with a
strength of up to two tons.
If you had to imagine
the perfect predator:
Performance, size, speed,
teeth, intelligence;
Then it would be
the great white shark.
If they want to hunt seals
they will adopt one strategy
and they burst up.
Even juvenile, smaller, two
and a half to three meter,
ten foot white sharks,
if given the opportunity,
will have a go at bigger prey.
As surfers often wear black
wetsuits they could
be mistaken for a seal the
outcome could be deadly.
The great white, they have
that dentition which is
that their teeth act like saws
to pull big chunks out of prey.
It's very easy for
them to hit arteries,
to open up arteries and
the reason that people die
is because of blood loss.
Since 2001,
sharks have attacked 55 people
along the Californian Coast.
In Leeanne's case, there
may be a logical explanation.
In California, the sea lions
are protected and the
population is growing,
the great whites are also protected.
The likelihood of those two
species coming into contact,
is growing every year.
If you choose to go and
swim around these sea lions,
where you know great whites are,
I would say it's not
a really smart move.
The great white is patrolling,
what he's looking for is
a silhouette of a sea lion.
If you're looking for an
explanation of why that
great white shark attacked
Leeanne, the fact that she was
swimming in an area
abundant with sea lions,
then the explanation is
probably mistaken identity.
Leeanne spent nine weeks in hospital
undergoing multiple surgeries,
blood transfusions and skin grafts.
I'm just going to put it here.
Most of my hamstring
and my glutes are gone,
my quad is gone.
It looks good, I think
this is the best outcome,
he didn't go deep
enough to get to the bone.
Pretty much everything is gone.
Probably at the seven week
mark is when I finally started
looking back at my leg,
at what it looked like.
There is some here.
That was the graft
that went over the nerve.
See this?
Yeah.
This is where...
Right here.
They took the skin graft from
my left leg to put over
my right to close the wound.
Good, that's really good.
And I said, "Oh my God,
thank God you didn't
take my leg off."
There's no cushion over my hip
joint anymore so laying on my side...
I can only do that for so long,
I can only sit for so long,
I can only stand for so long.
Besides mistaken identity,
there's another factor
linked to attacks on surfers.
And that's time of day.
Considered the birthplace
of big wave surfing, Hawaii,
is known for some of
the best waves on the planet.
But here to, there's danger below,
with 120 attacks in the past
25 years.
Oh my God!
Oh, he's going to swim right
into it.
Many from the second
most deadly shark species
known to kill humans.
The tiger shark.
Brazilian born,
Marjorie Mariano has been
surfing Oahu Island
for over 20 years.
I kind of made
my life focus on surfing
because I consider myself a surfaholic.
I live and breathe for surfing.
In December, 2017,
Marjorie's world shattered.
A community is in
mourning tonight after a
well known mom was brutally murdered
inside a North Shore Home.
I had bad news that my best
friend Thelma got murdered.
She was my surf partner, my friend.
The most important person in
my life here in Hawaii.
Heartbroken, Marjorie
honors her lost friend
with a sunset surf on
the very last day of 2017.
My plan was to go and paddle
out to surf
to cleanse and forget
the whole sadness
at the incident with my best friend.
So I went surf to get myself
a little bit stronger.
I decided I'm gonna
go just for 30 minutes
just to do closure this year
and I am gonna go for Thelma.
I turn and try to catch a wave.
Suddenly my life changed
180 degrees.
Something hit me.
I never in my mind
thought it was a shark.
New Year's Eve, 2017.
Marjorie Mariano just lost her
best friend to a brutal murder.
She hopes a sunset surf
will bring her some peace.
But tragedy strikes again.
Suddenly my life changed
in a matter of seconds.
I never see fin.
I never see shadow.
I felt something
really hard on my leg.
It was just like boom.
I was in a shark jaws.
We heard Marjorie scream,
we turned immediately and
saw the shark latched onto
Marjorie trying to
turn her left and right.
Somehow my body
reacted to pull it away.
But when I turned,
I faced the shark.
It was eye to eye.
I felt that I was
looking into his soul.
I was horrified
feeling I'm on my own.
As suddenly as
the shark appeared it's gone.
Surfers Gray Spainhour and
James Tongg are 50 meters away.
When we got to Marjorie,
I could see that her, her leg
had been bitten just
below her left buttock.
She was hysterical, she was
screaming, she was frightened.
We knew that we had to
get her to shore fast.
My mind was just thinking
the shark's coming back.
We have to get out of the water
I'm bleeding.
James said, give me the leash,
and so I got into the water,
took off the leash,
gave it to James where he
began to tie the tourniquet.
And the next thing I know I felt
a really, really hardcore pain.
Harder than the
shark biting my leg.
Nearby, a paddle boarder
hears the commotion.
He has the one thing that could
help save Marjorie's life.
Grabbing the paddle board,
Marjorie quickly gets to shore.
Within minutes an ambulance
races her to Honolulu hospital.
Surgeons get the bleeding
under control just a few hours
before the New Year rings in.
Happy 2018 everyone.
I am okay, I'm alive.
I can hear a little
bit of the fireworks
going on outside the hospital.
It was good to look at the clock
and see that you know
I passed that
death to life again, you know,
I survive.
Woo hoo!
I made it to 2018!
Marjorie was likely
bitten by a tiger shark.
One of the main culprits of
shark attacks on surfers in Hawaii.
Tiger sharks tend to
be solitary hunters.
They are feeding on large
prey items,
and they have the, the
jaws and the hardware that
enable them to take
those big prey items.
But they're also not picky,
they'll eat whatever they can.
Known as the garbage can of
the ocean,
the tiger shark has the
hardware to chew up anything
it finds, even license
plates and old tires.
So here you have a set of
jaws from, uh, about a
12 foot tiger shark and you can see
you know, the, the numbers of teeth
that are here and
the size of the teeth,
you know, they're big,
they're heavily serrated,
even the serrations
have serrations on them.
As that jaw is moving, it's,
it's slicing across and
these become little blades
like on a chainsaw.
And not only do they
have a lot of teeth,
they have lots of
replacement teeth behind,
so they always have a
full set of teeth rolling in.
When they encounter soft,
squishy humans,
easily able to get severely damaged
by such strong powerful jaws.
On Marjorie's sunset surf,
time and
location worked against her.
Tiger sharks are
nocturnal hunters, and,
she was surfing in an area
inhabited by sea turtles.
So a sharks swimming along
and towards dusk or at night,
they see something
vaguely on the surface,
it's going to come
up and investigate.
You're sitting on this
board with your arms off
to the side which look
like little flippers,
and a shark coming up from
below might mistake this
person on a board for a turtle
that is flapping around,
and give you an investigatory bite.
While many
shark attacks on surfers,
seem to happen
through mistaken identity.
Other attacks could be deliberate.
With over 2.800 kilometers
of rugged coastline,
South Africa is a surfing paradise.
But it has its dangers.
Each year sharks are attracted
to a dramatic marine event.
The Sardine Run.
Hordes of sea birds, seals
and dolphins penetrate and
scatter the tightly packed
bait balls.
It's also a free for all for sharks.
And among them, the third
species known to kill surfers,
the bull shark.
With a reputation
for aggression, it is known
for many of South Africa's
shark fatalities.
In July the Sardine Run ends.
Bellies' full,
many sharks leave the area.
Much to the relief of local surfers.
Denver and Kristy Struwig are
just home from their honeymoon.
It's perfect timing to
celebrate with a surf.
We were on a total
high about being married.
Our main aim that Friday was to
spend time together in the sea.
We were young.
Just an exciting time,
a happy time.
We just surfed and surfed and surfed.
We normally judge the shark activity
and the sardine run
by like how many birds
are diving, the gannets.
This day was pretty mellow.
We couldn't believe
our luck that the sea was
as calm, as blue, and
as beautiful as it was.
After a few hours
Kristy heads back to shore.
Denver waits for one more wave,
with his friend Eric.
I was sitting there and then...
This shark just swims
straight underneath.
And, I'm like,
what this is not happening.
And the shark just
does this big u-turn
up around the side and the
shark disappeared.
As I put my legs down
the shark hits me
and swam me down to the bottom.
The past decade has seen more
shark attacks than any previous.
Newly weds, Denver and
Kristy Struwig are riding
the waves in South Africa.
But, tragedy strikes, leaving
Denver fighting for his life.
I remember seeing the shark's
nose and head like on my leg.
It was like surreal.
And I remember just shouting,
I've just been bitten,
I've just been bitten.
All of a sudden we saw the board
just being flipped in the air.
We didn't realize at that stage
who had been attacked.
Selfishly, I immediately thought
oh I hope it's not Denver.
As I turned around
and looked for my board
I saw my board literally
10 meters away from me.
He had bitten through my leg rope.
And then...
The shark came back
but through the back
of my shoulder like
and his head was
basically next to my head.
And just bit down again
and swam me down to the bottom.
I don't remember the point
where he actually let me go,
but I do remember like resurfacing.
When I realized it was him
my heart just sank.
It was a horrible feeling of
being completely helpless.
Denver makes it to shore.
By luck a paramedic and a
doctor happen to be nearby.
He suffers a deep
laceration on his inner thigh,
narrowly missing the Femoral Artery.
I was just hoping that
that it wasn't critical because
we had just got married
there was no way
something could happen two weeks,
three weeks after our wedding.
It just wasn't possible.
Denver suspects
a bull shark is to blame.
One of the main senses that
bull sharks have is that
ability to detect splashing
and movement in the water.
If you wanna attract in a bull shark you
take a little plastic bottle down and
start squeezing it and
cracking the plastic bottle.
That type of vibration in the water,
is essentially the signals
that a surfer can give off if
they're splashing
around at the surface.
But, another species
may be the real culprit.
When I look at this habitat
and I look at
the time of year there is a definitely
a chance that it was a great white.
The great whites will be been patrolling
this coast line all of the time
and unfortunately
that is also the area where
surfers spend a lot of time.
Examining the bite marks may give
a clue to Denver's attacker.
Okay, so it's quite distinct, um,
that was his, like,
left side of the jaw.
And then his...
Rest of his jaw came back,
right through to the back.
You can see this was the bad one
obviously, with the
Femoral Artery inside there,
which was very lucky.
Aye, aye, aye.
That was the first one.
So the second one was,
I'll just show you,
So you can see the spacing.
So, one, two, so that was the three.
Oh wow. But these ones here
are the intriguing ones,
because you find,
bull sharks have very thin,
piercing lower jaw, but these,
these scars are,
you know you can see they're spaced,
and they're long,
and they're very clean,
with the great whites they
have a lot more serrations on
these lower jaws that they
do mimic the sawing action,
and if this is definitely the
lower jaw,
it looks more great white
than it does bull shark.
The moment I saw those
bites on his shoulder
I am absolutely sure
it was a great white.
Why a shark like that would
bite Denver?
There's many reasons,
it could have been hungry,
it could have been a long time
since it left a seal colony.
It was willing to investigate
this big item in the water to
see if it was potential food.
It was a situation of Denver
being in the wrong place at
the wrong time and
meeting the wrong shark.
But that is part of
going into nature.
From South Africa,
great whites can
travel huge distances,
making a 11,000 kilometer
journey to West Australia.
Another hotspot for shark attacks.
With 13 fatalities over 100 years...
The reason for making
this epic journey?
The richest food source imaginable.
Often found right next to the
surf line.
It's April 15th, 2018.
Surfer, Alex Travaglini is at
his local surf break in Gracetown.
I had been working
for 20 days in a row,
so I was, I was pretty eager
to get out and get a few waves.
But today,
fellow surfers have bad news.
Apparently someone had
seen a fin pretty close.
It was likely that shark
was probably long gone.
Then suddenly there was
perfect waves,
I thought well,
it's probably safe by now,
pretty keen for a surf.
I managed to catch a wave,
I was very happy with that,
so I was keen to get some more,
as I was waiting I was having
a chat with my friend and
then I saw him get pretty startled.
I never saw the
shark before it bit.
The pain just radiated my
whole body.
Western Australia has seen
more shark attacks in
the last decade than any before.
But surfer, Alex Travaglini,
can't resist todays perfect waves.
But, out of nowhere,
he's under attack.
I was not expecting it at all.
I didn't see anything coming.
All we could see
was like a splashing and
he kinda of fighting with the shark.
The shark was underneath the board,
and all I was trying to do was
push the surfboard and try and
keep the shark away from me.
He was so focused on Alex,
he wanted Alex.
And it's popped it's
head out of the water,
and looking at me and
it started circling me again,
my emotion went from being
shocked to being angry,
and I just swore at the shark.
And then it started
coming back at me.
I grabbed my surfboard and
pushed it against its nose.
I'm not ready to let you eat me.
It probably had decided
that it had had enough.
The last thing I remember
was seeing the shark swimming
towards the horizon the
leash was in its mouth.
By chance a local photographer
manages to capture the scene.
Badly injured, and
without his surfboard,
Alex is now stuck
50 meters from shore.
Nearby, a fellow surfer,
instead of fleeing the scene
comes to the rescue.
Together they catch a wave,
with Alex body surfing
back to the shoreline.
We were all running to help,
we can't believe what is
going on,
you don't think it's real,
blood everywhere.
As Alex lies bleeding on the shore,
surfers use their leashes as
tourniquets on Alex's legs.
Alex was pretty calm, he didn't
panic, he didn't blink,
I think we were
screaming more than he was.
A helicopter is on it's way.
But still the surfers need to
get Alex to the parking lot
almost 800 meters away.
They improvise using a
surfboard as a stretcher.
The only way is across
boulders and steep dunes.
We were struggling quite a lot,
you step on everything,
you cut yourself,
it was definitely a mission.
I don't know how they didn't
drop me, I really do not know.
I congratulate them,
they did a great job.
As for the motivation behind
the attack.
The answer may not be far away.
Authorities are dealing with
a dead whale on the beach.
For any great whites in the area,
the smell could be luring
them in.
They can detect blood in the water
from over five kilometers away.
Not only is this carcass the
biggest source of energy available,
ever for great white sharks,
the ease in which it's
available is massive,
the shark doesn't have to
spend any energy except maybe
some jaw muscles to
acquire that blubber.
Every moment that whale is on
the beach it's leeching oil,
it's leeching scent into the water,
its attracting sharks to that beach.
If you're surfing out there
and big sharks are around and
they're looking for
this source of smell,
and you're there in
the middle of that,
chances that you get
bitten is really high.
So, in Alex's case that is
most probably what happened.
Whales have been protected in
Western Australia since 1979.
Their population is on the rise.
But that could have an
unfortunate consequence...
Increased shark attacks.
This whale populations
growing and growing and
growing every year.
That means more are
also going to be dying of
natural causes ending up on beaches.
The simple answer is stay out
of the water when that carcass
is there, even if it's on the beach.
After Alex's attack,
warning signs went
up around the beach.
Just hours later, a great white
was seen near the surf line.
Authorities ordered
everyone out of the water.
But one surfer decided the
waves were too good to resist.
Oh my God!
Holy...
Holy... No...
Oi! Oi, oi, shark!
Oh my God!
Western Australia.
Just hours after a surfer was attacked.
There's blood in the water again.
Holy... No...
Oi! Oi, oi, shark!
A Fisheries vessel had
approached some surfers in
the water to inform them that
there was a another shark
very close by and everyone
except one surfer got out,
and that one surfer was pretty
adamant that he was fine...
Within minutes he
got attacked himself.
Oh my God!
Holy...
Holy... No...
Oi! Oi, oi, shark!
He's gone?
Nah he's swimming.
He's swimming.
C'mon Mate!
Choppy's coming back!
Choppy's coming back.
Holy...
Get the leg rope off.
Incredibly, the bitten surfer
makes it back to shore on his own.
You alright Mate?
Yeah.
Thought we were going to have to
get you up as soon as possible.
Yeah, I'll have to go to the
docs I think.
That's not that bad,
it's gonna hurt but.
Bad enough.
You're pumped right now.
Oh my mate just gave me that board.
Oh I'm so lucky.
You alright?
My first thought
was who would be possibly
surfing again in that area.
Surfers are a funny bunch,
if the surf is good enough and
there's no one is around
I am sure some people would
sort of roll that dice and
have another crack at it, but,
I think a lot of lessons
were learnt that day.
18,000 kilometers away, in the
United States of America,
is the shark bite
capitol of the world.
Florida has 33% of
all unprovoked attacks.
Hey!
Get out of the water!
One of the main
culprits for the attacks...
The blacktip shark.
Growing up to
two and a half meters long,
it hunts just off
the Florida Coastline.
To study their habits,
Professor Stephen Kajiura
catches blacktips with baited drumlines.
Alright let's drop another one.
By tagging blacktips,
he discovered the
sharks hug the shoreline.
To hunt for baitfish.
And where it keeps
them from danger.
The blacktips are
able to get very shallow,
where the bigger sharks
are simply unable to go.
They are also staying out of the
way of some of the bigger predators,
you have like big hammerhead sharks.
From his aerial studies
Professor Kajiura has
made a startling discovery.
As you're flying along,
you can see people in the water
happily swimming or whatever,
and there's sharks are right there.
The people are totally oblivious,
they don't even realize
they're literally surrounded
by hundreds of sharks.
March 22nd, 2019.
Math teacher, Chris Bryan
finishes up in the classroom.
His perfect way to unwind,
a late afternoon surf.
There's a few beaches
here in Florida where you can
find fossilized sharks teeth.
I've got some bull sharks,
I've got a sand tiger.
They are still like needle sharp,
I mean it's just like razor blades.
I'm never really thinking
about sharks,
it's never really crossed my mind.
It was a Friday afternoon
and caught a handful of waves.
Nothing spectacular.
So I took one more wave in and
when I got to the inside sand bar,
jumped off my board and
as soon as I entered the water...
Wham, on my foot and just
sharp pain and it was gone.
I'm thinking I've just
been bitten by a shark and
my foots just aching, and
I saw blood coming down my leg.
So I started waving
and calling for help.
Nobody was responding.
I see this guy out in the ocean
like waving his hand,
so I say to my family, I said,
"I think that guy is yelling
for help."
And at that point we
saw the wave hit him and
the blood just flowing
through the water,
so we just took off running.
I knew that I was bleeding, I knew
that I had been bit pretty good.
And I saw that the top of
my foot was just ripped open.
That's when I knew that, it
wasn't just a little bite.
Over the last decade shark
attacks on surfers have risen.
Florida, more than any other place is
the shark bite capital of the world.
Math teacher, Chris Bryan, out
for a brief after school surf,
the latest victim.
It was just wham on my foot,
and just sharp pain.
I've just been bitten by a shark.
When I actually got up
onto the beach I was so
just physically drained
and woozy and nauseous.
We had taken a beach
towel and wrapped it around
his foot as he would continue to
lose blood he was very, very pale.
All of a sudden there was somebody
clapping in front of my face.
Come on Chris, stay
with us, stay with us.
I just said to Chris,
"I'll stay with you, I'll stay
with you until they get
you into the ambulance."
Chris's attacker
may have been a blacktip.
Surfing during the shark
migration increased his chance
for being bitten.
Turning a quick surf into
a complex operation with so
many stitches the
surgeon ran out of thread.
For the survivors of shark attacks,
the experience never leaves them.
Marjorie Mariano returns
for the first time to
the exact spot where she was bitten
by a four meter tiger shark.
Where that wave is breaking
right there
that's where the shark
attacked me.
I love this place and
now it put, like,
a scar in my heart.
I am challenged to heal that scar.
I never want to expose this
vulnerable...
Side of me.
There've been attempts to
stop shark attacks.
Including, extreme measures.
The idea of culling
a shark population and
expecting that stretch of coast to
be devoid of sharks is pretty nave,
all you're going to
have is new ones coming in.
Sharks as those top predators
maintain the balance,
if sharks go, the simple
conclusion is that the ocean
is going to die, the entire
human and earth ecosystem is
going to start breaking down.
Shark survivor, Alex Travaglini,
made it his mission to help surfers.
Six months after his attack,
a shark warning alarm was installed.
I'm not here trying to
say we should kill any sharks.
At random times of
the day I used to...
Just have flashbacks of the attack,
something would trigger it,
it could be a smell or something
that was said, or a noise.
I really wanted to make sure
that what happened to me
didn't happen to anyone else.
For Denver Struwig,
bitten just days after his wedding,
it's been a long journey to recovery.
This was supposed to be the
kick start,
and now we get halted by this incident.
And so she...
Whoa.
It's...
When I saw his nightmares,
I would wake up with
him shouting and shaking,
almost as if he was underwater.
And...
Absolute panic.
Kristy's reaction was
complete support.
It's like, we're going
to get through this,
and we're going to surf again.
For Leanne Ericson
and her partner Dusty,
returning to the
ocean has been difficult.
I don't feel any animosity
towards sharks and
I don't blame sharks.
I took a risk going in
the water which we all do
every time we get in.
I just try to talk myself to
getting back in the water.
Maybe one day.
Maybe someday I'll get Leanne back
out there with me, but we'll see.
Fortunately, most
surfers and swimmers never
fall prey to shark attacks.
With only four fatalities
each year.
Humans, on the other hand, are
responsible for the deaths of
over 100 million sharks.
Today, with stories about
attacks ever increasing.
Are we really in danger?
We are seeing more
attacks over the years.
Not because the sharks are
getting more aggressive,
because the human
population is going up.
With more people
in the water their chance of
being bitten just keeps rising.
You are much more likely to
kill yourself taking a selfie
than you are being killed by
a shark.
Sharks are not actually
targeting the humans,
they are not out to bite them.
We are not part of their menu.
These sharks are feeding on fish,
we do not taste the same.
It's possible to be in the
water with the sharks and
be totally unbothered by them.