This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here,
Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. His name is doctor Greg Schoemall. He
is currently the Director of Massachusetts Shark Research Program and Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
His remarkable life and research has come to life in Chasing Shadows, My
life tracking the Great White shark and if you'll forgive me, Greg, I
bet you get a lot of comparisons to Richard Dreyfuss's character in Jaws. He
Hili, it's great to be here. Yes, I do. But I'm
okay with that because, as you're read in the book, you know that
character inspired me to be what I am today. I have had my share.
I've done a lot of scuba diving across the planet, and I've had
my share of experiences with sharks, white tip, black tip, gray reef,
nurse tigers, nurse tiger, and I've never come in contact with a
great white. Is their behavior that much different than other sharks in the genus?
Well, you're a great testament to the fact that you know you can
be in the water with sharks and not get hurt. You know, obviously
you're still around I'm sensing the fact you're fascinated by them. You've never been
injured by them. The white shark is a bigger species. It targets larger
prey. You know, you know, nine hundred ninety nine times out of
a thousand, it's not going to hurt you in any way. A matter
of fact, it may be afraid of you. But I always caution people
if you're going to dive with white sharks, I do recommend a productive cage
because they are somewhat unpredictable, well and generally. I mean, that's the
other thing I've I've dove where I was in Hawaii and was fascinated that the
oxygen content was such that the white tips didn't have to swim to breathe,
and you could get so many better pictures of them. Still, I kept
a healthy distance. I did not want to appear to be threatening the creature.
And even one point I got a little close. The peck fins came
down and it sort of wandered off. But I thought, it's a little
too close. Let's back off. I mean, you don't want to get
over there and grab them by the dorsal fin or anything. Oh, you're
you're absolutely right. You know, let them do their thing. You know,
if they're there, they're not taking off their means, they're comfortable with
you. Keep your distance, keep your eyes on them, you know,
like you. I love to photograph sharks underwater. It's easier if you're not
in a cage. For many of those species, I enjoy swimming with them.
They do have body language, and you just talked about you know it's
species that was, you know, depressing its pectoral fins. You know that
body language will tell you, okay, you're getting a little too close to
me. In that case, you know, you back off. You leave
them, leave them alone. They're fish, you know, they're just big
fish, and you know, spend some time with them, get to enjoy
them, and don't don't crowd them. That is also behavior I've noticed in
other species. I do a lot of freshwater diving, and it's remarkable to
observe large mouth and small mouth bass kind of behave the same way. It's
like they're going along and they bite at what catches their eye. Not so
much biting because okay, I'm hungry, right right. Yeah. You know
a lot of people have equate sharks with shark attack and that's unfortunate. We
should think of sharks as you know, as you think of them as incredible
creatures, important components of our natural marine ecosystem, and we can learn a
lot from sharks. We learn a lot about sharks, and we try to
maintain healthy shark populations. But the bottom line is we do far more damage
to shark populations than they do to us, and people need to keep that
in mind. He is a Massachusetts shark researcher and has written a book about
Chasing Shadows, My life tracking the Great white shark. What it is about
the great white that does almost conjure up a shadow image, Well, you
know, for me, it was it was an art pursuit of this species
for decades, and it was like a shadowy image as you just reference,
because they're not easy to find. Now that's changed recently off the northeastern United
States where they're now have been predictably seen, But in my early days it
was it was tough for me to find them, and people are drawn.
I think arguably, the great white shark is one of the most charismatic and
feared animals on this planet. Everybody knows about them, everybody is fascinated by
them. Many many people are you know, are afraid of them. So
part of my quest, and you read this in the book, is to,
you know, try to tell the truth. What do we actually know
about this species? And more importantly, what don't we know? You know,
we don't know a lot about its basic biology. And I talk about
that, you know, and I put in the context of my own life
experiences as I moved through the shark world, and doctor Greg Skullmall does so
in Chasing Shadows My life tracking great white Sharks. The book is out now.
Great whites primarily cold water sharks. Yeah they do. I mean a
lot of people think of sharks as being tropical species, but you know,
the white shark is really a temperate water species. It will go down to
the tropics, but when it does so, it tends to remain a little
bit deeper and feed nearer on or close to the bottom in those tropical areas.
And it loves, you know, traveling all along the eastern seaboard of
the US, all the way up to Canadian waters and even as far that
we've had a number of our tag sharks go up to Newfoundlands. So you
know, it is a cold water species. It can't stand cold water year
round. You know, it has to move. It moves with temperature.
As our northeastern waters cool off, as Canadian waters cool off, the shark
will migrate back south again. So it does prefer a temperate water range and
it can't tolerate really coold water. Doctor Greg skullmalls with is chasing shadows my
life tracking great white sharks. We all have all seen the experiments with seal
cutouts floating along the surface and getting the great white to breach. So we
know that seals seem to be one of the staples of their diet. But
are there others? Yeah, there's you know, a lot of people equate,
you know, white sharks with being top predators of seals and sea lions
all around the world, and that's absolutely true. They will go to places
predictably to feed on those species. But when they're not at those places,
which is the bulk of the year, in some cases, they're feeding on
other items. You know, they'll feed on other species of sharks. They'll
feed on dolphins and porpoises. They love they love to scavenge whale carcasses.
You know, they can get a lot of energy from a whale carcass,
and if there's a dead whale floating around where white sharks exist, you will
find white sharks on them. But they'll also feed, you know, particularly
smaller white sharks will target a number of species of schooling fish, fish that
live honor close to the bottom, as well as squid, so they have
a very very broad palette, so to speak. I remember being in the
Bahamas swimming at an area where they usually feed the gray reef sharks. I
wasn't part of one of those expeditions, nor did I want to be,
but the gray reefs were hanging out in mass coming up to us, and
I could tell they were kind of looking to see if we had any food
in our hands, and if we didn't, they would go on their way.
Do the white sharks when you're diving with them behave the same way.
No. It's a great point because in some areas where you routinely feed sharks,
yourn essence starting to train them. Yeah, and so they will come
to you and expect to be fed, and that is not necessarily a good
thing for the people or for the sharks themselves. And it's one of the
arguments against perhaps some of the eco tourism, cage diving operations. It does
also happen to some extent with white sharks, you know, in places where
you consistently have you know, white sharks being drawn to vessels for you know,
eco tour purposes South Africa, off the coast of Mexico. These locations,
you will begin to train those sharks and they'll tune into the sound of
the vessel so to speak. So you know, the shark will hear the
dinner belt and then be drawn to the vessel. Now, a lot of
these operations have said now you can't feed the sharks, and that's the good
things. So you're not providing any incentive for them to stick around or for
that matter, to become conditioned like trained dogs. Up here off the coast
of New England, we don't allow any of that kind of what we call
provisioning of white sharks. You know, we do have eco tours, but
those eco tours are basically vessels that will go find the sharks, look at
them, and then leave them alone. Good to hear Chasing Shadows My Life
Tracking the Great White sharkt I missed going to on my reading list for the
summer. In Doctor Greg Scomall, thank you for joining us my pleasurely thank
you, thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast,
and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven
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