VIDEO: Shark Attack at Catalina Island

A brutal attack, captured on video.


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Shark Therapy

An Interview with Andy Brandy Casagrande IV

In the latest episode from Talking Scuba, host Bob Shoemaker speaks with National Geographic cinematographer Andy Brandy Casagrande IV, perhaps most well-known for his work filming Great White Sharks... outside of a cage.


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Scuba Divers Spot 5-Foot Great White Shark off La Jolla Cove

What a rush this must have been for the divers.


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A reported sighting of a small great white shark about 500 yards off the coast of La Jolla Cove Thursday prompted lifeguards to issue precautionary warnings to swimmers, surfers and divers entering the ocean in the area.

Two scuba divers said they saw the marine predator -- a roughly 5-foot-long specimen -- under roughly 30 feet of water about 1:30 p.m., lifeguard Lt. John Everhart said.

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Thousands of Sharks Spotted from Helicopter Above Palm Beach

Good thing he had his iPhone 4 handy.

Pilot Steve Irwin has quite a fish tale, and he wasn't even fishing.

Irwin is a pilot with "Island Marine Services" based in Fort Pierce.

He said he was flying about 100 yards off of Palm Beach, at 80 mph, when he spotted thousands of sharks.

He pulled out his iPhone 4 and began taking pictures. He recorded the spectacular sight and wanted to share it.

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A Day in the Life of a Baltimore Aquarium Scuba Diver

This ain't your mama's fishbowl.


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Custom Helmet Allows Aquarium Visitors to Walk with Sharks

The Melbourne Aquarium is calling it the Shark Walker.

The device allows visitors to join thousands of fish, including sharks and stingrays, inside the 2.2 million litre Oceanarium.

The custom-made helmet allows visitors to breathe naturally as they explore the underwater world.

The 45-minute adventure requires no previous diving experience and costs £85.

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Environmentalist Serenades Great White Underwater

Hey, whatever gets the word out, right?

Environmentalist Andy Brandy Casagrande wrote the ditty to raise awareness of great white shark conservation.

He decided the best way to promote it would be to sing it directly to one of the fearsome underwater beasts — without using a cage.

Now a video of Andy serenading the shark has been screened at film festivals around the world and gained a cult following.

Brave Andy donned his scuba gear and grabbed his acoustic guitar before diving into shark-infested waters to play his tune, aptly named The Great White Shark Song.

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The footage was recorded off Guadeloupe Island, Mexico, an area infested by great white sharks.

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Fiji, Reefs, and Sharks Oh My!

In the latest episode from Talking Scuba, Cam Mactavish shares with host Bob Shoemaker exciting stories, dive experiences, and fantastic footage from his trip to Fiji.

If you love topical scuba diving, this is the episode for you.


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The Magic and Horrors of Encounters at Sea

An awe-inspiring, tragic, must-see presentation by Brian Skerry.


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Visit Brian on the Web at www.brianskerry.com

African Penguin vs White Shark

Cute video from the Ocean Futures Society.


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Cinematographer for Disneynature's 'Oceans' Discusses Diving with Sharks

Check out this rad article.

There's deep-sea diving, and then there's being surrounded by a gang of sharks.

Eric Borjeson prefers the latter.

"You just have to think of a shark as a beautiful animal that doesn't want to harm you and is just living its life."

Easy for him to say. The 46-year-old Swede, a pro diver turned cinematographer, spent the last five years under-water filming Disneynature's documentary "Oceans," which opened Wednesday. With four other divers, he shuttled between Cape Town and Antarctica, in search of some of the world's scariest sea life.

"The vision was clear from the beginning," Borjeson says. "The producers wanted us to be with the animals, not just look at them."

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Hat tip: Alisa

"Don’t kid yourself for one minute..."

"When you’re practically touching the nose of a Great White, you’re thinking two things: how fast can I get back into the cage and will it hurt when she rips my torso off and leaves my legs standing there," said underwater photographer Don Carpenter after this encounter with a great white shark off Guadeloupe Island, Mexico.



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Scuba Divers Save Shark from Frisbee Ring Off Palm Beach

There are consequences for our garbage; or in this case, our beach toys. Luckily for this shark, two divers took the risk to save it.

Two South Florida divers had a close encounter few would believe. They came face to face with a shark that had a plastic ring around its neck.

John Dickinson and Chip Garber not only saw it, they have proof. They videotaped it.

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They were with a group that was diving on a wreck off Palm Beach called "The Princess Ann" when they noticed a nurse shark lying lifeless on the bottom of the ocean.

"We thought the shark was dead, however after pulling her tail she began to swim away," Dickinson says.

They noticed the shark had a large Frisbee-like ring around its neck which prevented it from eating.

They decided to make a brave move. Chip was able to approach the shark from behind and grab the ring and remove it.

"You can tell in the video that the shark had lost a lot of weight. Hopefully the shark will begin eating again and live a long healthy life," says Dickinson.

Good for you, gentlemen. Our hats off to you.

Protecting Florida Lemon Sharks

That's the purpose of a recently-approve rule by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) approved a rule Thursday to prohibit all recreational and commercial harvest of lemon sharks from Florida waters. The FWC took this action to protect lemon sharks, because they have a high potential to be overharvested.

Lemon sharks are often found near shore in shallow water, especially in Southeast Florida, where they aggregate in large numbers each year. This makes them easy to locate and raises the potential for large numbers of lemon sharks to be removed from the population with minimal effort by fishermen.

Lemon sharks also are susceptible to overharvest because of their life history characteristics. They are slow-growing, reaching sexual maturity at 12-15 years of age, and have a low reproductive potential, producing 6 to 18 pups per litter every second or third year. Juvenile lemon sharks experience a mortality of 40-60 percent.

Recently, some preliminary data from an ongoing tagging study found that at least 7.5 percent of tagged adult lemon sharks from a Southeast Florida aggregation succumbed to fishing mortality in one season. At that rate, the entire lemon shark aggregation could be harvested in a few years.

In addition, recent regulatory actions for other shark species might put more fishing pressure on lemon sharks in Florida waters, where 90 percent of known lemon shark aggregations occur. The harvest of lemon sharks will still be allowed in offshore federal waters adjacent to state waters.

Healthy lemon shark populations are especially important to Florida's dive charter industry which provides ecotourism trips to see lemon shark aggregations in the winter months.

The FWC's lemon shark rule takes effect on March 23. More information about recent shark-management actions is available online at MyFWC.com/Rules, click on "Fishing - Saltwater."

Hat tip: OceanicDreams

Vince Vaughn Overcomes Fear of Sharks

While shooting his latest comedy flick, Couples Retreat, Vince Vaughn admits that he had to overcome a lifelong fear of sharks.

The actor admits he was a nervous wreck at having to swim in shark infested waters off the Bora Bora coast for a stunt in the movie but managed to get through it without being eaten.

“I grew up around a lake so I was uncomfortable with what might be lurking in the water,” explains Vaughn. “There were sharks and we swam with them.

“It’s like anything in life. Once you get around something, you go, ‘Oh, this is kinda cool.’ But, originally, I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going in the ocean with a shark!’”

If you have yet to see it, Couples Retreat is worth the cost of admission.


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Palau to Create First Shark Sanctuary

And what a beautiful island nation in which to do so.

The Republic of Palau is an Island nation in the Pacific some 500 miles east of the Philippines , with a rich and diverse marine ecosystem surrounding it. The economy of Palau subsists primarily on tourism, agriculture and fisheries, and it came as a great surprise to all when they announced in the recent UN Assembly the brave step to create the world’s first “shark sanctuary”, banning all commercial shark fishing in its waters.

The move announced by the Island nation’s President Johnson Toribiong, stated that Palau will protect about 600,000 sq km (230,000 sq miles) of ocean, roughly the area of France, and aim to curb the cruel practice if shark fining, which is the process of catching sharks, cutting off their fins and throwing the rest of the fish, still alive, back into the ocean to die.

The fins are prized throughout Asia for use in sharks fin soup and local medicines. As many as 100 million sharks are killed each year around the world and the once prolific shark, is now slated to be placed on the endangered list in the next few years.

“Palau will declare its territorial waters and extended economic zone to be the first officially recognized sanctuary for sharks,” Palauan President Johnson Toribiong told the Associated Press in an interview Thursday.

Tanya Streeter Free Dives with Reef Sharks

World freediving champion Tanya Streeter is apparently afraid of sharks. In this beautiful footage from the BBC show 'Shark Therapy', Streeter dives with reef sharks in an attempt to overcome her fear.


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On Killing 33,000 Sharks, 2,000 Dolphins, 2,000 Turtles to Boost Beach Tourism in South Africa

Not cool. Not cool at all.

It is difficult to believe in this day in age, with all that we know about sharks' plummeting populations, their critical role in ocean ecosystems and the minimal risk they pose to humans, that the archaic and destructive practice of installing shark nets for "bather protection" still exists. But in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa, a province ironically known around the world as one of the few places left where sharks and the ecosystems they keep healthy still thrive, untold numbers of harmless sharks, turtles, dolphins, and rays meet an untimely and senseless death each year by entanglement in the approximately 28 kilometres of ‘shark' nets that are installed just off the beaches.

What are shark nets?
Shark nets are essentially gill nets: long rectangular nylon mesh nets, 200-300 metres in length, that are positioned near the surface of the water and kept afloat with buoys. Sharks swim into these nets and are caught by their gills. The squares of mesh are designed to be just large enough for sharks to become entangled, but not escape. The more a shark or any other animal struggles in these nets, the more hopeless their situation becomes, and the more impossible their chances of escape and survival. The vast majority of these animals die an agonizing death by suffocation. Gill nets are widely considered to be one of the greatest threats to the survival of many species of marine animals.

33% of sharks in nets were leaving beaches!
In South Africa, the shark nets are installed in tiered patterns by the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board (KZNSB). Just beneath the surface, they do not fully extend to either the top or the bottom and do not even come close to fully enclosing the beach areas. The result is that sharks can easily swim around or under the nets and into the shallow waters in which humans swim and surf. In fact, the KZNSB acknowledges on its own website that at least 33% of the sharks killed in these nets were actually on their way OUT from the beaches, rather than on their way in, and other sources estimate that this number is closer to 70%.

Bait is set to attract sharks
You see, the goal is not to provide a physical barrier to keep sharks away from the beaches, but rather to control shark populations by culling them. In many cases, the KZNSB places baited drumlines just outside the shark nets, which are designed to attract sharks in towards the beaches and kill them, either by biting the baited hooks on the drumlines or by entanglement in the nearby gill nets.

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To join the fight to remove these nets, visit Remove The Nets.

Jessica Alba's Shark Poster Campaign: Good Initiative, Bad Judgment

We love that Jessica Alba is trying to do her part to bring awareness to the world's declining shark population. We just prefer she didn't do so using such felonious tactics.

A red-faced Jessica Alba is apologizing for plastering shark-conservation posters around Oklahoma City - a stunt that sparked a police investigation.

"I got involved in something I should have had no part of," the "Fantastic Four" actress said in a statement Tuesday.

"I realize that I should have used better judgment and I regret not thinking things through before I made a spontaneous and ill-advised decision to let myself get involved with the people behind this campaign."

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Good initiative, Jessica.

Bad judgment.

Luckily for Alba, her status as part of the Hollywood elite probably saved her from facing charges.

E! Online reports that Fantastic Four actress Jessica Alba will not be facing charges for her vandalism spree in Oklahoma City last week.

Alba, currently in Oklahoma City filming the big-screen adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel The Killer Inside Me, had plastered posters of sharks all over downtown in an effort to draw attention to the dwindling shark population in the world's oceans.

"The decision has been made to close the case," revealed police Sgt. Gary Knight says in a statement. "The case will not be presented to the district attorney's office."

Alba, 28, could have faced felony vandalism charges for the incident. However, the property owners targeted by Alba's postering spree declined to press charges.

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