Original subtitles

[menacing music]

Downloaded from YTS.MX

[narrator] He's one of the most feared animals on the planet.

He weighs 2,000 pounds, has razor sharp teeth,

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

and has evolved to be one of the most stealthy ambush hunters in the oceans.

He's so dangerous, in fact, that many believe

the only way to study him is through the bars of a cage

and so most of the time this is how we see him.

And this is how he sees us.

But are we protected by the bars of the cage?

Or blinded?

[guitar rock music]

[narrator] On a small research vessel off the coast of Mexico a group of scientists,

divers and filmmakers will swim beyond the cage

in order to look into the mind of a single Great White shark.

Their goal: to determine once and for all

if he is an intelligent animal

or a mindless killer.

There are some things you have to take risk on.

If any of those sharks really want you they're going to get you.

You can't change the whole world's perception on sharks,

but if we get people to care about Great White sharks

it will trickle down to all the rest of the sharks and the ocean.

Empathy leads to care and knowledge leads to empathy.

[narrator] In order to understand the Great White,

the crew of the Captain Jack will look through his eyes,

swim with him, touch him, interact with him,

and, in the end, they will be so confident in the relationship that they've built,

that they will attempt an experiment

that most people would find absolutely crazy.

[dramatic music]

I feel so much like the bait right now.

[narrator] Everything we know about sharks

tells us that this is impossible.

Of course, it doesn't really matter what we think.

The only thing that matters is what he thinks.

[dramatic music]

[narrator] On a beautiful day at the beginning of summer,

a Great White shark will leave the Hawaiian Islands

and begin swimming east.

It is a journey he's made many times before

as did his ancestors before him.

It is a journey from warm water to cold.

From feeding on dorado and wahoo, to tuna and elephant seals.

It is 35 hundred miles,

and he will swim it on a course which is almost perfectly straight.

His name is Bruce or at least that's the name we've given him.

He could be 11 years old or 12 or 20.

He is one of the dominant males

of one of the most powerful species of predators on the planet.

And if you were to fall in the water with a Great White shark

this is exactly the animal you'd want by your side.

People run out the door to come and see Bruce.

They like Bruce and they think

Bruce likes them.

[upbeat guitar music]

[narrator] The crew of the Captain Jack has sailed to Guadalupe Island,

off the coast of Mexico,

in order to work with Bruce

whose unique personality is perfect for their experiments.

The white sharks they have different personalities.

Sometimes you can identify the shark just because of the behavior.

[narrator] Dr. Mauricio Hoyos has probably spent more time

working with the Great Whites

on Guadalupe Island than anyone else on the planet.

I started to love sharks because of the movie Jaws.

And I had the same idea as everybody at the beginning.

My conception of it was

that it was going to try to feed on the divers or to attack the cage

and nothing like that happened.

It has changed because I have been in touch with them and I know them

and I think that

if you want to change your mind you have to know

in person these animals.

[narrator] Bruce and hundreds of other Great Whites

migrate each year to Guadalupe Island,

making it one of the most important destinations

for shark research on the planet.

[Hoyos] I'm using ultrasonic transmitters with temperature and depth sensors.

Also I have under water receivers

to know the diving behavior of the shark when it's near the island.

[narrator] The tag on Bruce and others like it

have allowed scientists like Mauricio

to paint an increasingly precise picture of what Bruce's life is really like.

Some areas, however, remain shrouded in mystery.

Great White shark reproduction has never been witnessed by human eyes.

What we know has been pieced together from tracking data,

lab experiments and comparisons with other species of shark.

Bruce's parents probably mated somewhere in the course of their long migration.

Perhaps it was in Hawaii or Guadalupe

or perhaps it was at the Great White Cafe,

a mysterious spot in the middle of the Pacific

where Great White sharks gather from all across the western hemisphere.

Unlike other fish, Great White's eggs hatch in the womb,

and are carried to term before a live birth.

However, even in the womb Bruce had to fight for survival,

competing with the other pups to consume their mother's unfertilized eggs.

The loser of these intrauterine battles were often consumed themselves.

After a year long gestation period, Bruce's mother gave birth to him

and a few other survivors.

Bruce was probably just under five feet

as he swam into the open ocean for the first time.

And from that moment on, he was on his own.

How did he find food?

How did he protect himself from larger predators?

Unfortunately,

while ultra sonic and satellite tags can provide scientists like Mauricio

with an incredible amount of data

what they don't do is tell us what a shark like Bruce is thinking.

Why is he going deep or shallow?

What does Bruce's behavior mean?

In many ways, the study of sharks is in the same position today

that the study of primates was in 40 years ago.

It took two women, Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey,

to revolutionize the way animals were studied.

Instead of observing the animal from a distance

or through the bars of a cage,

they interacted, they connected,

they formed a relationship with another species

and learned things about the chimpanzee and the mountain gorilla

that no one had ever suspected before.

Their work the crew of the Captain Jack has been trying to emulate

for much of the last decade.

In 2004 this led them on one of the most unusual

and ill-fated experiments in the history of shark research.

[dramatic music]

So in taking the ideas that Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey had,

we came up with this idea to build a shark

that we could be inside with and swim with the sharks like we're a shark.

That idea alone shows how incredibly out of touch we are

with their world.

[narrator] After years of work and a few close calls,

the crew of the Captain Jack finally got their shark to swim.

However, the lessons you learn from the experiment

are often very different from what you set out to find.

[Hoover ] The moment the first Great White saw robo,

we were certain that something big was going to happen.

Maybe they'd posture, test it, attack it,

but they didn't.

[narrator] The most interesting thing the crew saw

wasn't inside the shark sub but outside.

Something that people don't think about with a show like this

is that for every shot you see

there was a cameraman in the water shooting it.

While the sharks were kind of interested in the sub

the things they were really curious about

were the divers.

[narrator] This experience led the crew of the Captain Jack to an idea

that most people would find absolutely crazy.

What if, instead of observing the shark through the bars of the cage

or even from inside robo,

they attempt to interact with him in the open ocean?

Would it be possible to form a relationship with a Great White shark

in the same way

that Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall formed relationships with their primates?

[upbeat music]

We get a call in at National Geographic and it's this guy Mike Hoover.

So I call Bob Cranston, "Hey, Bob, have you ever heard of Mike Hoover?"

"I know Mike Hoover!"

Well, he's saying he wants to film white shark predations without a cage.

"Yeah, that sounds like Hoover!"

[narrator] Mike Hoover has filmed Everest,

led three unsupported expeditions to Antarctica,

windsurfed from Alaska to the Soviet Union

and lived for years among the Mujahideen

during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan

and the Taliban before September 11th.

And he's done all of this

in order to transform the way we see the world.

[Hoyos] I have seen the same passion that I have about the sharks.

That's the most important thing. He wants to learn about the sharks.

You become less arrogant as you start to listen to the other side.

You start to think, how much does a Great White shark know?

What could we learn from him? This is a whole library of information.

[narrator] Gathering that information is what Mauricio has been doing

in the waters off Guadalupe for the last seven years.

[Hoyos] And we learned really interesting things about their behavior.

They know they're really powerful,

so in order to avoid a fight

I have seen like two sharks swimming really close to each other,

measuring each other in order to know who's bigger.

I have seen something that it's called a display.

It's like a dog showing the teeth.

So, I don't want to have a fight with you, let's try first this.

And if it doesn't work, then there's going to be a conflict between them.

I have seen the sharks biting each other on the gills,

on the head or even on the fins.

[narrator] It was questions of shark interactions,

social behavior and dominance

that the crew was determined to explore during their robo shark experiment.

But they could never get the Great Whites to treat robo like he was one of them.

[Hoover] There is no way you can fool them,

because they're so much smarter than you think.

[narrator] Robo shark might look like a Great White to us

but sharks don't sense the world the way we do.

In addition to excellent sight and a far superior sense of smell

sharks also possess electrical sensing organs

known as the Ampules of Lorenzini.

These jelly filled canals are so sensitive

that they can detect the one billionth of a volt,

generated by the heartbeat of a tiny fish

buried under the sand.

Without this sixth sense, it is impossible for us to imagine

what the underwater world looks like to a Great White shark.

An even stronger current is produced when metal such as steel

comes in contact with salt water.

Actually, when the cage diving operations started

all the cages were made of steel

and the sharks were really aggressive.

We thought that they're trying to eat the divers in the cage.

[Hoyos] That's what everybody thought. "It wants to eat the persons inside."

But no, it's because of the reaction of the salt water with the metal.

It's a galvanic current.

[narrator] Once shark cages were constructed out of aluminum

incidents of unprovoked sharks biting the bars

fell considerably.

This same galvanic current explains

why sharks are drawn to bite everything from outboard motors

to trans-Atlantic communication cables.

It also explains why robo shark never fooled any of them.

While the crew of the Captain Jack was struggling to get a shark to swim,

National Geographic's Greg Marshall was refining a far more elegant solution.

-The critter cam. -The critter cam.

-The critter cam. -Yeah, the critter cam!

[narrator] Rather than hiding a cameraman inside a shark,

the critter cam turns a shark into a cameraman.

Since its development

the critter cam has been used on everything from a blue whale

to a common house cat.

[Hoyos] I always wonder

if I would be a shark, what would I see.

I think that with the critter cam you can know that for sure.

But if you want to deploy a critter cam on a Great White shark,

you need two things.

The right shark and the right crew.

I want to understand this animal, to check it out, see how they react.

-[Healey] I want to see how you react. -[Brandon laughs]

[Hoover] Brandon Wahlers.

[Whalers] You guys see that, right there? Shark!

He's like 23 going on 17 in some aspects.

He was described in on of the diving magazines

as the Tiger Woods of blue water hunting.

[Healey] He's got my back

and it's the same with him, I got his back.

He is a friend of mine, I don't want to see him get hurt or eaten.

[narrator] Mark Healey has gained an international reputation

as one of the world's top big wave surfers.

But he's also a world class freediver.

[Healey] The way I look at it is, I learn a lot about myself

whenever I push the envelope.

[narrator] In the past, most underwater shark research

has been done using scuba.

Unfortunately, sharks don't like all the noise scuba gear makes,

and the steel tanks produce the same galvanic current

as an old fashioned shark cage.

But Brandon and Mark are world class freedivers.

That means that on a single breathe-hold

they can swim down to depths of well over 100 feet.

Their speed, silence and freedom of movement

will hopefully allow them to interact with Bruce

in ways scuba divers never could.

I pride myself in being passionate about them

and feeling that I know what they're thinking

and what they're doing and why.

At least for the most part and then they do something different.

I've been studying them for seven years and they've been around for millions.

What the hell do I know?

[Hoover] Andy Brandy Casagrande the 4th.

The world's neatest name.

It turns out there is no 3rd, there is no 2nd.

His dad made it up and he thought it sounded better with the 4th on it.

"You're going to swim with Great White sharks, you're crazy."

And then they speed away in their Porsche and snort cocaine.

[Hoover] The guy has some loose screw in his system

that has made him super passionate about wildlife

and in particular the Great White shark.

-Where is he? Talk to us. -[Denis] He's in front of you.

He came knowing a lot and he still knows a lot.

It would be more the other way, what we've learned from him.

[narrator] But the most unusual member of the Captain Jack's crew

isn't a scientist or a filmmaker.

[classical fanfare, Ode to Joy]

[narrator] Mermaids are a myth and a legend.

But for Hannah Fraser they're a symbol,

a reminder that our lives and the lives of our oceans

are intimately connected.

And so Hannah Fraser dons a fish tail and swims.

She swims with porpoises and turtles,

with big fish and even bigger whales.

And if Brandon and Mark's dives go absolutely perfectly,

it's Hannah's intention to take a swim

with Bruce.

[whistles]

[narrator] Bruce has incredibly precise senses.

He hears the engine, the generator, the anchor drop.

He smells the chum.

He might pick up on the electrical signal from the Captain Jack's metal hull.

Maybe he thinks he can get an easy snack. Or maybe he's just plain curious.

But while we'll probably never know what Bruce is thinking,

with the help of the critter cam we can get a pretty good idea

of what he's seeing.

[upbeat flute tune]

[narrator] For a while, Bruce became the project's most valuable cameraman,

filming scenes around Guadalupe Island

that had never been seen before.

[upbeat flute tune]

This shows the deployment.

This is immediately after this camera got put on the shark.

Like little critters on the shark too, they'll run around.

The most interesting thing that I didn't know that I was going to see

is the behavior of the ectoparasites on the head of the shark.

[Hoover] What is that on the left there, the left side of him?

-[Hoover] What's that? -That's a bunch of them.

They were moving all the time.

Actually, I think

that we got the first record of mating of these parasites

right in front of the camera.

[narrator] The parasites

might explain another behavior they saw in the critter cam.

The shark was close to the bottom for more than 45 minutes.

They're almost scratching their belly on the bottom.

[Hoyos] They also could be looking for fishes on the bottom.

A lot of prey items of the stomachs of sharks are fishes from the bottom,

so it could be both.

[narrator] Trying to figure out whether Bruce went to the bottom to hunt

or to scrape parasites off his belly

is one of the things that makes watching the critter cam footage so exciting.

-Wow! -Wow!

-That's the Captain Jack. -[Wahlers] There's another shark.

You got another shark. That's awesome.

And we saw interactions of the sharks.

On one occasion,

you could see a small shark that was coming right in front of Bruce

and suddenly it disappeared.

Because Bruce is a really, really big shark.

[narrator] So the crew of the Captain Jack continues to work day after day

with the critter cam.

But after so many perfect deployments

it was almost inevitable that something would go wrong.

[scratching, dark sounds]

[narrator] The critter cam is designed to release automatically

and float to the surface for retrieval

but for some reason it hadn't.

The guys that designed this thing are really smart.

They built in a redundant release system.

At a scheduled time the blade comes down and cuts that zip tie.

But if that doesn't work

there's a little magnesium post holding the whole thing in place

and magnesium dissolves in salt water.

So if all of the electronic stuff completely fails,

after 10 hours this thing should pop off all on its own.

[narrator] But while the system worked perfectly

the critter cam became tangled in the other tags

on Bruce's dorsal fin.

This wasn't about losing a valuable piece of equipment,

this was about Bruce.

And there was no way of knowing how long the camera would be stuck on his back.

[narrator] There was only one solution.

If the critter cam didn't fall off on its own,

then somebody was going to have to swim down

and take it off by hand.

[clanging sound]

[narrator] If you knew an animal was evil

would it change the way you treat it?

The killer whale is one of the most powerful predators in the oceans,

but it is protected and revered

while the shark is slaughtered at the rate of about 100 million a year.

If you knew an animal was unfairly labeled as a demon,

how much would you be willing to risk to save it?

[Healey] Well, going into the trip,

I made up my mind that I wasn't going to force any kind of dangerous situation.

I'd only jump in with a shark and interact with them outside of the cage

if it totally seemed like it made sense to me.

[shouts]

[Healey] So first five minutes we get on the boat,

Bruce, the biggest shark we saw the whole trip, was there,

and the second I saw him, I knew he was one I could swim with.

This critter cam was supposed to deploy. It never did, it was stuck on his back.

Apparently at National Geographic they spent a ton of money on this thing.

So they really wanted it back and they were kind of talking

jokingly amongst themselves about somebody could just go and cut it.

So I was like, "Yeah, I think we can do that."

I knew that everything was there

and he was the perfect white shark to come in contact with.

But it's like having all the information on insider trading

but you have to put your life savings up front.

The moment that he came and tuned straight into me,

and I realized that I was

the sole interest of him at that moment,

that's when I'm sure that shark could hear my heartbeat loud and clear in the water.

It felt like it was beating right here in my throat, you know.

I was his for the taking, if he wanted me.

It's a 100% chance he would have been able to have me.

He came up and I actually didn't approach him right.

I kind of rushed it because I was super nervous.

So he could see me with his left eye,

and as I'm coming down he's kind of rolling.

I'm trying to get to his dorsal fin and it's getting further away.

I'm getting closer to the mouth, further away from the dorsal fin.

So I'm like, "Oh crap."

I ended up clipping that zip tie on the critter cam,

and you could tell he was kind of trying to shake it off,

and went up to the surface and thrashed around and got it lose

and took off but then he came right back around again.

[Casagrande] The shark's still around, the shark's still here.

-[Casagrande] Bruce is circling around. -[Hoover] Bruce is back. [laughs]

Seemed like he wanted more, you know, it's bizarre.

This is a chance for an interaction.

He's coming in to see about us and we’re out there to see about him.

Let's kind of figure out some way to interact.

[narrator] The interaction with Mark Healy is a first step.

But if the crew of the Captain Jack wants to forge a relationship

with a predator as powerful as Bruce,

they're going to need some very special help.

[upbeat music]

[fanfare music]

[narrator] Thirty-five years ago, forming a relationship with a killer whale

was almost as crazy as forming one with a Great White shark.

Killer whales are the other apex predator in the ocean,

and in many ways they're dominant even over the Great White.

But in the last 35 years, the image of the killer whale

has been completely transformed.

[Hoover] Looking at the show at Sea World, I was more interested

in how they got them to do it and there had to be somebody,

some Bill Gates of killer whale training,

and I wanted to meet him.

And that guy is Thad Lacinak.

[guitar music]

[Lacinak] When I first started, animal training was a lot more basic

than it is today.

There was a lot more of tell the animal what to do.

And we found with killer whales because...

Their name alone says it,

they're not going to be told what to do by anybody.

[Hoover] They have to do it because they like you,

because they built up a relationship with you.

And they have to do it for things other than food.

So we changed the way we train the animals and focused more on the positive.

[narrator] The result was a new relationship with a wild animal

and the transformation of its image from killer

to friend.

At a small facility in Jamaica,

one of Thad's students, Eric Bogden,

is using his techniques

to work with an animal that most people would consider to be untrainable.

[splashes]

[Lacinak ] Yeah, this is... Look at that!

Look at the other ones.

That is absolutely incredible! Upperhand conditioning at its best.

That is just incredible.

These animals know exactly where to go and what to do

as soon as they hit the water.

And these are sharks, these are suppose to be not so smart.

I know we are going to be able to do some stuff with whites.

[narrator] But working with killer whales or even nurse sharks in captivity

is very different from working with Great Whites in the open ocean.

Still, in many ways,

the greatest obstacle the crew of the Captain Jack faces

is the one they brought with them...

Fear.

[thundering music]

[narrator] Terrifying, isn't it?

But what if, instead of looking at it through the eyes of a victim,

you could see through the eyes of the shark?

Maybe you'd notice how the shark attacks from below,

ambush style,

or how it's jaws dislocate

and he can move his rows of teeth almost independently.

Maybe you'd even notice how the guy with the bait

pulls it at the last possible second,

in order to tease the shark and get his shot.

If you could see all that, the shark would remain exactly the same

but you would have changed.

[guitar music]

[narrator] That's why the crew have come to Guadalupe.

Not to change the shark but to change our perceptions of the shark

through direct physical contact.

But how do you interact safely with a predator as powerful as Bruce?

Well, the first thing you do is you ask the guy who's done it before.

What was it like the first time you got in the water with the killer whales?

Well, I mean, we spent days before we got in the water with them,

working with them on the surface.

I mean, we've been here, what? Seven, eight days?

And I worked with a killer whale named Ramu

who was a pretty aggressive male killer whale.

He weighed about 9,000 pounds

but we'd make mistakes once in a while, we'd push him a little to far,

we'd ask a little too much of our relationship with him.

And we got hurt.

We got dragged to the bottom of the pool, held under water.

We made all the mistakes back then.

And we learned from them. And that's kind of what we're doing here.

-[Hoover] That's what we're doing here. -Exactly.

It's a little bit of trial and error.

The difference is we don't have 35 years of studying and working with them.

-With the exact same animal. -And in those controlled circumstances.

That's the difference.

Hey, and I'm not saying I wouldn't do it.

-I'm not saying... -Well, will you do it?

-Yeah, I'd try it. -Good.

After Brandon.

[laughter]

Thad, how do we answer the question, why?

Well, in my opinion, you never... you can't find out more about the animal

until you try something.

-A next step in learning about them. -I absolutely feel that way.

And it's a next step in them or at least this small population learning about us.

[narrator] So under Thad's direction, Brandon and Mark swim away from the cage.

Their goal: to interact with a 16 foot, 2,000 pound predator.

But what happens next is something nobody would have predicted.

[upbeat guitar music]

[narrator] Not only did Bruce not attack them,

he allowed Brandon and Mark to ride on his dorsal fin.

Not just once, not just twice,

but all afternoon.

But it wasn't just Bruce. Other sharks showed up to interact.

And not one of them came in to take a bite.

[upbeat music]

That was fun.

It certainly is fun. A dorsal ride is a lot of fun.

And you actually sort of feel an affinity towards the shark.

And you kind of feel...

And this is maybe anthropomorphizing way too much,

you feel he might feel the same way towards you.

I'm not one of those people that think I like got some...

...magical communication telepathy with animals.

But what really amazed me is how some of them would just...

They loved it, they'd keep coming back for more.

They actually wanted to be around you.

And not in a...

...in the context of prey and predator.

[Lacinak] If the shark didn't like it,

number one he'd probably swim as fast as he could to get away,

or he'd turn around and lunch the guy but they haven't done that.

Yesterday I watched one shark.

In a matter of 45 minutes,

he came around eight times.

And each time he let one of the divers grab him by the dorsal

and go for a long ride.

I know this sounds crazy as hell

and I can't even believe I'm saying it,

I probably would not have said this had I not seen what I've seen here now,

with these sharks.

But I know animals,

and that shark is telling you,

"It didn't bother me at the least."

And he may have enjoyed it.

There are people out there that are going to think this is a stunt.

That I dared Brandon to grab onto a white shark

so I could film it.

[Hoover] No matter what we do some people are going to say

it's a stunt and we're going to be on all kinds of blogs,

being a bunch of yahoos, cowboys, whatever.

But what Thad said right now is so profound.

That it wasn't aversive to the shark,

contrary to what everybody would have predicted.

The shark comes back. The shark goes by the tuna.

He's curious about us. He's learning about us.

We're learning about him.

[narrator] But is Bruce really learning about the crew of the Captain Jack?

After all,

most people think of him as little more than a mindless killer.

Actually, in the past most of the people thought

that the sharks were stupid creatures.

[narrator] Early analysis of white shark anatomy

revealed a brain not much larger than the human thumb.

But recent data suggests that the brain of the white shark

might be far bigger than anyone ever suspected.

Just below what we thought was the shark's brain

is a large, flat, Y shaped structure

whose cells bear very close resemblance to brain tissue.

In a 16 foot white shark, this Y shaped structure can grow

up to two and a half feet long,

implying previously undetected cognitive ability

in an animal widely believed to be a mindless killer.

And yet, despite all the new data, the myth of the demon shark

is stronger than ever.

A shark is a killing machine.

-They show no love, no mercy. -Vicious...

They're hungry and out to get people.

-They can sense blood. -I didn't swim for years after I saw Jaws.

[narrator] Sharks kill only a handful of people each year

but the fear of sharks affects millions.

If I see a dolphin fin it gives me a slight...

[laughs]

...you know, fear.

[narrator] And how do people know what they know

about the Great White shark?

I see it on TV a lot.

[narrator] Mike Hoover has spent much of the last decade

filming the Great Whites.

While his intention is to demystify the animal

the realities of the entertainment industry have put him

in an almost impossible position.

You see,

there's only one real way to sell a shark show...

...teeth.

[Nutcracker music]

[narrator ] And if you want teeth you're going to have to use bait.

So if we don't deliver the shark shot

we don't have a film, we don't get paid, and we don't get another job.

We have to get that shot.

And pivotal to getting that shot is the bait.

[Nutcracker music]

[narrator ] Once the bait's in the water all you can do

is wait...

...and wait...

...and wait.

And even when the sharks do come to visit,

there's no guarantee that they'll actually take a bite.

[Hoover] We put out bait in the water and they often swim right by it.

And you go, well then why are they here?

You think about the number of times that they come in and swim by the bait,

you would think that might be two to one or three to one or something like that.

It's probably closer to 40 to 1 that they come by

and come by and come by...

Often they don't even go by the bait.

The white sharks do not eat all the time.

Actually, there was a study.

Some scientist set an internal transmitter in the stomach of the shark

in order to know when the shark was going to feed

and the shark didn't feed for one month and a half.

[narrator] And then, finally, after weeks or even months of waiting,

you get the shot you were looking for.

[bang]

So, how we know what we know about Great White sharks

has largely been influenced by only seeing sharks that are eating.

[bang and splash]

Imagine if everything we knew about human beings

was watching them eat at the dinner table.

And now, from that we're going to be able to describe what their lives are like.

When this becomes the totality of what you know

about Great White sharks,

your opinion of them is going to be bent.

Because, first of all, we only see them in one particular mode.

And second of all, the media tends to amplify that mode.

And you see it over, and over, and over, and over again,

until that becomes what a Great White shark is.

A mindless eating machine.

Which it isn't.

[narrator] One of the most interesting things the crew discovers

is how broad and varied the range of personalities are

among the sharks of Guadalupe.

From the calm and cautious sharks like Bruce

to the small, twitchy, aggressive,

and, to be honest, very frightening shark named Mao.

[guitar music]

We weren't getting rides on those guys, like that scarred up one, Mao,

he was... he wanted a piece, man.

He tried to sneak up on me a bunch of times.

He's really... I don't like to say aggressive

but it's all the time, he's really active, all the time he's moving.

He's on the other side of the cage and he's biting the motor.

He's smaller, he's younger, probably.

And he's got shark bites on him. You'd think that's changed his behavior.

An interesting thing about white sharks, you can learn a lot about their behavior

just by their looks.

The rougher and ripped up and scarred up and more beat up the shark looks,

means the shark has no problem with brawling.

[Lacinak] Has he been picked on by other sharks

and that could cause him to have an attitude?

And that goes back to my point

that you can not predict

what these sharks are going to do and you have to be careful.

You do not know what the individual history is on the animals.

And the more we do it and the more we're all in the water,

then we can start to predict it but you can make mistakes too.

[narrator] So what is Bruce thinking when he sees the diver in the water?

Is he motivated by hunger or curiosity

or some other instinct we haven't even begun to suspect?

It's a big question and the only way to answer it is experience

as we advance step by tiny step.

Present Bruce with new things and observe his reactions.

Will he be cautious, aggressive, curious, fearful...

...maybe even playful?

The more unusual the situation the more interesting the reaction.

And sometimes the most exciting experiments

are the ones where no one has any idea what will happen next.

[thundering music]

[string music]

[narrator] This is the world as Bruce sees it.

White light shining through blue water.

The feel of coarse sand against his rough skin.

And the smell of a thousand lives

connected by the shimmering buzz of electricity

which we will never see.

This is his world and he knows every inch of it.

But for the last several weeks he's been focused on something else.

Is it possible that he is just as curious about us

as we are about him?

Well, when we're in the water they seem more interested

and engaged with us than the 80 pound tuna hanging above our heads.

[Lacinek] That convinced me, we watch it, you've got this fish hanging out there

and they're not coming up and taking a swipe at it.

Bruce is coming, again and again

because it's interesting, it's curiosity it's telling you that it's...

...an intelligent animal.

Behavior works like this, you have...

You have the behavior and then a consequence happens.

For instance, a shark could rub up against the side of the boat

and knock some parasites off.

And that feels good, that... and then he does it again.

I think that it's really important the research of Thad

because he has a lot of experience with behavior.

With mammals, not with sharks, but maybe we could learn a lot

of the white shark behavior because nobody knows anything.

We have the small things about that behavior with the technology.

But I think that sometimes the most important thing

is to be there, watching face to face.

For instance, and I know this is going to sound really crazy,

even to this group, but probably even more to this group on television.

Will they like tactile? Will they like touch?

I mean, every animal I've ever worked with absolutely loves a belly scratch

or a rub with a brush or...

Killer whales love tactile, elephants love it,

cats, dogs, every animal likes tactile.

Would these animals like it?

Possibly. They've got a lot of parasites on them.

And would they repeat something for that reinforcer.

Like a couple of dorsal rides I started rubbing their sides and stuff,

and they loved it.

[narrator] Now, instead of simply being motivated by hunger

the sharks at Guadalupe Island are coming in for something else.

For curiosity and possibly even for direct physical contact

which the crew of the Captain Jack can use

to push the envelope even further.

They try to look at you when you're riding them.

If you put your head over to one side it almost acts like a rudder,

they'll look back at you and turn their head that way

and when they turn their that way, their body goes that way.

Then you go to the other side to turn left.

-Left to turn left, right to turn right. -Yep.

-Huh. -Let's try it.

I'm sure with the right shark you could do it.

You could totally steer them.

Ok, any other ideas before we go out... and get stupid?

I really don't have a show

if there aren't people in the water with the sharks.

So, I try to be the first guy in the water with the sharks

and the last guy out of the water with the sharks

to demonstrate that not only do I think it's safe

but they can see for themselves.

It's safe. Relatively safe.

But is everything he does safe?

No. No, it's not safe.

And at some point you've got to realize just like on this trip

shit's going to happen.

If you do this enough, swim with Great White sharks,

somebody's going to get whacked.

But what's that mean? You stay in a cage your whole life?

I don't think so.

You take a guy like Mark Healey or Brandon Wahlers

and they wouldn't be here if it wasn't dangerous.

[guitar music]

[narrator] The truth is, it takes a very special person to do this kind of work.

One who is driven not by money or fame

but out of a passionate desire to see through the eyes of a species

which is at once beautiful and misunderstood.

This is the Great White shark song.

[guitar music]

The adult version.

♪ If I was a Great White I wouldn't bite you ♪

♪ But I'd swim right next to you ♪

♪ If I was a Great White I wouldn't bite you ♪

♪ But I'd swim right next to you And ask you ♪

♪ How ya do? ♪

♪ Then you'd look at me And pull out a harpoon ♪

♪ And try to shoot me ♪

♪ Then I'd realize How fuckin' really hungry ♪

♪ I am right now ♪

♪ Sorry about your leg I'll be back in a while for the rest ♪

♪ Don't stress ♪

♪ My sister will be back To clean up this mess ♪

♪ Relax ♪

♪ Kickback It's only a Great White shark attack ♪

[splash]

♪ If I was a Great White I wouldn't bite you ♪

♪ But I'd swim right next to you ♪

♪ Cuz it's my ocean too ♪

♪ So, please, keep it clean Cuz I can be fuckin' mean ♪

♪ And I got sharp teeth ♪

♪ And if I realized that That you don't care about the sea ♪

♪ Well, that means You don't care about me ♪

♪ Oh, well ♪

♪ That's fine, I'll just bite you In fuckin' half ♪

♪ This time If I was a Great White ♪

♪ Yeah, if I was a Great White shark ♪

[strums strings]

Raar.

[laughter, applause]

[narrator] Each one of them came with a different perception of the Great White.

But having seen them, swum with them, even touched them,

none of those perceptions remain the same.

The question is, have they done enough

to change the way we see the Great White?

According to Mike Hoover the answer is "no."

If they really want to make a change,

they are going to have to push the envelope one last time.

[dramatic music]

[pulsating music]

[narrator] Looking into the mind of the Great White shark

isn't easy.

Because there isn't one Great White but two.

One is the child of evolution,

elegant, powerful, and perfect.

The other is the child of our imagination,

blood-thirsty, vicious and absolutely terrifying.

Between these two visions is a great barrier,

one made not of steel or stone but of something far more powerful...

...fear.

[Hoover ] We've become more and more afraid of things.

Safety first. The most important thing is safety.

If we're not safe we're not being responsible.

And before you know it you have become trapped

in a cage of fear of your own making.

And then when we go out into the world we take that cage with us.

And anything that's different is perceived negatively.

And that attitude is an effective blinder.

It makes you incapable of seeing other things

because your biggest concern is safety.

Safety.

But once you've crossed that barrier and you go out of your cage

and you come forward openhandedly and you get to know the animal,

even if it's a dangerous animal, once that happens

you will care about the animal.

[narrator] Hannah came to Guadalupe to see if it was possible for a mermaid

to swim with a Great White.

But the real demon she faced wasn't the one in the water.

I was absolutely petrified of sharks.

I'd had all my friends and family writing me emails

just saying, "Please don't do this. Nothing's worth the risk."

[narrator] But as she observed Bruce's interaction with the other divers,

her perceptions began to change.

To see you guys go and do fin rides and stuff like that, it's...

It's beyond what I thought would be possible,

and to see that they don't even flinch.

[narrator] But just because something worked once or twice

doesn't mean it will work every time

and there is a fine line between confidence and carelessness.

You should never take animals for granted.

And you should never take any wild animal and just accept

that this is going to always happen.

[narrator] The crew of the Captain Jack have shown that it is possible

to interact safely with the Great White shark.

But they've also learned that the variables to such an interaction

are exceedingly complex,

if not entirely mysterious.

-Where's the shark? -[man] Right there.

No way. I don't like that.

Visibility is deteriorating, got about 15 to 25 foot of visibility.

Don't think it's very safe of an idea.

I guess the greatest risk or the greatest danger would be

of a shark making a mistake, so to speak.

They don't have hands to touch things with.

They investigate everything with their mouth.

The biggest problem with the Great White shark is its size.

If you go wading in a pond

and a bunch of little minnows start biting at your toes...

"Aren't they cute", is what you might say.

But if the minnow weighs 5,000 pounds it isn't so cute.

The behavior is the same.

In one case it tickles, in the other case it's fatal.

[narrator] For Hannah to swim with the Great Whites, she must deal with risks

which are far greater than those faced by Brandon or Mark.

[guitar music]

[Lacinak] Brandon and Mark got a wet suit on, they've got a mask.

I wouldn't want to do that without a mask. Little goggles are hard to see out of.

Everybody who's swimming with sharks has something in their hands,

whether it's a big camera or a stick or a spear-fishing gun.

I'm in there, and I've got nothing. It's just me.

[narrator] And Hannah is breathing compressed air off of Andy's tank.

That means that if she chooses to swim towards the shark,

she will have to swim away from her air supply.

And because Andy is weighed down with extra tanks and a camera,

there is absolutely no way he can keep up with her.

Now Hannah can hold her breath for a very long time.

But eventually she will either have to turn her tail towards the shark

or escape to the surface.

And that is not the place you want to be with sharks circling around underneath

because that is how they identify their prey.

And my silhouette looks like a skinny, anorexic elephant seal

and if they're feeling hungry, they might just think, well, close enough.

[narrator] If the greatest danger of working with Bruce

is that he could make a mistake, then how safe is it

to introduce him to something that is half human and half fish?

When I listened to my inner self

and got past the actual fear,

it became clear that it was... definitely a journey I wanted to take.

[spherical music]

I feel so much like the bait right now.

I can't believe I'm doing this.

I mean, people are always telling me... you look like a six foot shiny lure.

[fast electronic music]

[spherical music]

[narrator] As Hannah watches the sharks circle her from the safety of the cage,

she can't help but think about all the unknowns that are waiting for her,

just a few inches away.

Will Bruce's incredible senses be able to distinguish the difference

between the mermaid tail and that of an elephant seal?

Will he be curious enough to approach Hannah

but not so curious that he comes in for an exploratory bite?

And, perhaps most importantly, this is the open ocean,

and while the goal is to swim with Bruce,

there is no real way to control which sharks Hannah will encounter.

What if it’s Mao?

Or even a new shark whose history and personality remain unknown.

No one, not Hoover, Thad, Mauricio, or anyone else

can predict what Hannah will experience when she swims out

into the unknown.

It is, in the end, a leap of faith.

Faith in the shark, and,

perhaps more importantly, faith in herself.

[Ode to Joy]

[Frasier] That moment, when I actually took off towards a shark,

wearing the mermaid tail, something clicks inside my head,

and I feel like I am literally at one with the ocean.

[Ode to Joy]

[guitar music]

[narrator] Hanna swims among the sharks at Guadalupe Island for six straight days.

[Casagrande] The shark is back.

-[Fraser] The shark is back? -[Hoover] He's back?

[narrator] And not one of the sharks responds to her, even for a second,

as anything remotely resembling a food source.

So what exactly does this prove?

Can we say definitively that Bruce's incredible senses

allowed him to instantly differentiate between the mermaid

and the animals he usually hunts?

Or maybe he was acclimated to swimming with divers

by the positive interactions he had with Brandon and Mark.

Maybe Bruce is just a very sweet shark

or maybe he just didn't happen to be hungry.

The answer could be all of those or none

because the truth is that Hannah's swim, like the dorsal rides,

critter cam and every bit of Mauricio's data

are merely tiny clues in a vast mystery.

But the crew of the Captain Jack knows that even the tiniest step

brings them a little bit closer to understanding

the deep complexity of the Great White shark.

And as they prepare for the long journey home,

they know

that just below the surface another long journey is about to begin

for a Great White shark named Bruce.

[guitar rock music]

[flute music]

Subtitle translation by: Heike Wessels