NARRATOR: Off the coast of California,
Downloaded from YTS.MX
close encounters with great white sharks seem to be on the rise.
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
(dramatic music)
MALE SHARK ATTACK VICTIM (over TV): I was eye-to-eye with the shark.
When he got up on the paddle board,
he got a huge bite.
The shark responsible for this attack could be a great white.
NARRATOR: Shark scientist Doctor Michael Domeier believes
the great white population along this stretch of US coast is booming.
And more sharks.
There's another one.
NARRATOR: Means more encounters
There are many more great white sharks along
the coast of California than people ever imagined.
Oh my God, look at that thing!
NARRATOR: Now to protect beach-goers from attacks.
-Oh, right there. -It's another new shark,
and she's even bigger.
NARRATOR: A team of shark researchers are on a expedition to determine
just how many great whites are really out there.
Wow!
NARRATOR: From Mexico's world-famous Guadalupe Island.
(through scuba radio) On your right!
NARRATOR: To a new white shark hotspot.
Just discovered near the beaches of Southern California.
(laughs)
(through scuba radio) Check that out!
(suspenseful music continues)
NARRATOR: Their mission will bring them face to face with
some of the largest great whites on the planet.
(through scuba radio) Whoa, heads up!
(crunching)
(theme music playing)
My name is Doctor Michael Domeier and
I've been studying great white sharks for more than 20 years.
What motivates me is that they're such a charismatic mega predator.
They have been virtually unchanged for ten or 12 million years.
They get to be 20 feet long, they have a tail more like a tuna; built for speed.
And once they mature, they sort of stop getting longer and
they just start getting bigger around.
One of the most amazing evolutionary marvels is that
the same sharks are really loyal to certain geographic areas.
And they seem to assemble into little subgroups.
That's why we chose the word tribes;
it's not a scientific word, it's just a word to help people
understand that these groups of white sharks are different.
And what's different about them?
Their migration patterns are quite different.
The adults tend to aggregate in very specific spots,
it's these adult aggregation sites that
I'm considering the definition of that tribe.
NARRATOR: Booming populations among these shark tribes could
explain the explosion in white shark encounters off
the coast of California.
MICHAEL: There are two really well-studied adult white shark tribes
in the North Eastern Pacific.
One of them is what I call the "Red Triangle Tribe",
off the coast of San Francisco.
The other tribe gathers at Guadalupe Island which is
located about 160 miles offshore of Baja California.
I believe that the Guadalupe Island Tribe is
the most well-studied aggregation in the Northeastern Pacific.
In the last 20-plus years, we have identified 454 individual white sharks
from that site. Of course, some of them may have died,
but not that many things can kill an adult white shark.
Meanwhile, we had a population estimate that was published in 2011 that said
that the entire Northeastern Pacific population of white sharks was about 450.
I did not believe that number could be true.
From what I'd been seeing along the coast of California at the time,
I kept seeing more and more white sharks.
NARRATOR: Since the 2011 population study,
Doctor Michael Domeier and his shark-tagging partner Keith Poe
discovered a new tribe, that could change everything people
thought they knew about great whites off California.
MICHAEL: We discovered this aggregation
of adult white sharks here at Point Conception, California.
These sharks were completely ignored in this 2011 population estimate.
We've never done any type of population estimate here before,
which means we have a lot of work to do.
NARRATOR: Point Conception is a rugged stretch of California coastline,
just west of Santa Barbara, nestled between the well-known "Red Triangle" and
Guadalupe island tribes.
It could be home to one of the largest aggregations of
white sharks on the planet.
MICHAEL: From the minimal amount of tagging
that I've done here at Point Conception, I know these sharks leave this area and
they come back to this area; they don't go to Guadalupe Island.
And they don't go to the Red Triangle. It's a brand new tribe.
Discovery of this new aggregation is really huge.
The size of this tribe is gonna dramatically impact
the overall population estimates in the Northeastern Pacific.
NARRATOR: Now Domeier calls in his all-star team.
The mission: count the number of great whites in the new Point Conception tribe.
My name is Neha Acharya-Patel and
I am an eDNA scientist at the University of Victoria.
So my name is Nicole Nasby-Lucas and Michael Domeier and I have
been working together for 20 years now.
My name's Keith Poe and I'm a shark tagger.
And I go out in the field and I locate them,
so we can catch them and tag them and do research on them.
MICHAEL: Keith Poe, he and I have been partners in tagging
for a very long time. He is the shark whisperer,
the shark caller and I guarantee you, with Keith on this team,
we're gonna have sharks jumping out of the water all day long.
The primary mission is to begin the first ever population estimate for
these Point Conception tribe of sharks. We've never done it before,
it's gonna be really hard for us, and because we have to start
completely from scratch. Let's get to work.
NARRATOR: To count sharks, they have to identify
as many individuals as they can.
To do that, they have to take a lot of shark pictures.
MICHAEL: So the method that I developed
for Guadalupe Island is actually unique in the world,
we use the line between the dark upper-side and the white underside,
it makes a very unique fingerprint and
allows us to identify each shark.
NICOLE: In Guadalupe Island, we have
the photo ID database that we started in 2003 that have all
the identified sharks in it.
Here near Point Conception, we're starting from scratch.
NARRATOR: Creating a photo ID database will help the
determine a population estimate for the Point Conception tribe.
This method of counting sharks is known as mark and recapture.
MICHAEL: You just can't count them all. The challenge is immense.
So, you have to come up with methods to estimate how many sharks there are.
NARRATOR: They begin by photo identifying as many sharks as they can.
The picture acts as a tag.
NARRATOR: Later on a return visit, they'll take a second photo survey
of the sharks and compare it with the first.
Some they may recognize from the first trip, others will be new.
It's the ratio of old to new that helps them estimate the total shark population.
So, the really important thing is to use this pole cam
and also drop-cams to try to get images of both sides of the shark.
We wanna get imagery and we wanna get tissue samples for DNA.
NARRATOR: In addition to photo IDs,
the team will attempt to collect DNA samples from
the Point Conception great whites.
There's a biopsy spear that I had machined and
it compresses the skin into the chamber here.
And when I put it in, I just twist it back and forth to make sure it dislodges.
And once we get it back and the sample's in there,
then we push it out into the vial to preserve it.
NARRATOR: Genetics can tell the researchers how
closely related these sharks are,
providing more data on how many might be out there.
As the technology gets better and better,
the questions we've been able to ask with DNA, have really increased in scope.
NARRATOR: To cover as much ground as possible,
the team will divide and conquer.
While Neha and Nicole work from the main research vessel,
Mike will join Keith on his smaller boat: the Shark Tagger.
MALE CREW: Hey, hey, shark! Shark! MALE CREW 2: Shark! Shark!
MICHAEL: Shark right here, we got a pole cam!
NARRATOR: They're barely ready when
a large white shark comes right to the boat.
MICHAEL: How close is your drop-cam to being ready?
Because we've got a shark right here, it's right here in the stern.
Watch your head.
We got a couple of cameras in the water right now with a live feed off the camera.
NEHA: I'm gonna get in the cage right now,
I've got my kit ready, I've gonna speed the camera,
so I can get some really good photo ID of the sharks, uh,
when they come in close.
We gotta tie it up alongside, we're chumming, just waiting on sharks now.
Any moment now.
(dramatic music plays)
(through scuba gear) Neha, this is your safety diver.
I'll call them out as I see them.
Neha, on your right. Big girl coming in.
Probably the same female as before. Topside, do you copy?
We got a great white down here.
MICHAEL: Okay, we got a white shark here.
Oh there, right there.
KEITH: There she is, right there, coming around right to my bait, right now.
There she goes around the bow, she's gonna come up to your side, Michael.
MICHAEL: Right off the bow, right off the bow.
(music intensifies)
She's giant, giant, giant. Oh my God.
-(music crescendos) -(radar beeping)
NARRATOR: Michael captures a left profile shot of this female.
And her unique markings are clear.
-MICHAEL: Left side done. -KEITH: Here she comes she's turning back.
MICHAEL: All right, I need the right side.
-(photo capture) -(radar beeping)
-I just got the entire right side. -Good job.
NARRATOR: The three main regions of pigment variability
are the gills, the pelvis and the tail.
Pigment patterns aren't symmetrical so it's important to
get pictures of both sides of the shark.
We have to start identifying individuals, once we feel like we've got good imagery
of one side of the shark, hopefully both sides, then let's try to get the biopsy.
Hopefully we can keep them around for a while and
get to know 'em a little bit better.
(music intensifies)
NICOLE: Oh nice.
A shark just made a pass right in front of the drift cam.
SAFETY DIVER (through scuba radio): Neha, on your left. On your left.
I think that's two sharks we've spotted so far.
Big female. She just took off.
Heads up Sharktagger. Think she's headed your way.
KEITH: Here she comes, she's gonna come up to your side, Michael.
MICHAEL: Look, there she is.
(dramatic music)
-Here it comes, here it comes. -KEITH: Here she comes.
-Oh, wow. -Got her.
(music continues)
Here she comes again. She's gonna take that fish.
MICHAEL: And she wants that.
(music continues)
MICHAEL: (grunts) Yep, I'm getting the right side.
KEITH: You got, you got, you got both sides of her?
MICHAEL: I got, yes, I gotta go for it.
KEITH: Go, go, go!
(grunts)
Got it.
-Yeah! Right on! -Wahoo, check it out.
NARRATOR: They get the ID picture and the biopsy
from this big female. That's one. But there's a lot more to go.
MICHAEL: Here's another one, here's another one, she's big, big. Big, big.
-KEITH: Oh yeah, two. -Holy smoke.
-KEITH: Players here now, baby. -That's a lot of sharks, Keith.
NARRATOR: With multiple sharks swarming around the boat
Michael and Keith struggle to keep up.
-KEITH: Woo-hoo-hoo. -There's a new shark right there.
KEITH: Man, we got sharks everywhere.
-MICHAEL: Oh my God. -No, no, no, no. Not the camera!
(theme music plays)
KEITH: He's gonna come up to your side, Michael.
(chuckles) Oh my God. I don't know what you think,
-thats five different sharks at least huh? -KEITH: There is at least.
MICHAEL: All the previous population estimates did not
take into account this group right here.
That's what we're trying to do. Put these on the map right now.
-KEITH: Here comes a big one. -MICHAEL: Look at that, look at that.
NARRATOR: These pictures are the very first photo IDs of
the Point Conception white sharks.
MICHAEL: Totally just got left side.
NARRATOR: Back at the mothership,
researcher Neha Acharya-Patel and a safety diver watch out for
more sharks from inside a cage.
(suspenseful music plays)
SAFETY DIVER: Incredible how these sharks just come out of nowhere.
NARRATOR: Each shark has its own signature markings,
but all great whites have the same basic color pattern for good reason.
MICHAEL: If you're looking down at a great white shark,
you're looking down at a darker surface, you can't really see it.
Just like if you're looking up a great white shark,
you're seeing brighter sunlight and that white belly
again are very hard to see. That's called counter shading.
So, the color pattern of a white shark's all about invisibility.
Here it comes, here it comes.
-KEITH: Here she comes. -Here we go.
-KEITH: Holy moly. -He's huge, brother.
(music intensifies)
-Oh my God, get the bucket. -(laughter)
MICHAEL: No, no, no, don't eat the bucket, don't eat the bucket.
Don't eat the fender!
KEITH: Oh, there's another one right here, they're getting bigger and bigger now.
-(laughs) -MICHAEL: Different shark.
NARRATOR: Shark after shark comes in,
circles the boat and is photographed and identified.
The goal now is to keep the pictures coming and sort them out later.
At this rate, they'll have a solid photo sample of the sharks at Point Conception.
I've lost count of how many sharks we've seen today.
KEITH: It's, it's been a lot, that's for sure.
This location's like a conveyor belt of sharks. When we're here multiple days,
we don't very often see the same sharks.
KEITH: They're literally coming by, one right after another, like they're...
-MICHAEL: Like right now. -KEITH: Put together in a Congo line.
-MICHAEL: Check her out. -KEITH: Oh, wow.
-Here she comes. -MICHAEL: Oh no, not the bucket.
-KEITH: Oh my God, another new one. -MICHAEL: Oh! (laughs)
Nicole's gonna have her work cut out for her,
we got clips and clips and clips and putting together
the left with the right, is not gonna be easy.
SAFETY DIVER (through scuba radio): Hey guys I think I saw another one
in the distance... There it is.
Neha, heads up. Down below.
(dramatic music intensifies)
Incredible...incredible.
(music crescendos)
MICHAEL: There she is, different shark right now.
NARRATOR: The two teams spend the next several hours
documenting the enormous numbers of sharks in the Point Conception tribe.
MICHAEL: Only way we're gonna get the beginning of
a decent population estimate is to just keep sampling,
keep videotaping, keep taking pictures.
See how many individuals we can identify in just a few days that we're here.
NARRATOR: As the sun goes down on day one,
Michael reconvenes with Neha and Nicole back at the mothership.
NEHA: Did you manage to get any samples?
MICHAEL: Well, Neha, (chuckles) I got you three.
I've never seen so many big sharks in such a short amount of time anywhere.
We had three, 16 foot females around us at the same exact time.
-NICOLE: Wow. That's amazing. -NEHA: That's wild.
Blown away by how many sharks we saw.
This is a major tribe of white sharks right here,
undescribed tribe of white sharks.
So far our sampling from the Point Conception tribe is
really robust, compared to the Guadalupe Island tribe.
(theme music)
MICHAEL: Yesterday it was so crazy on Keith's boat,
so, we're gonna bring in Neha out today, just help us keep things organized.
She can deal with all the tissue samples and
labeling and taking notes. That would be a big help.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Nicole will go through the images from day one,
to identify and count up all the individuals.
-MICHAEL: Oh, there's one. -KEITH: Wow, check that out.
MICHAEL: Oh, there's another one right there.
-NEHA: Oh, there's two of them. -KEITH: Wow, they're everywhere.
-MICHAEL: What's going on. -NEHA: Two sharks.
NARRATOR: Almost immediately, they spot
several great whites surfacing near the boat.
MICHAEL: Here we go.
(music intensifies)
-Look, look, look. -KEITH: That's cool, here she is.
MICHAEL: She's got some markings on her face.
KEITH: They get bitten all the time hanging out with their boyfriends.
There's another one. That's a boy. It's a mature male.
NARRATOR: Researchers identify the sex of a shark by
the presence of male organs called claspers.
And they come in sets of two.
MICHAEL: Look at that, another female.
NARRATOR: Researchers have found that white sharks often
segregate based on sex.
With males stay mostly separate from females.
But here at Point Conception, the males and females are together.
MICHAEL: From my extensive satellite tracking,
I've found that for the most of the year, they probably never even see each other.
At these adult aggregation sites,
it's one of the only places and times where males and
females are there together.
And I really believe that they're mating at these coastal aggregation sites.
NARRATOR: If tribal aggregation sites
are mating grounds, then they're critically important to the future of
the white shark population.
MICHAEL: Different shark. I have never seen a shark that looked like that before.
(intense music builds)
Yeah, that's pigment, that's a pigment, deal.
KEITH: That's weird looking.
(camera shutters)
NARRATOR: This female white shark exhibits a very unusual pattern
It could be genetic or even a skin disease.
Regardless, she's easy to identify.
MICHAEL: Look at her eye even messed up.
-KEITH: Yeah. -NEHA: Yeah.
NARRATOR: She's an example of the diversity in the Point Conception tribe.
(radar beeping)
-KEITH: Whoa. -NEHA: Ah! Oh, wow.
MICHAEL: I didn't need that. I think she's a zombie.
NEHA: It did kind of look like lesions on her body.
MICHAEL: Yeah, I'd get ready with the biopsy, you know,
I have a good shot of her, that will allow us to ID her.
NEHA: All right, she's coming back around to your side, Keith.
NARRATOR: Genetics might explain the shark they've
named "Zombie's" unique appearance.
So, the team really wants to collect the tissue sample from her.
MICHAEL: Here she is right here, Keith,
if you can get her right here, right here, right here.
(dramatic music builds)
-Get her. -(music crescendos)
-KEITH: Got it, right on. -NEHA: Yeah! Woohoo! Good job.
The white shark is right at the top of this food chain and
essentially if you take out any piece of the food chain,
that whole system collapses.
And so the more data we have can really increase how well
we understand this system.
KEITH: Here's one deep right there.
NARRATOR: The team spends the rest
of the day photo IDing and tissue sampling.
MICHAEL: Here at Point Conception, it's a whole new ball game.
I know it's an aggregation site.
The world doesn't know because I've yet to publish the papers.
But this is a major, major great white shark tribe.
NARRATOR: Their time in Point Conception is coming to an end.
But while everyone was photographing sharks,
Nicole made a wild discovery.
Okay, so check this out.
Turns out that one of the females matches up with a Guadalupe Island shark.
-No kidding. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: Of the 27 sharks they've identified in Point Conception,
one is a familiar face. Livvy. She's a massive female and
a member of the Guadalupe Island tribe.
I, I was shocked, I mean, I wasn't even thinking that was gonna happen.
I was surprised that we were able to identify a Guadalupe Island shark.
-The plot thickens. -Right.
(theme music builds)
We have seen very, very few adult white sharks from one tribe visit another.
I mean, the percentage has gotta be less than ten percent.
So, for Livvy to just show up at Point Conception was pretty cool.
Now that we have a really good start with our Point Conception tribe,
I wanna call my collaborator Doctor Oscar Sosa down in Mexico,
and let him know what we've found.
Hey Oscar, how are you?
(over computer): Hey, how are you, Michael?
Doctor, we are really good, we just got back from Point Conception.
This is a bit of a shocker;
one of the sharks was one that’s in our Guadalupe Island catalog.
-Wow, is that true? -Yep, Livvy.
To find out that one shark from Guadalupe Island
is showing up in Point Conception is great.
It goes with our hypothesis that the aggregation in Guadalupe Island
is getting to a number that might be the animals
looking for some other new places.
And in just two days, we saw almost 30 sharks, Oscar.
-Wow, that’s, that's great. -I’m really curious to see how
that number will match up in our upcoming expedition to Guadalupe Island.
If we see about the same, or more or less.
Yes, that would be interesting to look for, right?
That might give us some idea if it’s, you know, a similar sized tribe or not.
-Yeah, of course, of course. -All right Oscar, then stay tuned,
-we’ll be in touch. -Adios.
MICHAEL: We just wrapped up two great days at
Point Conception where we saw a lot of sharks.
But it’s been ten years now since I did a population estimate for Guadalupe Island.
It’s really important for us to go check that number in
this overall picture of how many great white sharks are
there in the Northeastern Pacific.
NARRATOR: Keith and Neha stay behind
at Point Conception, while Nicole and Michael sail 400 miles south
to recount sharks at Guadalupe Island.
(dramatic music plays)
This great white hotspot hosts the most well-studied tribe
in the Northeastern Pacific.
Back at Guadalupe Island, I’ve been coming here for 22 years,
I can’t believe it.
This is the best place in the world to study great white sharks.
(music intensifies)
-Woo. -NICOLE: Nice one.
Wow. (chuckles) Incredible.
The conditions for working at Guadalupe Island are way
superior to Point Conception because the water is clear;
we can see so much further,
we can capture so many more images of sharks.
-Do you have a couple more of those-- -WOMAN DIVER: Yup.
-to put one in each corner? -Yeah.
NARRATOR: To keep an eye out for sharks coming up from the deep,
Michael and Nicole ready a drop camera.
One giant difference between the Point Conception tribe site and
the Guadalupe Island tribe site is the water depth.
At Point Conception it’s really shallow. At Guadalupe Island, we’re anchoring up
at probably three to four hundred feet of water.
And we’re right on the edge of a cliff that goes into thousands of feet of water.
NICOLE: We have a camera, we can drop deep
and try to get a perspective on what sharks are down deep that might not be
coming up to the cage.
(music crescendos)
NARRATOR: While the drop camera provides
another set of eyes in the deep, Michael prepares for a cage dive,
to photo ID sharks near the surface.
-(water splashing) -(suspenseful music plays)
NICOLE (through scuba radio): Michael, you copy?
Gotcha, I hear you.
NICOLE: All right, so Michael’s in the water and he has a camera
that’s giving me a live feed so I can see exactly the, what he’s seeing.
NARRATOR: Michael also has twin lasers on his camera,
calibrated to measure the sharks he’s filming.
(music continues)
NICOLE (through scuba radio): Michael, are you seeing anything down there?
Oh, here comes one. Wow!
NICOLE (yells): Shark!
-(music intensifies) -(water sloshing)
MICHAEL (through scuba radio): Whoa, that came out of nowhere.
Beautiful male.
NICOLE (yells): Ahh!
MICHAEL: Just out of range. I'm not sure what shark that was
NICOLE: Coming around again. Here we go. It's coming up from below.
NARRATOR: This great white demonstrates a well-documented
attack strategy, by ambushing the bait at the surface with a
vertical strike from below.
-(music intensifies) -(water splashing)
-MICHAEL: Do you recognize him? -NICOLE: Yeah, that's definitely, Duncan.
NARRATOR: Nicole logs in Duncan the first known shark of the day.
-(music intensifies) -(water splashing)
MICHAEL: That's one fired up shark, folks.
Wow, check that out, we got two sharks now.
NICOLE: Michael, does that look like a bigger shark?
-No doubt about it. -Here he goes. Oh my gosh.
Oh, there he goes. Ah! I think that might be Jacques.
MICHAEL: Money shot. Got a great measurement on that shark.
NARRATOR: Michael records a new approximate measurement of Jacques.
He’s grown nearly two feet since they last measured him in 2005.
(intense music plays)
NICOLE: So far we’ve seen two different males,
Duncan which is a bit smaller, and Jacques which is a much bigger shark.
NARRATOR: But just like Point Conception, females are present too.
MICHAEL: Here come's a new one. Check this one out. Female.
NICOLE: She's coming straight up for the bait.
MICHAEL: Hello. Beautiful, beautiful shark.
NICOLE (over radio): I’m not sure which shark that is.
MICHAEL: Definitely a new shark.
(laughs) Woohoo! Check that out.
Wow, we've got this fresh female here, just charging around.
NICOLE (over radio): Watch out, here she comes.
MICHAEL: I got her. I got her.
(music crescendos)
She's coming back. Here she comes.
NARRATOR: Female great whites tend to be larger than males
and that size, translates into raw power.
(intense music plays)
MICHAEL: Wow! Oh my God!.
MICHAEL: Wow we got this fresh female here.
Big shark. Big, big shark.
It's really strange to be starting right inside the mouth of a white shark.
(cheering)
NICOLE: (laughing) Nice.
Our main objective is to identify every single shark
that swims past this boat.
And record whether it's a known shark that we already have in our catalog,
or if it's a brand new shark.
And that ratio of known to new sharks is critical in
figuring out if the number of sharks is going up or down.
NARRATOR: The researchers spend most of the day
snapping photo IDs of the shark passing by the surface gage.
MICHAEL (through scuba radio): Yeah, that's just out of range.
(music crescendos)
NARRATOR: But they also notice several individuals
swimming below the cage, in deeper water.
MICHAEL: Just have them pull us up. We can have a talk.
(theme music plays)
-Whoo, whoa my God. -(laughs)
That was amazing. I think we might wanna pull a drop-cam up,
because they were staying low, made a lot of passes over that way.
I have a lot of high hopes for that drop-cam.
NICOLE: All right, let's check this thing out.
MICHAEL: At Guadalupe Island where it's so deep,
there's a chance that some of the sharks will be hanging out
way down below the boat and we never see them.
So, on this expedition we wanna confirm using a deep drop camera.
The sharks that are down deep are the same sharks that we're seeing shallow.
Nicole let's get the cards out of these things,
plug them into your laptop, see what we got.
We got some really good footage. Here's an example of the deep-cam.
I mean there were a few shots that had two or three sharks in 'em.
-MICHAEL: Oh my gosh. -NICOLE: It's like a photo booth.
They just come on by and get their photo taken.
MICHAEL: We have a lot more deep-cam footage
to go through but, you know, we're using it to test its assumption that
we are equally likely to see any shark at the surface in the deep-cam.
So, how do you think that assumption's washing out?
NICOLE: I've seen a couple from the surface that we were able to
-identify on the deep camera. -MICHAEL: That's great.
Well, fortunately it's only day one,
we got two more days so we can increase our sample size
and make this study even more robust.
(theme music plays)
NARRATOR: As day two begins in Guadalupe
Nicole and Michael have a preliminary count for the number of sharks
they've identified so far.
MICHAEL: Day one went actually better than I expected.
We thought by the end of yesterday we had seven total sharks,
three of them new but working late into the night that
number has pretty much doubled and we're still grinding through
the drop cam footage this morning.
-(music intensifies) -(water splashing)
Deep-cam deployed.
NARRATOR: The deep camera spotted so many sharks
that Michael changes the dive plan for day two.
The focus today is gonna be the submersible cage
that's at a level that's between the drop-cam and
the surface cages.
NARRATOR: Diving in depths presents unique challenges and dangers.
If anything goes wrong there's no easy avenue of escape.
(water sloshing)
MICHAEL (through scuba radio): Here we go.
NICOLE (over radio): Michael can you hear me?
Got you. I hear you.
Let's start this deep cage dive. See what we can see.
(dramatic music plays)
NARRATOR: The team lowers the cage to about 50 feet.
This is an ideal hunting zone for great whites to launch ambush attacks
on prey of the surface.
MICHAEL (through scuba gear): It's beautiful.
It's like a swimming pool today.
(music intensifies)
Here we go, Nicole look to your right.
NICOLE: Oh, there's another one coming up underneath you.
MICHAEL: Good eye, Nicole. I got her, I got her.
-Too deep though. Pretty far below us. -(music intensifies)
NICOLE: There's a shark behind you.
(music intensifies)
MICHAEL: Nicole, do you recognize that shark at all?
That one is Sabrina.
MICHAEL: She's a big girl.
NARRATOR: Nicole and Michael have known Sabrina since 2013
when they added her to the catalog.
MICHAEL: There's a new shark, right there.
NARRATOR: And it's look like their old friend invited
someone else to the party.
MICHAEL: That's the female from yesterday.
You can see the fishing gear hanging out of her gills.
-(music crescendos) -(water bubbling)
There was another shark here, but I'm not sure where it went.
There she is. Whoa, check that out!
-Nicole? -Oh, I think that's Gianna.
(music crescendos)
(dramatic theme music)
MICHAEL: Holy moly!
NARRATOR: Gianna is one of the largest known sharks in Guadalupe.
Six years ago Michael took her precise measurement.
Measuring Gianna again now would reveal her growth rate since then.
MICHAEL: Man, this is a tough one.
NICOLE: Looks like she's going for the bait.
MICHAEL: Yeah, she's just out of range of my lasers.
I can't quite get a measurement.
NICOLE: Oh, there's another coming up underneath you.
(water bubbling)
MICHAEL: Oh, there he is.
(music intensifies)
-NICOLE: It's just not coming close. -(water bubbling)
Let's go pull the deep cam and see what we can see on that.
MICHAEL: Over the span of my research career
you kinda get really attached to certain sharks.
There are some sharks that we just find more charismatic than
other sharks and they're much bigger. One of those sharks is Gianna.
She's one that I actually captured, measured, tagged, and released
many years ago. I'd love to get another measurement on that shark.
You know what Nicole? (laughs) That was the best deep cage dive I've ever had.
-NICOLE: Yeah. -In fact I didn't wanna come up.
Well, we had Sabrina first. She was pretty big.
And that new female, and Gianna.
MICHAEL: Now that's the one I wanna measure.
Since we've caught her and we taped her out.
NICOLE: I know. She didn't come very close.
No she didn't.
So, we're not just here to count the sharks,
we're here to put really accurate measurements next to
the name of each of these sharks for the first time.
If we've captured that and measured that shark before,
we'll have real data on the growth rate of wild white sharks.
NARRATOR: Healthy growth rates mean more sharks reaching sexual maturity.
More mature females like Gianna means more baby sharks
and bigger shark populations.
It's another important shark metric so Michael
adds lasers to the deep camera.
-(music intensifies) -(seagulls cawing)
We mounted the lasers directly to our deep-cam and
we re-calibrated them. They are like perfect right now.
Let's shove this thing in.
(intense music plays)
We're hoping to see more sharks,
get more measurements and maybe some sharks we haven't seen yet.
MICHAEL (through scuba gear): Wow, they are just everywhere.
Look at that. Another female.
NICOLE: So, all of this is really important to help get our trend
for how many new sharks we have coming in and
how many that were previously identified.
MICHAEL: This one we've got to get filmed. Both sides.
Sharks are always here in Guadalupe Island,
one of the most consistent places for great white sharks
and for me, uh, it's great to see my sharks again.
NARRATOR: The new count at Guadalupe Island
brings them one step closer to deciphering north eastern pacific white shark
populations, but the mission is far from over.
Conducting a population estimate using mark and recapture methods takes time.
However, we've been collecting data at Guadalupe Island
for so long we can do our second population estimate for that site.
The key is what the ratio is between the sharks that we've
known before and sharks that are new for this year.
Just from this trip alone,
where are we right now with regard to that ratio?
After three days of Guadalupe Island, we've seen around 25 sharks total.
Overall, there were nine sharks that were new for this season,
-so, nine out of 25 were new. -So, almost a third were new sharks.
-Correct. -That's a great ratio.
The more new sharks we see in a given sampling period that means
a population has gone up more.
At this point I'm not done going through all the footage,
there's still some, um, photos and videos and
especially the deep camera that I need to go through.
What you're saying is that we're not done yet.
-No. -I mean you're not done yet. (chuckles)
-You got a lot more work to do. -We...
(both laughing)
To come to the final number. I'm looking forward to wrapping it up.
-The season's pretty much done. -NICOLE: Yes.
MICHAEL: And send this off to our,
our statisticians and see where we're at.
(suspenseful music plays)
Now that we've accumulated new data for Guadalupe Island,
it's time to send it off to our colleague, Doctor Oscar Sosa in Mexico.
He can crunch the numbers and give us our new population as for, for that side.
(music crescendos)
(dramatic theme music plays)
NARRATOR: It's been over ten years
since researchers completed the last official population estimate
for white sharks in the north eastern pacific.
MICHAEL: This 2011 population estimate pronounced
there were only about 450 white sharks for all of the north eastern pacific
and I did not believe that number could be true.
NARRATOR: Beach-goers in California are encountering great whites in high numbers.
Doctor Michael Domeier suspects dramatically rising
shark populations could be the reason.
His shark census will confirm if his theory is correct or not
MICHAEL: So, it's been four months now since
we've finished our Guadalupe expedition.
Nicole continued to go through all the pictures and video and
at the end of all of that, she found,
we saw 37 individual white sharks during that trip, 13 of which were new.
That's a very heavy ratio towards new sharks.
That would push our population index up.
NARRATOR: Michael has sent all the data to shark researcher,
Doctor Oscar Sosa in Mexico, an he is working out the estimate.
I can't wait to jump on a Zoom call and find out if
the Guadalupe Island white shark tribe is increasing,
decreasing or staying the same.
I have been working on this model, and I'm very excited to give
these numbers that I'm showing to Michael.
Hey Oscar. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting to hear what
our results are after giving you all the new data.
So please, I heard you're ready, share with me the result.
Yes, of course Michael. Well, guess what?
We found an 80% of increase in the population.
-Wow. 80%. Incredible. -It is incredible.
MICHAEL: That's almost double Oscar. OSCAR: Yeah.
That is beyond significant population increase.
I haven't seen these kinds of, uh results shown to the general public yet.
I can't believe it.
The fact that we've seen an 80% increase in
the white shark population at the Guadalupe Island Tribe,
suggests to me that these other tribes are very likely increasing as well.
It's a huge trend upwards, it also validates what people are just seeing,
beach-goers in California. They say and like the lifeguards will tell you,
"I'm seeing more and more sharks."
To know how the numbers of the populations of sharks are
going is very important for the public safety
as the number is larger, they potential interactions between
humans and sharks is it grows.
NARRATOR: The big increase in shark numbers at Guadalupe
could be the reason for new aggregation sites along the rest of the coastline.
MICHAEL: This latest attempt to get a population estimate
has raised a really new interesting questions for me.
We know from researchers that study the northern elephant seals,
that as their population grows they keep colonizing new beaches.
Could that same thing be happening to adult white shark aggregations?
(music intensifies)
I think it's possible over time that the Guadalupe aggregation site
gets over-populated with sharks and the sharks have
to start to look for a new place to go, don't you think?
Yes, yes. That's, that's certainly true.
NARRATOR: The researchers have only just begun to
counter Point Conception drive.
MICHAEL: (grunts) It's a lot of sharks Keith.
NARRATOR: But the numbers so far
suggest a huge new aggregation just 100 miles from Los Angeles.
A white shark can cover that distance in two days.
-(water splashing) -(dramatic music)
So, at Guadalupe Island in three days of filming we saw 37 different sharks.
At Point Conception we only had two good days
we saw almost 30 sharks.
To see that many sharks in that short amount of time,
my gut tells me the size of the tribe at Point Conception
is approaching the size of the tribe at Guadalupe Island.
NARRATOR: Truth is white shark numbers are on
the rise in many places around the US coastline.
Laws protecting marine mammals have led to seal population explosions too
and more seals support more white sharks.
(music intensifies)
The bottom line is the sharks are out there and beach-goers
will have to learn to co-exist with great whites.
MICHAEL: It's pretty clear to me the white sharks are thriving in
the north eastern pacific but our expedition to Point Conception
was a very beginning and all those sharks are brand new
to anyone who's studying white sharks in the north eastern pacific.
We have a lot more to learn.
(music crescendos)