Shark Week 2022: Jaws Vs The Blob

Dr Craig O’Connell, Andy Casagrande and Madison Stewart visit Guadalupe Island to investigate reports of juvenile great whites arriving here to flee oceanic heatwave 'The Blob'. Can they discover how the juveniles are surviving attack among 20ft adults?

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Adventure, Natural History

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Discovery Channel

When locals report unusual white shark activity in the waters off Guadalupe, a remote Mexican island, Dr Craig O’Connell, Andy Casagrande and Madison Stewart head out to investigate. Visiting during Big Girl Season, when giant females up to 20ft arrive to feed on elephant seals, the team head to an unexplored cove where they discover a truth that shocks them all – tiny juvenile great whites running the gauntlet of predatory adults.

Behind the scenes

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Filmed at white shark hotspot Guadalupe Island, Mexico
In a world-first, Talesmith projected clips of great white sharks displaying unique body language onto an underwater screen to communicate with the wild great whites below. The responses were clear, astonishing and unprecedented as sharks arched their backs and dropped their pectoral fins
The “Jaws Rover”, an adapted underwater ROV, was used to safely infiltrate the private life of juveniles hiding in the depths. For the first time, it revealed how these youngsters survive in the adults' stomping grounds, using body language to communicate with each other
The team attempted a world-first deep dive in a drop-cage. It allowed them to see where juveniles go to hide from territorial adults
The team used a unique multi-camera 360 Kandao Obsidian set-up using 6 GoPros. This system records 4K underwater footage and allowed Talesmith to detect any sharks that bypassed the Jaws Rover
Additional BRUVs (Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems) were positioned on the seafloor to attract shy but hungry juveniles, ensuring powerful and unique POV shots of behaviour and seal prey
A bespoke passive receiver developed by Dr. Craig O’Connell allowed the team to detect GPS-tagged adult sharks in the region, already familiar to scientists