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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here,

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Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. His
name is doctor Greg Schoemall. He

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is currently the Director of Massachusetts Shark
Research Program and Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

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His remarkable life and research has come
to life in Chasing Shadows, My

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life tracking the Great White shark and
if you'll forgive me, Greg, I

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bet you get a lot of comparisons
to Richard Dreyfuss's character in Jaws. He

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Hili, it's great to be here. Yes, I do. But I'm

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okay with that because, as you're
read in the book, you know that

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character inspired me to be what I
am today. I have had my share.

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I've done a lot of scuba diving
across the planet, and I've had

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my share of experiences with sharks,
white tip, black tip, gray reef,

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nurse tigers, nurse tiger, and
I've never come in contact with a

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great white. Is their behavior that
much different than other sharks in the genus?

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Well, you're a great testament to
the fact that you know you can

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be in the water with sharks and
not get hurt. You know, obviously

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you're still around I'm sensing the fact
you're fascinated by them. You've never been

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injured by them. The white shark
is a bigger species. It targets larger

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prey. You know, you know, nine hundred ninety nine times out of

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a thousand, it's not going to
hurt you in any way. A matter

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of fact, it may be afraid
of you. But I always caution people

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if you're going to dive with white
sharks, I do recommend a productive cage

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because they are somewhat unpredictable, well
and generally. I mean, that's the

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other thing I've I've dove where I
was in Hawaii and was fascinated that the

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oxygen content was such that the white
tips didn't have to swim to breathe,

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and you could get so many better
pictures of them. Still, I kept

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a healthy distance. I did not
want to appear to be threatening the creature.

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And even one point I got a
little close. The peck fins came

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down and it sort of wandered off. But I thought, it's a little

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too close. Let's back off.
I mean, you don't want to get

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over there and grab them by the
dorsal fin or anything. Oh, you're

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you're absolutely right. You know,
let them do their thing. You know,

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if they're there, they're not taking
off their means, they're comfortable with

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you. Keep your distance, keep
your eyes on them, you know,

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like you. I love to photograph
sharks underwater. It's easier if you're not

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in a cage. For many of
those species, I enjoy swimming with them.

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They do have body language, and
you just talked about you know it's

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species that was, you know,
depressing its pectoral fins. You know that

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body language will tell you, okay, you're getting a little too close to

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me. In that case, you
know, you back off. You leave

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them, leave them alone. They're
fish, you know, they're just big

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fish, and you know, spend
some time with them, get to enjoy

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them, and don't don't crowd them. That is also behavior I've noticed in

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other species. I do a lot
of freshwater diving, and it's remarkable to

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observe large mouth and small mouth bass
kind of behave the same way. It's

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like they're going along and they bite
at what catches their eye. Not so

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much biting because okay, I'm hungry, right right. Yeah. You know

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a lot of people have equate sharks
with shark attack and that's unfortunate. We

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should think of sharks as you know, as you think of them as incredible

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creatures, important components of our natural
marine ecosystem, and we can learn a

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lot from sharks. We learn a
lot about sharks, and we try to

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maintain healthy shark populations. But the
bottom line is we do far more damage

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to shark populations than they do to
us, and people need to keep that

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in mind. He is a Massachusetts
shark researcher and has written a book about

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Chasing Shadows, My life tracking the
Great white shark. What it is about

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the great white that does almost conjure
up a shadow image, Well, you

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know, for me, it was
it was an art pursuit of this species

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for decades, and it was like
a shadowy image as you just reference,

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because they're not easy to find.
Now that's changed recently off the northeastern United

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States where they're now have been predictably
seen, But in my early days it

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was it was tough for me to
find them, and people are drawn.

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I think arguably, the great white
shark is one of the most charismatic and

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feared animals on this planet. Everybody
knows about them, everybody is fascinated by

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them. Many many people are you
know, are afraid of them. So

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part of my quest, and you
read this in the book, is to,

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you know, try to tell the
truth. What do we actually know

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about this species? And more importantly, what don't we know? You know,

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we don't know a lot about its
basic biology. And I talk about

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that, you know, and I
put in the context of my own life

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experiences as I moved through the shark
world, and doctor Greg Skullmall does so

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in Chasing Shadows My life tracking great
white Sharks. The book is out now.

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Great whites primarily cold water sharks.
Yeah they do. I mean a

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lot of people think of sharks as
being tropical species, but you know,

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the white shark is really a temperate
water species. It will go down to

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the tropics, but when it does
so, it tends to remain a little

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bit deeper and feed nearer on or
close to the bottom in those tropical areas.

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And it loves, you know,
traveling all along the eastern seaboard of

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the US, all the way up
to Canadian waters and even as far that

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we've had a number of our tag
sharks go up to Newfoundlands. So you

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know, it is a cold water
species. It can't stand cold water year

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round. You know, it has
to move. It moves with temperature.

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As our northeastern waters cool off,
as Canadian waters cool off, the shark

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will migrate back south again. So
it does prefer a temperate water range and

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it can't tolerate really coold water.
Doctor Greg skullmalls with is chasing shadows my

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life tracking great white sharks. We
all have all seen the experiments with seal

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cutouts floating along the surface and getting
the great white to breach. So we

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know that seals seem to be one
of the staples of their diet. But

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are there others? Yeah, there's
you know, a lot of people equate,

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you know, white sharks with being
top predators of seals and sea lions

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all around the world, and that's
absolutely true. They will go to places

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predictably to feed on those species.
But when they're not at those places,

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which is the bulk of the year, in some cases, they're feeding on

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other items. You know, they'll
feed on other species of sharks. They'll

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feed on dolphins and porpoises. They
love they love to scavenge whale carcasses.

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You know, they can get a
lot of energy from a whale carcass,

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and if there's a dead whale floating
around where white sharks exist, you will

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find white sharks on them. But
they'll also feed, you know, particularly

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smaller white sharks will target a number
of species of schooling fish, fish that

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live honor close to the bottom,
as well as squid, so they have

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a very very broad palette, so
to speak. I remember being in the

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Bahamas swimming at an area where they
usually feed the gray reef sharks. I

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wasn't part of one of those expeditions, nor did I want to be,

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but the gray reefs were hanging out
in mass coming up to us, and

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I could tell they were kind of
looking to see if we had any food

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in our hands, and if we
didn't, they would go on their way.

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Do the white sharks when you're diving
with them behave the same way.

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No. It's a great point because
in some areas where you routinely feed sharks,

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yourn essence starting to train them.
Yeah, and so they will come

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to you and expect to be fed, and that is not necessarily a good

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thing for the people or for the
sharks themselves. And it's one of the

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arguments against perhaps some of the eco
tourism, cage diving operations. It does

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also happen to some extent with white
sharks, you know, in places where

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you consistently have you know, white
sharks being drawn to vessels for you know,

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eco tour purposes South Africa, off
the coast of Mexico. These locations,

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you will begin to train those sharks
and they'll tune into the sound of

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the vessel so to speak. So
you know, the shark will hear the

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dinner belt and then be drawn to
the vessel. Now, a lot of

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these operations have said now you can't
feed the sharks, and that's the good

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things. So you're not providing any
incentive for them to stick around or for

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that matter, to become conditioned like
trained dogs. Up here off the coast

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of New England, we don't allow
any of that kind of what we call

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provisioning of white sharks. You know, we do have eco tours, but

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those eco tours are basically vessels that
will go find the sharks, look at

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them, and then leave them alone. Good to hear Chasing Shadows My Life

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Tracking the Great White sharkt I missed
going to on my reading list for the

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summer. In Doctor Greg Scomall,
thank you for joining us my pleasurely thank

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you, thanks for listening to Later
with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast,

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and remember to listen to The Drive
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