SURVIVING SHARKS
Premieres Monday, July 28, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Survivorman’s Les Stroud travels to the Bahamas and South Africa to test whether the behavior of Caribbean reef sharks and great whites changes depending upon the time of day. While in South Africa, Les and marine biologist Jeremiah Sullivan conduct an analysis of the great white’s bite, and test whether kicking and splashing attracts sharks, and if it’s safer to stay in a group or tread water alone if stranded in the ocean.

The show has just begun, and Les just stabbed his own life raft, plunging into a swirling mass of sharks. Here we go!

The first step for surviving shark attacks is to avoid them

Clever, that Les Stroud. First, he tells us this. Then, he dumps 500 pounds of frozen fish into the water to test whether sharks are more aggressive during daytime or during the night. Turns out, if you give a group of sharks 500 pounds of fish, they’ll go crazy ANY time of day. Reminds me of the free iPod sales at Wal-Mart.

How to Survive the Great White Shark

Les has traveled to South Africa’s famous Shark Alley now to try to answer this question. He’s in a cage, but it’s not looking good.

Oh, look, he’s going night-diving with Great Whites…greaaaaat. I’ve always wanted to see a Great White in the wild, but would you go in there at night? For any amount of money?

Do chain-mail shark suits work against the Great White?

Haha…no, “Bit it right in half.” Wow, he just bit right through that stuff like it was nothing.

They’re testing out a new material now. Wow! The new material was totally untouched, but when the shark couldn’t bite through it, he just tried to SWALLOW it! Not sure how much good that would do. Plus, who’s to say it wouldn’t crush your body inside it?

That was an awesome segment.

Should you flee a Tiger Shark or turn to fight?

They’ve got a 14 foot Tiger Shark next to the boat. “You sense that you’re being stalked by a tiger shark. You’ve got a decision to make - do you turn and fight? Or swim for the boat”

This should be good.

Holy crap! When the mannequin was swimming, the tiger sharks kept their distance. However, when the mannequin was left just sitting in the water like a person who decided to just watch the shark, the shark came in for bumps and then an attack, and the commotion attracted a second tiger, who joined in! Then, once they’d already got going, the tiger sharks moved onto the camermen, bumping and rushing them so persistently that the camera divers had to be hurried out of the water.

If stranded at sea, will clustering in a group or stay alone?

They’ve got pairs of legs in the water, three in a group and one solo pair of legs. The tigers have been giving the solo pair of legs some bumps. WHOA! That was that - the tiger sharks just went right past the group of legs and ripped the solo pair of legs apart.

Granted, these legs were full of bleeding meet, so don’t assume a shark would bite you just because you were lost at sea. If you were bleeding, though…

How do you stop a shark attack once it’s begun?

Well, one answer is basically an underwater fire extinguisher. Even with a diver in the middle of a feeding frenzy, Les jumped in with this nifty device and scared ‘em all off.

Next up is the “Shark Shield,” an electro-pulse device that should scare the sharks away long enough to make an escape.

Ooh, very cool - even when it’s wrapped around a yummy fish, the Shark Shield scares them right away. Apparently the electric pulse interferes with the Ampullae de Lorenzini, the electric-sensing pores on a shark’s snout that allow it to sense living things in the water.

Final verdict?

Swimming away might keep you safe, the new Shark Shield device and fire extinguisher type shark repellants are very effective, and there’s NOT much you can do if you get in trouble with a Great White shark.

That’s all for now, “Day of the Shark” is up next. Thanks for stopping by!

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