Shredder can be identified by his jagged dorsal fin, although the story how he got his name is an adventure unto itself. Photo by Steve Hutchings

To be a great white shark, it goes without saying that size is an issue. Yet the undisputed bad boy great white shark at Isla De Guadalupe isn’t that big. But what he lacks in size he makes up in attitude. He’s Shredder, the King of Great Whites and the baddest boy on the block in the shark community off Southern California.

Some folks might take issue with that. And I’m not a marine biologist. My only claim to knowing this 11 footer with a “shredded” dorsal fin is that I dove with him back in 2007. But true to his reputation, he never failed to make an appearance each day – usually multiple – and while some sharks were shy and kept a cautious distance, Shredder always approached the cage, in his sharky way of saying hello, and was always the first shark to take a run at the tuna bait.

The shark diving community knows him intimately, along with the other estimated 120 or so great whites that make the annual migration to the small island off Baja California. And it remains a mystery where they, and Shredder, spend the first six months of the year, though there’s some speculation that they winter in a vast area between Hawaii and the west coast called “The White Shark Cafe”.

There are many, many reasons to dive with great whites at least once in your life. And if you have the privilege of doing so off Guadalupe, you’ll more than likely encounter our feisty friend, who made his initial acquaintance to the guys on the Islander (the boat I went diving with) by biting through the anchor cable. Everything worked out fine, of course, that was just Shredder introducing himself .

Shredder is my absolute favorite great white shark at Isla De Guadalupe (sorry Bruce!). And this one’s for Shredder, for all he does, and just for being the coolest shark on Earth.

There’s not much else to say about this video, of Chris Johnson, featured at the Shark Diver blog, other than this is what it’s all about.

I don’t know this guy. And from watching this video all you’ll really learn is that one day his girlfriend told him pretty much that it was over, and the guy was devastated. Something we can all relate to for sure. So he jumps on the plane to San Diego and films his journey along the Pacific to Isla De Guadalupe, where yours truly went shark diving back in 2007 (with the same company).

The funny thing is, this video isn’t about sharks at all, but it’s so well done, and it captures one reason why an intrepid soul went to the Pacific Ocean and find answers among the most beautiful creature on Earth. You’ll love when it appears.

Good on ya Chris Johnson.

What’s on your bucket list? If you’re open to suggestions, the folks at MSN Travel have a few ideas. Some of them might seem familiar…shark diving anyone? Tour of Chernobyl? Note to MSN, you saw it here first. Hee Hee.

Kidding aside, check out MSN Travel’s list of the World’s Most Dangerous Tourist Attractions for some unique ways to experience life with a healthy kick of adrenaline. And if you’re concerned that dangerous travel is to, well, dangerous, ask yourself if it’s worse for your health than a Big Mac with fries

Ask any shark freak (like myself) and they’ll tell you there’s a specific pecking order among shark tourism destinations around the world. I mean, you can see reef sharks pretty much anywhere near the equator, but where do you go for the big boys? Cause we all wanna see a great white shark, correct?

That’s a good question. And you’ll get different opinions on the best shark tourism spots around the globe. South Africa’s good. Australia’s interesting. There’s California. And right in the middle of the Pacific, there’s Hawaii.

The fiftieth state has a little of everything when it comes to all things sharky. I was there in January of 2010 and had a short but very enjoyable dive off the North Shore with Hawaii Shark Encounters. At that time of year it’s usually galapagos and sandbar sharks, although tiger sharks appear in the fall.

But the reason for this post, is that something very special happened, on December 18th, 2005. On that day, a great white shark made a very rare appearance, to Jimmy Hall and the crew at Hawaii Shark Encounters. A beautiful, 20 foot female great white dazzled Hall and the gang for 45 minutes. And Hall left the cage and swam with this marvelous creature. Read about the encounter here.

Sadly, the encounter was a swan song for Hall, as he passed away while BASE jumping just two years later. But the legacy of this remarkable interaction lives on. Watch this video and you’ll see what I mean.

Are there great white sharks off Hawaii? On a very, very few special occasions, the answer is yes. But they’re so rare that it’s pretty much assured that you won’t see the great white in Hawaiian waters any time soon.

And by the way, enjoy this video, because to date it’s the only time a great white shark has ever been filmed off Hawaii.

Be at peace, Jimmy Hall.

Some people REALLY love Shark Week

With apologies to Christmas and the first day of the NHL season, we’re fast approaching the best day of the year. July 31…queue the JAWS music. Yes, it’s…SHARK WEEK!!!

We’ve come a long way in 22 seasons. When Shark Week first aired in 1987, it was pretty much about shark porn, aka, sharks are scary and they’ll kill you the first chance they get, to get people glued to the TV. And many observers agree that 2009 was the low point (available on DVD as the Jaws of Steel collection). Today? Shark Week still pushes shark porn to sell DVDs. But…they’re getting better. Look at this line up of shark conservation related episodes and you see that they at least appear to understand that sharks are seriously being killed off in stupid ways and for stupid reasons (although it doesn’t look like these videos will get any air time other than on the website). Shark porn sells, but at least some viewers have a better idea what’s happening to our finned friends (and that SHARKS…DO…NOT…EAT…PEOPLE).

So yes, Shark Week is once again upon us. Enjoy it. Look past the whole Great White Invasion!! hooplah (as estimates suggest there are less than 3000 great whites left, and great white sharks are now more rare than tigers), and check out some of their conservation related videos. Enjoy the live shark webcam set up at Georgia Aquarium. Peruse the shark news and the educational tools. Enjoy Shark Week folks.

Even great whites need a summer vacation

We’ve come a long way since 1975, when Chief Brody (AKA Roy Scheider), Steven Spielberg and the boys in JAWS started a trend off New England that led to a world-wide paranoia (and ultimately billions of sharks being killed). In that summer, beach-goers shunned beaches the world-over for fear that our finned-friends take them to dinner.Fast-forward 36 years, and the opposite is true. This week, three juvenile great whites have been spotted off Cape Cod. The difference this time? People flock to the beach to see these elusive creatures…and considering there are less than three thousand of them world-wide, making them more rare than tigers, people are stoked about sharks and hoping for a glimpse of these three great whites, vacationing off Chatham Massachusetts.

Even great whites like an exclusive summer vacation!

Really cool to see people enthusiastic about sharks too. This is progress. Anyway, enjoy the video!

Watch the little fishies in this video. Now wait a little longer and…OMG!!! Where did that shark come from?? Great whites have this gift, of sneaking up when you least suspect it and make for some seriously great video. This clip took place in South Africa, filmed by one of several cage diving operations in that country, from what I can tell.

Nerve-wracking as this video might be to someone not expecting a great white shark to come out of nowhere, remember that we really, really need sharks, for our ecosystem, and ultimately for the health of the planet. Estimates suggest there are fewer than 3,000 great white sharks remaining, making them rarer than tigers. Admire them, yes. Respect them, always. Fear them? Never.

There’s been some confusion over the years whether or not a great white shark was caught off Ucluelet in 2005.  Specifically, it’s this image, of what appears to be a large great white, dead and hoisted above the wharf.  Go here to see one of the many posts regarding this rumour.

Anyway, while it appears to be a great white, it’s actually a mako shark, which look similar and are closely related, but it’s not JAWS.  The harbour isn’t Ucluelet either.  Rather, it’s Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.  Tanya Dowdall, a park ranger at Pacific Rim National Park points out that the area code (902) on the boom in the background of the picture gives it away.  And as she also comments, it’s a sad story how this shark died.  The mako shark is a magnificent creature that can leap right out of the water.  Only a privileged few have seen the mako – the world’s fastest swimmer – in its natural environment.  It’s also critically endangered.  So why kill it?  Sheer f*#%ing stupidity.

So to answer a question that pops up from time to time.  Are there great white sharks off Tofino (and Vancouver Island)?  Actually, there are.  But  they’re very, very rare.  There’s photographic evidence of juvenile great white shark bites at the BC Shark Reports blog (where Tanya Dowdall sometimes contributes).  To my knowledge this is the only proof of great whites off Vancouver Island, although I’ve heard that surfers and fishermen occasionally see them far off shore.  The great whites that do swim this way are usually juveniles, and the theory is they learn the art of stealth and hunting when they’re this far north.

I should emphasize though that great whites in Canadian waters are very, very rare, and if you actually saw one, you’d be in very select company, as there have been less than five confirmed sightings of great whites off Vancouver Island in 50 years.  We do get the odd salmon shark, but its sexy cousin, the great white, is pretty darn elusive.

And I’ve said this a thousand times. GREAT WHITE SHARKS DON’T EAT PEOPLE.  In the few occasions when they have taken a swimmer or surfer, it’s a case of mistaken identity (a surfer looks very much like an elephant seal from below), and they swim away.  But when this happens, the media jumps all over it and demonizes sharks, and the authorities and “do-gooders” with an IQ below 75 slaughter the sharks (to the point that some species are down 90%).

Sorry, I’m done preaching for the day.  Are there great white sharks off Tofino?  On a very few special occasions, but the way they’re being killed, our generation could be the last to see one, if at all.  Unless we do something to protect them.

A really inspiring video here of a diver who dives with, and hugs and kisses, Caribbean reef sharks.

I just love this video because it shows how gentle sharks are.  Look into this shark’s eyes and tell me that JAWS portrayed an accurate depiction of sharks.  Or the shark porn we see every August during Discovery Channel’s Shark Week for that matter.

A few more numbers to think about:

You’re 50,000 times more likely to be killed in a car accident than by a shark.

Jellyfish annually kills more people than sharks, and more people are struck by lightning each year than attacked by sharks.

And my favourite stat of all…there was a year recently when more people were killed by soda machines than by sharks.

Unfortunately there’s a much more gruesome stat that really bothers me.  Every year, humans kill on average 100 million sharks.  Many of them are shark-finned – their fins hacked off and thrown still living back into the ocean to die a slow and excruciating death.

Some shark species have been decimated by 90% in the past 20 years.

I encourage you to think about that when you watch this video and look into this shark’s peaceful eyes.

We need to help sharks.  Click here to learn how.

Sharks have their work cut out for them, thanks to Steven Spielberg’s Blockbuster JAWS. Every year, an estimated 100 Million sharks are slaughtered. Many of them are finned – their fins hacked off – and thrown back into the ocean to die a slow death. Now this week, several shark attacks in the Red Sea at an Egyptian diving resort have the world terrified, and the media captivated.

Unfortunately, this does not help the sharks, some species of which have been decimated by 90 per cent over the past 20 years. I feel that it is important to keep this in perspective when watching this news story. Yes, this is a tragic accident, and it sucks. And yes, you can bet your bottom dollar that the authorities will slaughter thousands of sharks in the Red Sea (although frankly, there aren’t thousands of sharks left anymore, that’s the problem), to find the one shark responsible for these attacks.

But the real tragedy here are the numbers that will become of this story. One shark killed one person. Now, millions of sharks, even more than before, which was already an astronomical and unsustainable number, will be slaughtered, to ease some rich tourists’ peace of mind. Here’s a news flash for these rich tourists, and the gawkers, and the authorities who are already slaughtering so many sharks because of this…sharks LIVE in the ocean…they, you know, like LIVE there. The ocean is their home. So when you go into their home – and how many billions of people go into the ocean each year, resulting in an estimated 10-15 human deaths a year, versus 100 million sharks butchered for no other reason than the fact that they exist, just deal with the fact that the ocean is home to many amazing, beautiful creatures. We live on a pretty amazing planet. Just out of curiousity, how many people die in car accidents each year? Bee stings? Hit by lightning? Multiple times more than are attacked by sharks

When watching this story, I beg you, please, PLEASE, think about this. Sharks are not our enemy. Our world would be empty without them. And that, unfortunately, is a very real threat that we face.