It’s not an exaggeration to say that Shark Week is one of the most recognized television projects in the world. It combines people’s love of sharks with versed scientists and passionate people who’ve studied or have a fascination with sharks. And, as marine biologist Kendyl Berna told me (more on that later), Shark Week allows for experiments that wouldn’t be funded by the grants and donations that they receive.
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with some of the scientists and personalities who are participating in this year’s Shark Week. Let’s start with the conversation with shark attack survivor Paul de Gelder, who’s on Invasion of the Mega Sharks, Bull Shark Dinner Bell, and Ultimate Shark Dive.
Paul de Gelder is a Royal Australian Army & Navy veteran who also survived a bull shark attack that took one of his arms and legs. Despite the tragedy, he overcame the incident to begin working to learn more about sharks. In particular, bull sharks. Interestingly, he began this career path by overcoming his two greatest fears.
“My two greatest fears in life were sharks and public speaking, and now I’m a shark-diving public speaker, which was very unexpected.”
Having been a Navy bomb disposal diver, Gelder was worried about what he’d do next after the shark attack. But rather than give up, he turned that fear into a motivator.
“I was really quite scared of losing my career. I was more afraid of losing my career than I was of losing my life because I’d worked so hard to develop that job, and it’s very hard to get into, and I didn’t really know what else I would do after the shark attack, especially with one hand and one leg. I was so terrified of my life after that. I used that fear as a very powerful motivator to get me into the gym, to get me training, to get me rehabbed, and I got back to work as an instructor for another three years.”
You may be shocked to hear this, but great white sharks aren’t the killers that movies have portrayed them to be. At the beginning of Bull Shark Dinner Bell, we learn that bull sharks have a higher body count than their more famous cousins.
“I think the great white sharks are sexier. They’re big, they’re scary, and they jump out of the water. They’re like showmen. The bull shark is just kind of sneaky and creepy," Gelder admitted.
You’d assume that description would make them more popular with movie companies like Blumhouse and A24. As Gelder pointed out, though, “People don’t like them because they kept getting bitten.”
For example, he mentioned that Australia had four bull shark attacks in 48 hours.
“People are getting fed up with them, and I swear, they are the worst PR clients since Charlie Sheen, and I don’t know what to do about them. You stand up for them, you tell people that they’re an important part of the ecological system, and that they’re not out there hunting us…and then they bite a bunch of people and make you look like a fool.”
Still, Gelder continues to work with the creatures and comes face to face with a massive shark while he was in an underwater cage (a moment that you won’t want to miss in Bull Shark Dinner Bell). A moment like that isn’t a normal occurrence, so what is it like coming face to face with one of these sharks?
“It’s hard to fathom. The shark was twenty feet long, so you can’t even see a third of the shark. It’s just this gigantic submarine. It’s like watching the start of Star Wars, where the Imperial Light Cruiser is just going and going and going, and it doesn’t stop. That is what it was like going inside of the cage.”
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