There were a handful of incidents last summer where Long Island beachgoers were bit by sharks. While this may feel scary for swimmers, wildlife officials say it’s a great sign that the number of sharks spotted in the waters are increasing.
WSHU’s Sabrina Garone spoke with Jon Dodd, director of the Atlantic Shark Institute based in Rhode Island, and wildlife photographer and filmmaker Tomas Koeck. They work together to track and document a variety of sharks in our waters and beyond.
WSHU: Jon, let me start with you. I want to ask about the general state of the sharks — how are sharks doing along the Atlantic coast, and specifically in our region?
JD: The sharks that we try to focus on are the ones that are in a little bit of trouble. So, for us, those would be white sharks, makos, spinners, blacktips, sand tigers, and common threshers. And also it's really about answering questions because the waters are warming. What you knew 20 years ago is not necessarily the case today. So if you have any future, budding marine biologists out there — don't feel as though the answers have hit the books and are done. Every single month, year, or decade that goes on, things continue to change, and we need to stay on top of it. That's what makes this research really important.
WSHU : You just listed off a few different types of sharks there, but are you able to tell us what's swimming around in Long Island Sound and off Long Island's south shore specifically?
JD: Long Island has a pretty rich history of shark presence throughout coastal Connecticut, including Long Island and Block Island Sound. There's a really long-known white shark nursery off of Long Island, but there's also a nursery for sand tiger sharks, which were implicated in the last couple of incidents in the last few of summers there. The bad news is they're in the top five for incidents worldwide over history. Good news is no one has ever died from a bite from a sand tiger shark! But between blue sharks, common threshers, makos, white sharks, sand tigers, spinners, and ,blacktips — they're all in that Long Island area. So it's really rich in diversity which is a good sign, frankly, versus a bad sign.
WSHU: A good sign that there's more food available, that our waterways are cleaner? What do the numbers tell us exactly?
JD: There are two reasons. One is a food source. Number two is water temperature. Most sharks are cold-blooded, so they really need to surround themselves with the water temperatures that they can optimize themselves in. The mako can actually raise its body temperature, as can a white shark, but most can't do that. Food sources are important. There's a lot of menhaden that have been pushed along the shores of Long Island — a significant food source for a lot of sharks. And of course when you get the menhaden right into the wash line, you've got people swimming in the wash line, you've got sharks taking advantage of an opportunity, that's when mistakes happen.
I had the chance to be in an interview with one of the young men who was bitten last year. It was very traditional — murky water, low visibility, early morning — it literally checks ten of the 11 boxes on increasing your chance of an incident! These things happen, unfortunately, and there's been a significant increase over the last couple of years on Long Island, which is interesting in itself. The reality is that the chance of you getting bit by a shark is about one in four million. Chances of you getting killed by a shark is about 265 million. Don't swim at dawn, don't swim at dusk when the light's a little bit lower. Swim in a group. You see bait in the water, you get out of the water. Seals in the water? Get out of the water. Shiny jewelry can look like a fish if the water is cloudy. But all these are considered mistakes. If sharks considered us as a food source, it would be virtually impossible to swim in a lot of parts of the country. If you play the odds, you look at those factors, you should be fine.
WSHU: And Tomas, you're jumping in the water with some of these sharks! How does someone even start doing that? What inspired you to take pictures of sharks?
TK: There's a big thing between exploration and adventuring, and I try to stay on the exploration side of things. But the big thing, the big caveat, is I have to listen to the biologists. I'm listening to them talk about shark behavior, what to look out for and how to do it correctly. Diving with sharks is not as dangerous as people romanticize it to be, but you also need to do it correctly. And when you do it correctly and safely, you're inhibiting risk for yourself and for the sharks.
When you get in the water on a nice clear, 30-feet-plus visibility, the sharks are often more nervous and scared of you than you're scared of the sharks. I was out with Jon the other day, and I was jumping in the water with some of the sharks we were looking at. Once I got in the water, the sharks didn't spend too much time with the boat — they were out of there! They were swimming away. They don't really see things like humans swimming around the ocean that often. They're used to seeing their own kind, or fish, or other species of marine wildlife.
WSHU: I guess both of you can jump in on this — could you tell me more about those preparations? Are you looking for a specific kind of shark when you're getting in the water? How do you know what you're going to find?
JD: When we go off to do research, often it's pretty specific. When we're on the boat, it's kind of like a NASCAR pit stop where we'll have a variety of tags available to us depending on the species we catch, the sex of that shark, the size of that shark. Some of them can check a lot of boxes, and they're really valuable, so we'll spend a lot of money tagging those different sharks. Other times, not so much. We plan for anything, we desire for specific things. Now for Tomas to make a decision on going in the water, that's different because now we have a visual of the shark. It doesn't mean something else can't show up once he gets in the water with our resident research scientists, but at least they see what they're dealing with and can try to prepare for it. But they can't prepare for everything, as Tomas may share.
TK: Right, and the preparation starts days before. I'm on the phone with Jon, trying to figure out the weather windows we're trying to target. We want good weather that doesn't have crazy amounts of wind, but also doesn't have no wind. And I'm prepping camera gear. I'm using a lot of Canon equipment that I'm putting in underwater housings, making sure it's watertight, water-sealed. We've got GoPros, and we are packing different batteries. It sounds very basic, but if you're in the water and you're checking for another battery and you don't have anything left, you're in bad shape! WSHU: Above the water would be a problem! TK: And then you're not getting the shot, and Jon's putting all these resources into getting out there.
When you're underwater filming different sharks, it's a totally different environment than when you're above the water. The lighting's different; you have to take into account the water clarity, how deep you are going to be, and what settings you are shooting with. It's a whole different world of photography. And it's one of my favorites because it's like you're flying! You're seeing things beneath you, above you. It's an experience that's like no other.
WSHU: Could you talk about that a little more? What's going through your head while you're down there?
TK: I'm not going to pretend there's no fear at all. Whenever you're jumping in the water with sharks and there's no cage, of course there's a little bit of 'oh crap' — there's a mako there, a blue shark there! I prefer to go with two people at all times because you want to make sure you can target where the sharks are. Like I said, I don't feel at risk particularly, but they are animals, and animals can do things you might not expect.
You get in the water, there's that rush of adrenaline. It's like, wow! They're dancing around you! It depends on the different types of sharks. If you were looking for a white shark for example, and I do that with a cage, the larger whites are kind of slow, they're checking you out, then disappearing into the ocean. Then you have the blue sharks, which are kind of like puppies! That's how I like to describe them even though they're much larger. And they're kind of floppy, and they're kind of dancing. And then you have the mako which Jon describes as the Porche of the ocean — fast, stealthy, and it's one of my favorite sharks to photograph.
WSHU: When you're out there doing the tagging, what kind of data are you looking to collect?
JD: When did these sharks arrive, how long did they stay, where do they go? Did they find themselves in harm's way in areas that are being heavily fished at certain times of the year? Do they pup in those areas at the same time? It's really opened up a whole new world for researchers and science because we're learning so much more, so much more quickly than we ever have before. So we have to go back to, what are the questions we're trying to answer, and what are the methodologies that will get us to that answer? That's what keeps everybody interested and excited to go back every week that we can get out there.
WSHU: Do you feel like you just have the coolest job in the world?
JD: I love it! When I was young in Stonington, Connecticut, right around Jaws time, I was mesmerized. And one ended up on a beach that was sick — a ten-foot blue shark. Big news on the front page of the New London Day! And that was it for me. I loved sharks before that, and I've loved them since. I started tagging sharks in the 1980s and I get as excited as I did then.
WSHU: And Tomas, it's important to have such great photos and videos of these sharks because when people see it, they have that connection to it, right? It's not just this mysterious thing out in the water.
TK: That's where my role comes in — it's advocacy. Trying to get photographs and videos, telling the stories of the shark researchers and the sharks helps push the idea to people that sharks aren't really as dangerous as they appear. Seeing them in the water, like you said, takes away that mystery and adds a sense of beauty to these animals. When I tell folks I've gotten in the water with these sharks, it makes people think that maybe sharks aren't as scary or as dangerous. And then I've got buddies who go, 'Oh, that might be fun. Are there any shark diving groups around?' All these people want to try it out because it's all of a sudden very interesting. So that's what I enjoy is taking those photographs so people can really appreciate the sharks visually.
For more of Tomas Koeck's ocean explorations, watch his short film Keepers of the Blue here. Other projects of his will be part of National Geographic's SharkFest beginning June 30. Watch on the National Geographic channel or stream on Disney+ and Hulu.
