Speaker 1: Yoda.
Speaker 2: How are you mate, fantastic. How are you doing today, Paul.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good man.
Speaker 3: I'm in New York doing some media stuff, having a
good time. Nothing to complain about.
Speaker 2: You know, It's it's become like Christmas in July Shark Week.
There are so many people that I have met in
the past couple of weeks. That's all we've talked about.
Shark Week is coming and you're part of this.
Speaker 1: I know. It's mind blowing. Dude.
Speaker 3: I'm just a small town Australia kid and all of
a sudden, I'm getting paid to travel the world, have adventures,
go swimming with shark and try not to die.
Speaker 1: It's just like being in the military.
Speaker 2: Speaking of those swims with those sharks, the way that
you will set up scenarios where the shark will attack you.
You were like a test dummy to too many people
of just trying to survive.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm starting to feel like bait more and more. God,
But you know, there's there's also fun in that. There's
also education in that, and I'm fortunate enough to have
learned from the best in the business over more than
a decade, and so every thing we do, even though
it looks harrowing.
Speaker 1: It looks terrifying.
Speaker 3: We've planned and we have safety protocols, and so we
do it so that we can teach you new stuff,
new technologies, new science, new ways to stay safe in
the ocean around these incredible animals.
Speaker 2: Well, here in America, we've always loved our spaghetti westerns.
The good guys always wore the white hats and the
bad guys wore the black ones. But I'm learning from you.
The shark is not a bad guy.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: This shark does amazing things to that ocean.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: They're what we call a keystone species, which means that
they're kind of like a Jenga tower, you know, how
you remove a bunch of blocks from the bottom and
the whole thing becomes precarious and then collapses. You remove
sharks from an ecosystem, and that's what happens to the
ecosystem below them. It begins to collapse. So they're vitally important.
We need to protect them more. We need to realize
that we shouldn't be afraid of seeing sharks in the ocean.
We should be afraid of not seeing him in the ocean.
Speaker 2: Wow, don't you think though that being the fiftieth anniversary
of the movie Jaws, that people are more involved with
sharks and that your guys's numbers are going to be
shooting through the roof.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what we want because then we can break
down the myths. You know, I'm not afraid of sharks.
I'm more afraid of people that can't tell reality from fiction.
They're my biggest concern because they're the people that go
out for these shark fishing competitions and kill these beautiful
animals for no reason.
Speaker 1: Yep, you know they're not eating them.
Speaker 3: They're maybe they're keeping them for trophies, but most of
the time they're throwing them in the dumpster, like you
can't do to a land based animal what you can
do to a shark. Just because you can't hear the
sharks scream doesn't mean you're not making it suffer. And
so that breaks my heart and that's why I me
and my friends on Shark Week, we're always standing up
for the shark, trying to teach people how amazing they are,
why they should respect them. Because if you respect something,
you'll want to protect it.
Speaker 2: Please do not move. There's more Shark Talk with Paul
de Gilder coming up next to North Carolina and we're
talking Shark Week with Paul de Gelder. Let's get back
to that talk. I'm here in North Carolina and man,
they were talking about that big old shark that was
off our shores this year. I mean, it has become
such almost an every summer event anywhere. Sharks in our waters.
Speaker 3: I know, who would have thought sharks in the ocean,
That's ridiculous. These are amazing animals that migrate long distances. Yeah,
you had a huge, great white shark out there. That's amazing.
You should be so proud. And imagine getting to see
that in real life with your own eyeballs.
Speaker 1: Most people won't have that opportunity.
Speaker 3: And so that's why Shark Week, I think, is still
popular thirty seven years on.
Speaker 1: We get to show you these remarkable animals.
Speaker 3: And we live in a world of technology, the wealth
of the world's knowledge within a few key strokes, there's
no reason to use ignorance as an excuse for going
out and getting bitten by a shark. Look Away, you're swimming,
look away, you're diving. Look away, you're fishing. Look Away
you spear fishing, And make sure there hasn't been any
sharks or shark interactions close to where you are, and
if there is, maybe go somewhere else, maybe stay.
Speaker 1: Out of the water that day.
Speaker 3: So we need to take the onus on ourselves because
that is their home and that is where they hunt.
Speaker 2: Do you see yourself as a historian of sharks and
or a preacher or a teacher of Hey, hey guys,
open your heart, open your eyes, this is a living,
breathing thing.
Speaker 3: Oh jeez, I've never really thought of that. Probably not
an historian. I wouldn't take that title away from people
that actually studied and dedicate their lives to that. I
like to think of myself as a conduit between the
scientists on Shark Week that have made these discoveries and
the audience that is tuning in to listen and see
the action and learn new stuff. I like to be
able to break down what's going on, provide that information
to the audience, and also have some adventure while I'm
at it.
Speaker 2: What is it with the human being where we think
that we can team the wild heart of a shark?
Speaker 3: Oh that's why we get married, isn't it? The suckers
for punishment? Look man, shark that's why sharks are so special,
is one of the reasons anyway, because they are an
apex predator, and yet you can get in the water
with them and swim with them as long as you
show them respect.
Speaker 1: Now, you can't do that to any of the wild animal.
Speaker 3: You can't walk up to a pack of lions and
give it a bison leg, or hyenas or wolves or bears.
If you do that, you are risking being absolutely destroyed.
But sharks, we've shown if you respect them, if you
are smart and intelligent beings, which a lot of us
like to think we are, then you will do it
safely and you can come out the other end with
an incredible experience instead of getting killed.
Speaker 1: And so that's why we like to show.
Speaker 2: In everything that you're doing on a daily basis. Will
you ever figure out the mindset of how a shark
actually thinks and reacts?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to leave that up to the scientists
because I don't know how to do that stuff. I'm
just the ex military dummy that acts as bait apparently.
Speaker 2: Well being somebody who grew up on the oceans and
things right there in Australia. I mean, it's one of
those things. I mean, when did you know that this
was going to be the path of your choice?
Speaker 3: After I became part shark, when I was bitten in
a nuclear reactor by radio active sharks, after I got
attacked by the shark. When I was in the Navy,
I kind of focused on just getting back to work
because that was my passion, being a clearance diver in
the Navy, and I thought I was going to lose
that by losing two of my limbs, and so I
fought tooth and nail to get back to work. There
wasn't until around twenty fourteen that Shark Week came along
and asked me to co host a show with one
of the ogs of Shark Week, Andy Cassi Grandy, and
they let me go diving with great white sharks in
a cage. Andy and I fell off a jet ski
when we got smashed by a wave when the shark
was swimming around, and I was just hooked. After that,
I'm like, I get to learn stuff, I get to
have adventures, and I get to share that with a
massive audience and hopefully teach them about sharks as well.
And so over the years, my passion just grows.
Speaker 2: Wow, you got to come back to this show anytime
in the future.
Speaker 1: Paul.
Speaker 2: The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 1: Anytime, mate.
Speaker 3: I've always got some story or some crazy adventure going on.
Speaker 2: Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 1: Okay you two mate, have a great day.
Speaker 2: Thank you.