All right. So what you see here are our Braves.
Now, Braves are baited remote underwater video devices.
As you can see, Giannis is super cool and super high tech.
I'm less of a builder, so mine is engineered out of a out of a table and a couple dive
weights. We use Braves all the time in attempts to discover new or lost species, but
we had to improve on our designs to withstand intense deep water pressure.
As you can see by the topography, this is a big canyon.
And for the mountains that you see above us, it's the same thing underwater, 500ft deep
below us here.
Here we go.
We know very little about the marine life at these depths.
So there's really no telling what our cameras could discover.
As the Braves sit on the deep ocean floor.
I'm heading back out on the skip to check for any topside action.
We are surrounded by orcas.
They're there. They're there.
There's a pod right behind.
Right behind you right now. Johnny.
This is absolutely incredible.
The orca or killer whale is actually the largest oceanic dolphin in existence.
These enormous wolves of the sea can grow over 25ft long and weigh as much as £22,000.
Look at the size of that. Look at the size of his dorsal fin.
Woo hoo! Ha ha ha ha.
Oh, my God. They are literally.
Putting on a show.
Oh, my goodness.
He just completely breached right there.
Forest. You got to listen to this.
I'd love to, man.
Orcas are incredibly social and the sounds you are hearing, or specifically the clicks,
whistles and pulsed calls are their way of both navigating and communicating.
Orcas in this part of the world are particularly vocal since the small fish they
prey on can't hear them.
I mean, it is magical to be out here in the middle of the night so far north that it
never gets dark. And to be surrounded by.
These apex creatures, one.
Of the most stunning creatures on earth.
But we need to get back, get a little bit of sleep and get back on mission.
Looking for sharks tonight.
How can you beat that?
So we've just brought back our cameras.
We're just going to go through the footage now.
After three days of dropping the Braves at various bottom depths, we've got over 80
hours of footage to review.
Oh, there's a cod there, a deep water fish.
So it's a good indication that we're searching in the right habitat for some of
these deep water sharks.
Oh, look at that. It's a wing of something just coming up.
The current. Whoa, look at this.
There's a huge skate coming into the frame.
This is a massive animal.
Same family as the sharks, but it's a super cryptic, super rare animal that lives in a
deep water environment.
Whoa. Look, guys.
We got a sleeper shark.
This is awesome.
Look at that.
I beg you. Whoa!
Look at that. Look at that.
Mouth. That's a big animal, guys.
That's like a ten, 12 foot animal.
Huge. £1,000.
Do you know how little footage exists of these animals?
So sweet. The sleeper shark is one of the most elusive sharks in the world.
And frankly, I was expecting a salmon shark.
We've got a sleeper shark. We know where they are.
When you try and catch this animal, get a tag on it and study it and figure out whether
or not this could be the Jaws of Alaska.
Let's let's go catch him.
The chase is on.
We've located the first of our two suspects.
Unfortunately, it's one of the most difficult sharks in the world to study.
The first step will be getting it to the surface so I can closely observe its behavior
and determine if it's aggressive enough to be our marine mammal killer.
But pulling a £1,000 shark up from 600ft is going to take more than a bass rod.
So we're dropping anchored baited hooks up and down the bay, a dozen of them all the way
to the bottom that we will check every four hours until we hopefully catch one.
And if a shark bites.
The lines have enough slack to allow it.
Comfortable movement until we pull it up.
We're just coming out to check the hook set.
Now we let the winch do the work for 30 minutes.
So now hard. That thing's working.
Yeah. You must be getting close.
Oh, we got color coming up.
There is. There is something coming up.
What is it?
There's an animal. There's an animal.
Oh, my God. It's a shark.
Look at that. Holy crap.
She's looking good, guys.
She's real healthy. Look at that animal.
Come with guys. Come with. Come with.
Okay, so I'm just.
Working on getting the tail rope on her.
Look at her.
That striking deep charcoal color like some sort of beautiful nightmare.
I'm about to tag one of the most difficult animals to find on earth and get scientific
data that is insanely valuable.
So I am very excited.
This is insane. So just gearing up now.
We're actually going to move the shark maybe 150ft that way.
And one of the reasons we're moving into the ledge is it's safer for her.
If she's exhausted from coming up, she's going to need a rest on the bottom.
And then when she's caught her energy, she can head back down the ledge at her own pace
and go back to the depths. Safest way to handle a shark of this size is to keep it in
the water. But that means roping her to the boat so she can't injure herself while I
examine her. Okay.
Get a measurement on her.
Look at the size of this magnificent creature.
Okay. Pull tight, Mark. Yep.
She is nine feet ten inches long.
Nearly a ten foot long shark.
With roller. You put it right up on my lap here.
Yeah.
Okay, here we go. Three, two, one.
There it is. That's it.
That's the whole tag.
This tag won't harm the shark, but it will record all sorts of readings and location
data for six months and then detach and beam it all back to us.
I cut the hooks. I'm going to take the tail rope off as soon as I take the tail rope off.
The boat needs to go away and we'll just take our time.
Okay.
She's good to go.
Look at the size of this incredible animal.
It is truly a sea monster.
A living dinosaur.
Sleeper sharks can live up to 400 years old.
Parasites called copepods infest their eyes, causing blindness and a milky white
coloration. But as these sharks live in complete darkness, they rely less on eyesight
and more on specialized sensory organs like the ampullae of lorenzini to detect prey.
This animal is tired.
She's sitting on the bottom, resting.
It's absolutely unique, and I'm really glad we didn't drop her off in 600ft because if we
had to, would have just sunk down.
Now that she's rested, she's taking off.
I've just got one more test.
I'm gonna try and stimulate her ampullae of lorenzini and see how she responds.
Like a baby in my arms.
This is putting her into a trance like state, making us the first known team to put
a sleeper shark into tonic immobility.
This is absolutely bizarre to have a sleeper shark hanging out at the surface like this.
This is pretty nuts, man.
Knowing she's completely docile.
I'm just going to reach in to remove the rest of the hook.
The hooks sound as well.
She's good to go.