(upbeat music)
Hey, guys! I'm Sam,
and I'm gearing up for a dive in the Atlantic Ocean.
to check out one of the biggest and baddest predators...
sharks.
They sometimes get a bad rap.
But what if I told you
that the scariest oceans are those without sharks?
So let's dive in and find out just how important sharks are.
(dance music)
♪ ♪
(energetic music)
♪ ♪
Life under the waves hides some of
the most diverse and beautiful species:
the cute and the cuddly,
the creepy and the crawly,
the microscopic and the gigantic.
They all play a part in keeping a marine ecosystem healthy.
Today, I'm so excited,
because I get to go on my first ocean dive
with sharks.
These ancient creatures
are often misunderstood, so I'm ready to dive in
and learn more.
I'm in West Palm Beach, Florida,
meeting up with Mike Dornellas, also known as Reef Hunter,
to check out these big, beautiful fish up close.
-Hey! Are you Mike? -Hey! I am.
-I'm Sam. Nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you too, Sam.
Are we gonna see some sharks today or what?
We're definitely gonna see some sharks today.
What are we gonna see?
MIKE: Possibly bull sharks, maybe some sandbars, maybe some silkies.
Who knows?
SAM: There are more than 400 shark species
that live in the oceans around the world,
swimming in all kinds of depths and temperatures,
from the very cold, to the more tropical and temperate,
like here in Florida.
We're heading out about three to five miles from the shoreline
to find some sharks.
For safety reasons, Florida Fish and Wildlife
requires that we avoid bringing them near swimming beach areas.
This is to help the sharks not associate
food with humans.
Most sharks are timid, and even docile,
so we'll need to use chum to attract them.
Chum is like bait-- a combination of oily fish scraps, ground up,
that we'll scatter in the water to encourage them to eat.
(soft music)
The captain heard that there are some sharks in the area.
I can't wait!
Let's go!
The water is so clear and blue.
Look! There's a shark.
Sharks are opportunistic hunters,
primarily feeding on smaller fish.
Florida has different species of sharks that range in size,
from just a few feet to more than 40 feet.
This one looks pretty big,
more than six feet long.
And watch its tail. It helps the shark control its movement,
providing balance,
speed, and direction.
Here's another shark. They don't seem to be afraid of us at all.
They're just swimming right up to feed.
Sharks don't chew their food. They swallow it whole.
Oh, no. This shark has a fishhook in its mouth.
One of the many reasons
shark populations are on a decline
is from commercial fishing.
The shark is showing it's comfortable with us,
so Mike's going
to gently remove the hook.
He gave it a tug, and out it came.
That was awesome! The shark seemed so happy.
It's swimming fast around us
like it's saying, "Thank you!"
Nice job, Mike.
This was a peaceful encounter,
but it's best to avoid sharks
unless you're an experienced professional.
According to my dive computer, we've been down here
about 55 minutes already.
Time to come up and learn all about what we saw
with Mike.
♪ ♪
SAM: Wow! Whoo!
Mike,
that was an amazing dive.
Pretty nuts, huh?
So, we saw three sharks, right?
So, what type were they?
Those were silky sharks.
And what are silky sharks?
So, the silky sharks are a pelagic species.
They travel the oceans. They travel in the warm waters.
They're very long and sleek.
They've got that beautiful copper color
with the white underbelly.
-SAM: Yeah? -MIKE: Just a beautiful shark.
SAM: So, how long would you say that they are?
Those sharks, I'd say, were around seven, eight feet.
Is that max size?
No, they can get a little bit bigger.
Those were pretty big silkies.
That was a fully grown adult.
SAM: I know sharks can look scary,
but they swam so peacefully around us.
(acoustic guitar music)
I think most of the fear comes from media hype.
You don't see too much media
-about the beauty of sharks. -SAM: Yeah.
MIKE: You know, when you do see something on the news,
sadly, it's a shark attack or a shark bite.
So, that type of media
obviously brings negative attention toward sharks.
-MIKE: They're very peaceful. -Yeah!
That was so cool. When we were down there,
we were just hanging out with them.
They knew we were there.
We saw them, but we were just swimming together.
MIKE: I could tell you were comfortable.
It was amazing. I just really wanted to get in
and get close and touch them.
And you could feel how strong they were too.
MIKE: Yeah, you know, I try to keep
as hands-off as possible. When I do touch them,
it's usually to try to remove hooks or fishing line
-that's wrapped around them. Things like that. -Yeah.
So, sometimes, you don't have the choice whether,
you know...
you either back up, or you place your hand off
and kind of redirect them.
SAM: When I touched its skin,
it felt just like its name-- silky smooth.
Most sharks have scales, which actually bristle like dog fur,
pushing water off the shark so it can move more efficiently.
And I think it's an amazing experience
for someone to be able to connect with an animal like that,
especially a shark... when it allows you to.
SAM: It was amazing. You just want to
keep your space and your distance and hope
that you'll get to see sharks, right?
MIKE: Yeah. In, you know, the perfect scenario,
we could come out here and dive,
and the sharks would come up and hang out with us,
and that would be amazing.
You would never need bait.
But--and the tough thing is, in Florida,
we have a three-mile law, actually.
You have to be three miles or more offshore
-to even be able to have chum in the water for sharks. -SAM: Very cool.
So then, another thing that I noticed when we were diving
was that two of the sharks had some really big hooks in their mouth.
That was really sad.
-And this is how big it was. -MIKE: Yeah.
SAM: Mike was able to get one of the hooks out,
but the other shark swam away.
Is this what people hunt sharks with?
Yeah, that or bigger, actually.
This is a good-sized hook right here.
And that's the sad thing. You know, a lot of fishermen claim that,
"Oh, the hooks rust out in three or four days,"
which is completely false.
The problem with these big hooks: they are to target sharks.
So, you know, when you have small fishing hooks
that accidentally get hooked in the sharks, we leave them alone,
because they do rust out, and they don't cause major damage to sharks.
That's really sad. So, what can we do?
MIKE: Having less fishing line
end up in the oceans.
It's just cleaning up after, you know, you fish.
And if you see it on the shores or anything like that,
pick it up and throw it away.
On more beaches, there are actually
little disposable things that you can put pushing line
and old hooks and stuff in the trash.
Mike, so what can we do to help stop the depletion of shark species?
I think public awareness is one of the most powerful tools.
-Okay. -MIKE: And today,
with social media and film
and pictures, you know, you are able to really
push out in the public a positive image of sharks.
Instead of seeing them as killers
and mean creatures,
you know, to see them as these beautiful, majestic animals
that deserve to be protected,
just like many other apex and keystone predators in the world.
Thanks, Mike! That was such an amazing dive.
Sharks aren't so scary after all. They're apex predators,
but that doesn't mean that they're man-eaters.
That just means that they're at the top of the food chain.
Sharks are so important.
They create balance in our oceans.
If shark populations decline, it can cause a ripple effect
all the way down the food chain,
from the larger predators to the smaller fish,
so we have to protect them.
We can coexist with them. We can scuba dive
and have an amazing time without being afraid.
We just need to promote awareness,
so let's get out there and do it.
Captioned by Captionmax