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Born and raised in New Orleans,
I've fished along Louisiana's bayous my whole life.
These historic waterways are a sportsman's paradise.
It's the fun, the adrenaline rush when you feel
the fish hit your line.
Did he stay on your line? Did he get off your line?
You never know what's gonna happen.
Playing a super hero is one thing,
but fishing here is where it feels real.
You never know what's gonna bite your line.
So, you have to stay focused, you have to stay in the moment.
But even in the calm waters of New Orleans,
there are predators just below the surface.
Bull sharks in fresh water miles inland,
in my home town.
We've all heard that there are sharks swimming
in the Lake.
Maybe closer to the shore than you think.
.
From the Gulf of Mexico...
.
To the Atlantic Coast,
sharks are targeting fishing boats and taking fish.
No!
Right off the line.
I think a shark got it.
.
As an avid fisherman,
raising a family along these waters,
I wanna know what's behind this.
Right there.
So, I'm on a quest to find out why these apex predators
are swiping fishermen's hard earned catches.
Oh! You saw that?
Go, go, go.
Careful, she's gonna go.
And, see how bold new research...
Grab that dorsal fin.
Could help prevent these frequent run ins.
That's a big fish.
That's amazing.
With sharks and fishermen both depending on these waters
to survive, the stakes couldn't be higher.
You know, New Orleans is different.
Our vibe is different.
Some people think Louisiana's soul comes from
its music or food.
But I think it's the waters that shape our culture and
spawns my love for fishing.
This right here is where I grew up and
honed in my skills as a fisherman.
I was out here, damn near every day.
I mean, that's when I wasn't in trouble,
that was the one thing that kept me out of trouble.
But I remember once when I was a kid,
somebody took a hot dog and caught a 70 pound catfish
out of that lagoon.
.
It was the thing of legend.
He was on the news.
.
So, this right here is Bayou St. John.
And this was my bridge where I would fish.
This was kinda like my playground.
It was so hot, you could sit in the water and fish.
So, being in the middle of the city,
it was just a easy place to catch dinner
'cause my mom loved perch.
So, I would come out and catch 'em and
she would clean 'em and cook 'em.
Growing up here, I didn't hear much about sharks swimming
in these waters, but since I moved back to New Orleans to
raise my family, that's all changed.
To find out why, I'm headed to another one of
my childhood fishing spots.
Southeast of the city is Venice, Louisiana,
also known as Tuna Town.
I've spent a lot of time on these wharfs with
the fresh smell of fish coming in after a day's catch.
In recent years, business has boomed here.
A lot of these boats run charter trips while others are
commercial vessels with crews that make a living on
their daily catch.
But these days, Tuna Town sounds more like Shark City.
Good Lord, the sharks just eat you up.
If you hook five fish maybe get one.
That's a lot of money out of our pocket.
It makes our job harder.
Dam! Look at that!
Out in the Gulf of Mexico,
sharks are tracking trawlers,
taking tuna and even tearing open shrimp nets.
This is a shark feeding frenzy.
Some boats are losing half of their catch,
costing them thousands of dollars a week.
You lose a lot of fish to sharks, big sharks,
small sharks, they're everywhere.
Lose a lot of equipment, a lot of money.
Scientists refer to this act as,
"Depredation."
To see it for myself, I'm headed out to the Gulf with
Captain Brett Ryan to do a little fishing.
All right.
You wanna hop aboard and we'll get this day
going and come catch some fish.
- Let's do it. Hop in right there.
Wow!
- Welcome aboard. - Thank you.
To understand what's driving this conflict,
I also recruited a bona fide shark expert.
Good morning.
Anthony. Jasmine, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
- Can I come aboard? Absolutely!
- Yes, please. All right.
Marine biologist Jasmin Graham
studies shark ecology and evolution and is here
to decode any shark behavior we might see.
We're gonna head out to West Delta
this afternoon.
We've noticed there is a lot of issues with shark depredation.
And it's becoming more and more prevalent.
I have a friend,
he hit a pretty got sized fish.
Shark came and grabbed it.
And now, instead of him letting the fish go,
he doubled down.
So, the sharks' dragging him across the Gulf of Mexico.
Mm-hmm.
Five minutes later, he pops his head up,
he has a half a fish.
- Hmm. - I would have let that go.
We'll, you'd let it go!
Was it worth the half a fish?
Right.
We're headed to a fishing spot where the battle between anglers
and sharks is no joke.
A few miles off shore, the rigs of the West Delta oil field
provide some of the best fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.
I've experienced this and Jasmin knows why.
So, it's a big aggregation of
a lot of different species.
It's why it's a great fishing spot.
Hmm.
And it's just as much biodiversity as we have
on coral reefs, we have on these artificial reefs.
Right.
Under water, these steel skeletons are a sanctuary for
a wide array of fish species.
Over time, algae and other life forms grow on these rigs,
forming a complex ecosystem.
It's an angler's paradise and a pretty good place to hang out,
if you're a hungry shark.
So, the chances of witnessing depredation firsthand are good.
- You ready? - Yep.
Grab your weight.
Let it rip, tater chip.
Here we go.
This is my first time being out here in a long time.
My uncle and I, we would come out to the rigs.
It's great, it brings up my childhood.
So, it's just fun to be here as an adult and do it again.
You don't know what you're gonna catch out here.
Oh, that was a little nibble.
Yeah. Been nibbling for a minute.
There goes a shark right by the boat.
Y'all keep an eye out.
Uh-oh!
Got a fish on.
It's a good size one.
Uh-oh. That was a shark.
He came right under the boat.
Foof! Right there.
Well, the hook is gone.
And so is my fish.
And although I got a quick look at the shark,
I couldn't say for sure what the species was.
Luckily, Jasmin came prepared.
I'm just gonna swab it and hopefully get
some bit of that shark's DNA on it.
The good thing is, that we did see it at the surface,
and I was able to identify that it was a blacktip,
Carcharhinus limbatus, so.
Carcharhinus limbatus.
Yeah. So, if you're ever on Jeopardy.
- I got it. - You got it.
I'll never forget it.
- Yes. - Yes.
So, most identifying feature,
obviously black tips on its fins.
So, if it comes back and says that it is,
in fact, a blacktip, we know that it worked.
Recent DNA research proves that at least
15 different shark species are stealing fishermen's catches
out here in the Gulf.
One of the biggest culprits, the bull shark is responsible
for over one third of the fish heists.
Other species include close relative the sandbar shark,
along with blacktips, spinners and makos.
- Shark on the line! - Shark on the line.
As soon as we cast another line,
they're back for more.
Oh, there it goes.
- Yeah. - There it goes.
It's got it.
We aren't the only boat load of
anglers out here.
What's the word?
We're getting murdered by sharks!
It feels like a losing battle.
Whoa!
Even if you hook a fish.
That is a shark eating that snapper.
The sharks think it's a free meal.
He's coming up.
Looks like a blacktip.
Got him.
He took my fish.
For sharks, gabbing a fish already struggling on a line
is easy pickings.
But for me, I wouldn't call this a relaxing fishing trip.
So why has shark depredation become such
a big problem in these waters?
We're fishing in the same spot
that the sharks are fishing in.
Yeah.
I mean, look, there's nothing else out here.
This is the structure.
This is it, yeah.
So, that's where they're all gonna go.
Right.
Sharks learn really, really quickly.
So, they learn, you know, engine means food.
So, they start coming straight for the boats.
So, now we're in direct competition with them for
the same fish.
And that's why you get depredation.
Right.
'Cause they gotta eat, we gotta eat.
We gotta figure out how we both eat.
Where's the helping hand?
It's like, we opened a, a buffet.
Yeah.
And they're just sitting around
waiting for a snack.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
These sharks are smart and they know
an easy meal when they see one.
And this is a phenomenon that seems to be spreading.
In New Orleans, away from the Gulf's artificial reefs,
frustrated fishermen say bull sharks are taking
their fish too.
To see for myself, I'm headed back to the Big Easy to actually
try to catch a shark in the city.
New Orleans.
I love this city, man.
And apart from a few years in New York,
I've lived here my whole life.
New Orleans is one of those cities where
people enjoy life, you know?
And that's what makes it so great.
It's the home of jazz, gumbo and Mardi Gras.
And these days, a growing shark population.
To get a handle on why their numbers are rising,
I'm headed to a spot on the edge of town.
The lake is five minutes up here.
Where the sharks are swimming pretty close to home.
We fish under this bridge down by the pillars,
'cause the pillars have become an ecosystem.
At 630 square miles, Lake Pontchartrain is
the largest inland body of water in Louisiana.
The lake is actually a tidal lagoon,
connected by channels to the Gulf of Mexico.
That means sharks can enter the lake directly from the Gulf.
There are sharks swimming in Lake Pontchartrain.
One local fisherman,
he caught a nearly six foot bull shark
right along the sea wall.
I'd fished in Lake Pontchartrain.
It's literally in my backyard.
I take my boat out, I take my kids out on Lake Pontchartrain.
'Cause we're so naive to what's around us, like,
"Oh, there's nothing in the lake,"
but the lake's full of sharks.
To get to the bottom of this, I'm fishing with a guy who knows
what these predators are doing here,
so far from the sea.
You got dinner or bait?
This is local shark scientist, Marcus Drymon.
Now when you think back to fishing
when you were a kid,
do you ever hear of people catching bull sharks in here?
- Yeah. - Okay.
Every now and then my uncle would come back in
with a shark, but they were smaller sharks.
They weren't massive predators.
What I'm after here today
are bull sharks and bull sharks can live
in completely fresh water.
And anything in between fresh and saltwater.
So, it's inherent to bull sharks in general.
- Oh wow. - Yeah.
For bull sharks it's like a super power.
Their ability to swim in fresh water is nearly unique.
Which is great for them but not so wonderful for
all the fishermen.
So, Marcus is keeping tabs on them and looking for ways
to keep the conflict between sharks and anglers to a minimum.
So, what is the goal as far as the bull sharks?
In this part of the world,
a lot of folks are attributing depredation to bull sharks.
They're saying, "Hey, what's going on?
If the sharks are biting my fish that often,
there must be a lot more sharks in the water."
Hmm.
And in the past 30 years,
especially in the United States, we've done a really good job of
protecting sharks and so the populations are increasing.
Mm-hmm.
But the thing is, we don't
have a great feel for which parts of
Lake Pontchartrain they like the best.
Yeah.
What are the inlets where they
might be coming in?
Where are the areas where the water is just right
for a bull shark?
But that's exactly what we'll be trying to figure out.
If we catch one, is we'll put in a little transmitter.
For more than 15 years,
Marcus has been catching, tagging and releasing sharks.
To date, he's tagged more than 10,000 in the Gulf
and Lake Pontchartrain.
- Oh! - Fish on.
Oh, you son of a...
So, maybe I can help him by tagging my first.
Oh, this side.
Please be a shark.
Please.
That's one.
Ooh! That's one.
Oh boy! That's a baby bull shark.
That's a baby?
That's as small as they get.
Wait.
That's as small as they get.
So, they're in the womb that big?
Yeah.
Just gently lift it up and I'm gonna grab it right
when it gets here.
- Yep. - One, two, three, go.
Go. Ahh.
Perfect. Look at that.
That's amazing.
It's crazy.
Pop this hook out, see?
Yeah.
When you see a little belly button,
you know it was just born.
It's called the umbilical scar.
- And you see how it's open? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Born in July. - So, he's just born.
So, he was just born, like,
two months ago.
Wow.
That's crazy, man.
So, check this out.
That's a female.
To track our baby as she grows up,
we're gonna need to implant a transmitter.
All right. Let's do it then.
And, amazingly, turning most sharks upside down
puts them in a trance-like state.
It's called tonic immobility,
like a natural state of paralysis.
This way, Marcus can get to work without adding to her stress.
So, you say that this shark is about a month or two old.
Yeah, that's right.
And, at 30 inches.
Yeah.
You know, it's,
it's a good distance to the Gulf.
So, you ask yourself,
what's a little shark like this doing all the way up here?
Yeah, what's a girl like this doing
in a neighborhood like this?
That's exactly right.
And the answer is, it's the perfect neighborhood for
this shark to be in right now.
I mean, it's, it's perfect in terms of protection,
it's a safe neighborhood.
It's a neighborhood with lots of food.
And it's a neighborhood where there's
not a lot of bad guys, so.
Right.
This is what we could call a primary nursery.
So, you know, if you think about the big mothers, you know,
it's like humans, they have birth, basically,
once a year.
and then she comes into an area like this and she drops 'em off.
Right.
Right here, in Lake Pontchartrain.
So, it turns out that many of the sharks causing havoc
in my backyard are just kids.
Well, close.
And growing up near New Orleans, these trainee predators realize
that a fish on the hook is there for the taking.
It's shocking to me because I grew up so close to here.
And I would fish literally right outside this inlet.
The idea of a shark being in my backyard is crazy,
and to catch a baby still with the umbilical cord,
it's mind blowing.
People are coming through here with their boats to go have
lunch on the lake and there's sharks outside their house.
So, that's all she needs.
Do you wanna be the one to put her back?
I would love to.
I just hold 'em just like that.
There you go, you got it.
You're not going to take my finger.
And just drop her in?
Just drop her in whenever you're ready.
It's a beautiful fish.
It's a beautiful, beautiful fish.
All right, little lady.
I'll see you in a few years.
Gone.
Completing the circle.
Wow.
Come on. Come on.
By tracking baby bull sharks,
identifying which areas they prefer and sharing that data
with anglers, Marcus hopes to reduce depredation
in these waters.
Well done, that's awesome.
That's amazing.
And now that I know baby sharks shelter here in the lake
as they mature, I'm hoping other fishermen can learn to
accept them in our neighborhood.
But when these sharks grow up and swim out to deeper waters...
.
They're bigger and even more intimidating.
And research shows bull sharks can really get around.
Some even travel to the Gulf all the way from Southern Florida,
where I'm about to see for myself that depredation is
also on the rise.
I've come to Florida,
the self-styled fishing capital of the world,
to get a different viewpoint on the problem.
Just caught us some fresh shark bait.
There are now more than a million boats registered here
in the Sunshine State,
putting more and more anglers in direct conflict with sharks.
There it is!
Oh, that's a bull shark.
I think a shark got it.
A shark came by and nabbed him,
split him right in half.
Anglers say bull shark numbers have surged
and shark fishing tournaments,
which already killed tens of thousands a year,
are pushing for more.
Save our sharks!
Meanwhile, conservationists point out that
bull sharks are a vulnerable species that
deserve continued protection.
I'm interested to see 'em down there.
Sharks in the movies,
they're portrayed as these mindless, man-eaters.
But actually sharks are really afraid of us
because we're scary, right?
Right.
We kill a hundred million sharks a year.
Sharks kill one or two people a year.
Shark biologist, Jasmin Graham,
thinks protecting sharks is in everyone's best interests.
Even the fishermen.
To help me understand, we're at a spot off
the east coast of Florida near Jupiter.
It's called Deep Ledge.
Out here, four miles offshore,
the cold waters of the Atlantic
are split by a warmer current coming in from the south.
The Gulf Stream.
This conveyor belt of nutrients and plankton
attracts a huge range of fish species, including sharks.
And Jasmin wants us both to get in the water with them.
Now you're going into their territory.
How you feeling?
Uh, I'm a little, I'm a little nervous.
I'm interested to see how they react.
'Cause I've never seen them in their habitat,
I've only seen them being pulled out of their habitat.
But, my problem is, I'm not the best swimmer.
So, I don't wanna be the bait that brings the sharks in.
All you have to do,
I recommend what we call star fish.
Get as flat as possible.
The more surface area you have, the more buoyant you are.
So, if the shark gets too close,
I should hit it in the nose, right?
Well, you don't need to hit it.
You just need to, like...
Where I'm from, we punch 'em in the nose.
Well, don't punch.
We don't need to punch 'em.
All you have to do is just gently like, no.
Just guide 'em and then,
and they'll be like, "Oh, all right."
So, it's like dating.
Please continue.
I'm just saying.
"Oh, no, sir, thank you."
Once you see 'em,
you'll have a appreciation.
I think anyone that swims with sharks has
a much better understanding and respect for them.
Right.
All right. So, you ready to get in?
- I'm ready. - Let's do it.
Don't punch in the nose.
Don't punch the shark.
Don't punch in the nose.
Do not punch the shark.
Don't do it. I got it, I got it.
All right, you guys, let's get ready.
Let's do it.
All right.
Alrighty. Three, two, one.
We're in.
And I'm just gonna hold on to my home girl, Jasmin,
you know, to make sure she's okay.
And out of nowhere, the biggest shark I've ever seen
comes out of the blue.
Oh! What?
You saw that?
Yeah. That was so cool.
There really is a shark down there.
It is a, a shark.
And it's not alone.
They swim so close.
Yeah.
It's wild, they're so pretty.
They really are so terrifyingly
graceful and majestic.
In fact, coming face to face with these incredible creatures
is nothing like I expected.
They seem so chill.
Yeah. I told you.
They're not worried about us.
So, you gotta respect them, you gotta respect their space.
Yeah. Okay.
You leave them alone,
they'll leave you alone.
You cool.
Realizing they don't want a piece of me,
it's time to let go of my fear and enjoy the spectacle.
Female sandbar right down there.
Ah, that's crazy.
Up to eight feet long and more than 200 pounds
of calm, agile shark.
A little deeper, fully grown bull sharks
along with duskies and silky sharks too.
All of them just minding their own business.
Woo! You did it.
I swam with sharks.
You did it, it's happened.
Oh my God.
No, that was great.
You really looked out for me, I appreciate that.
No problem.
The first time I had to grab you.
- Yeah. - You know?
Yeah.
Then I worked my way up to it.
And you stayed calm.
- Stayed calm. - I was impressed.
It was pretty amazing.
They kept coming up and swimming around us and through us.
I mean, they were four feet away.
Yeah.
But I always say, if I'm diving and I don't see a shark,
I'm actually concerned, 'cause that means that
the ecosystem isn't healthy.
So, we have some fish that eat coral, they eat algae.
Right.
And, if there were no predators,
they would stay in the same spot and they'd just eat all of
the vegetation in the area.
Yeah.
But, if you have sharks,
just them being present is controlling fish,
so they're kind of policing them,
herding them, making them eat at different areas.
It's impressive.
It's really impressive.
As apex predators, sharks play a vital role in preserving
delicately balanced ecosystems.
Without them, fishermen could have nothing to catch.
So, it's beneficial for all of us to find ways of reducing
depredation without turning sharks into the bad guys.
Here in Florida, there's a team of scientists going to
new depths to do just that.
Off the coast of West Palm Beach,
one scientist is hopeful that fishermen and
sharks can get along.
We're above one of our
wreck sites where we have the listening stations.
We're gonna be listening for tagged bull sharks.
Dr. Yannis Papastamatiou has
been studying shark behavior for 25 years.
His team is monitoring bull sharks at a group of
ship wrecks about 100 feet below the surface.
Like the oil rigs in the Gulf,
these wrecks became artificial reefs,
making them popular with anglers and sharks.
And as a result, the area is now a depredation hot spot.
So, it's creating animosity between
fishers and, and sharks.
So, we wanna try and help alleviate that in a way that
doesn't require killing the animals.
Instead, Yannis wants to uncover
the secrets of the sharks' movements.
Figure out where they go and when.
And learn which parts of the shipwrecks the sharks favor.
So, he's tracking them with a underwater network
of acoustic receivers.
Oh, there's a few sharks below us.
There are bull sharks still here.
To trace their movements,
Yannis needs to fit as many sharks as he can with
an acoustic transmitter.
And today, he's calling on my angling skills to bring
another one to the boat.
The only trouble is, I don't see any fishing rods.
So, what's the process today for catching a shark?
We're just gonna basically drop
the line into the water and hopefully
hook one up pretty quickly.
And that's when the kind of the fight is on because these
are really, really strong animals.
And we're pulling 'em in by hand?
We're pulling 'em in by hand.
So here it is in a nutshell.
To catch and tag a bull shark, we have to pull it in by hand,
collect some vitals, implant the transmitter and let it go.
Easy, right?
So, if you wanna take the bait.
Yeah.
Drop that over the side.
The big danger here is with one of these big animals,
if you get wrapped up,
then there's that danger of you going over the side.
You're going over, right.
We also have, at the end of
that line, we have that float.
So, we've had really big sharks like tigers,
if it gets to the point where it's not controllable,
just throw the whole thing over the side and just follow
the float, 'cause they're just gonna be towing the float
and they tie themselves up.
- Oh. - Like, Jaws.
Like, Jaws. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I didn't wanna bring up, Jaws.
No.
It was a, it has a big influence on me,
so that's part of the reason I'm here.
There's one here.
Yep, see one right down there.
Right after the bait goes down,
three huge bull sharks come to check it out.
Oh, that's a big shark.
Careful with the shark.
- It's coming in. - Keep looking at it.
There we go, there we go.
He took it, whoa.
Whoa.
They're following him.
Yeah.
They get a lot bolder when they're in groups.
When they're solo, they're really cautious.
So, now we play the game.
Start bringing it in.
The game is like a tug of war.
To win, we need to pull the shark up high enough to
safely secure it alongside the boat.
It's coming up.
Ah, man.
But this fish isn't ready to give in.
How many pounds would you say this fish weighs?
I'm gonna guess 700, 800 pounds.
800?
That's my guess.
Yeah. Definitely.
There we go.
Coming, it's coming up, coming up.
There we go.
Okay, slow ahead, slow ahead.
Whoa, whoa.
Okay guys. Get it on.
Get it, careful, careful, careful.
This is a big animal; that can cause a really serious bite.
So, obviously I don't wanna get bit,
and I don't want anybody else to get bit.
That's a big fish.
Don't, careful, she's gonna go.
Okay, here she comes, here she comes.
Grab that dorsal fin.
Grab dorsal.
Got it? Got it?
Hold it tight.
Okay, pull in the slack, pull in the slack.
Okay. That's good for now.
Look at that. Look at that.
All right, first bull shark.
That was not easy.
But there's no time to rest.
So, bull sharks are quite hardy,
but we still wanna get her processed and released
as quickly as possible.
Wow.
This shark has never been tagged.
It's a perfect addition to Yannis' project.
It's 83.
183?
- Two meters, six. - 206.
- 47. - King 47.
Over eight feet from nose to tail,
this is an adult female.
Like many sharks, flipped on her back,
she enters a trance-like state and will be less stressed out,
which is lucky because now I have a pretty,
let's say, delicate job to do.
All the way in?
Yeah.
Yeah, all the way in, then you rotate it.
Yannis wants me to swab the shark's anus,
so we can test her feces for fish DNA.
- Oh boy. - Thank you very much.
There you go.
The sample will show whether she's eating the same prey
the fishermen are after.
When I woke up this morning, I didn't think I would be giving
a shark a anal swab.
What a lucky guy.
Finally, just like our baby shark
in Louisiana,
the team surgically implants a transmitter.
Once this shark is released, Yannis will be able to track
her movements for up to five years.
We're really interested in knowing
where they're exactly hanging out.
Where they're moving to and when.
Right.
But what we've noticed is that some
of these wrecks can have a lot of sharks on them,
whereas other wrecks don't.
So, what makes a wreck attractive to bull sharks
versus unattractive?
So then if we can figure that out,
then we can perhaps design artificial reefs where
you're not gonna get them colonized by sharks.
And so, we can try and reduced that depredation
without viscous, you know,
feeling the need to go and kill the animals.
That's amazing.
It's a radical idea.
Build sharkless reef for fishing and eliminate
the conflict zones, not the sharks.
Just the sheer amount of power and strength that this
animal exhibits, to be able to hold her and tag her,
and like, get this close to her, it's really humbling.
It's really humbling.
All right. So we're ready to
release her.
All right. How does that work?
Okay, so.
Go, push her away.
And just give her a push off.
There you go. There she goes.
Hopefully, shark free reefs could cut
depredation here in Florida,
but in Louisiana,
protecting the interest of sharks and fishermen is
even harder,
because the entire coastline is under threat.
In New Orleans, fishermen are forced to share
the city's waterways these days with young bull sharks.
But, as I know all too well, there's another problem that's
making all of our lives more precarious.
It's no secret the city is uniquely vulnerable to
hurricanes and storm surges.
We're in a very special part of town for me,
this is the, the Seventh Ward.
This was my old stomping ground.
This was my neighborhood,
that was wildly devastated with Katrina.
Today, almost two decades after Katrina,
the Louisiana coastline continues to
change and fracture.
And the impacts for my city are still potentially devastating.
My dad built this house and it was my mom, my dad,
my five siblings and I, and we used to play on this levy.
We used to go down to the end of the canal here,
and dig worms to go on the bayou and fish.
In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina roared through New Orleans,
countless levies were breached,
including this one,
breaking directly behind our house and into our backyard.
The flooding here is getting worse after waters from
Lake Pontchartrain broke through a levy.
Authorities are focused on search and rescue
before it's too late.
You know, August 29th will always be
etched in my mind because so many people,
so many friends, so many family members were, um,
were affected by it.
You know, they were a bunch of people I know that were
trapped in their attics.
You know, I had family members that were airlifted out.
So, there's no,
there's no way to explain or describe that experience.
It was very difficult to think that I didn't have
a home to go to.
It literally washed away my youth.
And that's what brought me back.
That's why I moved back home.
You know, I wanted to build my future here.
I wanted to have my family here.
The floods here took many people by surprise.
But scientists understand why they were so destructive.
The wetlands that shelter our young bull sharks should also
protect the city and the coast against a storm surge.
But in my lifetime, so much of that natural buffer has eroded.
Re-engineering the Mississippi River,
the oil industry, carving through wetlands
and rising seas.
The combined effect is that Louisiana is vanishing
into the Gulf.
An area the size of Manhattan is lost every year.
There's been an intense amount of erosion around New Orleans.
You'll see it when you fly into the airport.
The entire wetland is slowly going away.
The Cyprus trees are going away.
And everybody's aware of it.
But we haven't done anything about it.
The loss of our wetlands leaves us wide open to storms
like Katrina.
But, how does affect the young bull sharks that
call these areas home?
Hey Marcus. How you doing?
- Hey Brad, how's it going? - Good to see you.
- Yeah.
- Thanks for taking me. - Yeah. Absolutely.
What we got going on today?
Let's put up a hydrophone.
To find out, my new fishing buddy,
Dr. Marcus Drymon, is expanding a coastal network of
underwater receivers, like the one Yannis uses in Florida.
By putting a hydrophone here,
we're in the first step of gathering the data we need to be
able to determine habitat use.
And that'll help us in the future to know if changes to
the coastal landscape are altering the movements of
bull sharks in this area.
With a network of these hydrophones in
and around Lake Pontchartrain, Marcus can get a clear picture
of the bull sharks movements and ever changing habitat.
As coastal erosion is increasing,
those habitats are destroyed for these young bull sharks,
so they have to go somewhere else.
And if that coastal erosion is moving these suitable habitats
further and further inland, closer and closer to areas of
high human development,
then naturally, that's where those bull sharks
are going to be going.
That could mean city anglers losing more fish to
even more sharks.
But armed with the knowledge of juvenile bull sharks
migration patterns,
anglers might be able to fish at times and
in places that have fewer sharks around.
That maybe one answer.
But, as Louisiana's coastline continues to change,
sharks are losing vital habitats.
So, I'm going to team up with some real home town heroes
who are working hard to change that.
East of New Orleans,
there's a band of ecowarriors,
working to put the brakes on coastal erosion.
Possibly saving the sharks and the city.
New Orleans is a bowl and that bowl keeps getting deeper
and deeper the more coastal erosion we have,
the more soil we lose, the more the city sinks.
For the sharks and the people who live here,
the stakes are incredibly high.
The marsh and the canals are our lines of defense against
flooding and hurricanes.
So, it's important that we realize that,
you know, we're a ticking time bomb.
It's all fun and games to go the Quarter until
the Quarter's under six feet of water.
Fortunately, the French Quarter stayed
relatively dry during Katrina.
But, as sea levels rise, the city's man-made defenses will be
pushed to their limits.
Instead of building more levies,
one group has a different plan of attack.
Good morning, everyone.
Morning.
These volunteers are foot soldiers in
the battle against erosion.
And they're fighting to bring back our lost wetlands.
Today, the team and I are headed out east of New Orleans,
to plant some grass along a section of eroding marshland.
Without the tree roots to hold them together and
a protective grass barrier, the banks are washing away.
To put things right, the volunteers and I will have to
get a little muddy.
I've fished these waters,
I never thought I would walk in 'em.
I didn't know the mud was this, uh, this juicy.
We have some cut grass that
we harvested from a canal.
And so now we're ready to roll and start planting it.
So, everyone's ready to get dirty and wet.
- All right. - Let's go.
Oh-oh, yeah, that's the soot, baby.
That's the soot, baby.
This is the definition of gumbo.
That's what this is.
Man, I really liked these shoes.
Not anymore!
Each clump of grass has to individually planted
in the muck.
So, it's tiring.
It's hard work.
So how many have you all, this is your first time doing this?
So y'all knew what to expect!
And we still came out.
Nobody said, "Get ready."
I should have asked more questions.
So, right here, right here.
Gardner's group hopes to plant 30,000 trees and
33,000 grass plugs along the central wetlands.
When you think about the value
of wetlands, it being nursery ground,
this grass is gonna play that role beautifully, right?
It's gonna stop that wave action on the shore,
provide vital habitat, migratory birds, also fish
and crabs coming here using it for spawning grounds
as a nursery.
And, of course, it is the last line of defense
against hurricane.
Get your back in there, buddy.
It's the ultimate win-win.
We're protecting New Orleans against flooding and restoring
habitat for all kinds of valuable wildlife,
including bull sharks.
I grew up in these waters, you know,
and to see the coastal erosion and where it was and
where it is now, just in my lifetime is,
is really substantial.
I want my sons to be able to come out here and be able to
enjoy this area the way I did.
But it's amazing to see how much work goes into
rectifying what we destroy.
Have to make better decisions to correct our bad decisions,
which is a good thing, right?
America deserves more Louisiana.
Like most fishermen, sharks used to terrify me.
But now I see them in a new way.
These apex predators are crucial to the balance of life
in our oceans.
To make a living here, our fishing industry needs them.
And by working with scientists,
we can find new ways to avoid conflict,
protect our sharks and restore our fragile coastline.
And that's the Louisiana I want.
Let the good times roll, y'all!