Dangerous Encounters: Jurassic Shark
Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT
Starting this Saturday, January 3 and continuing through Saturday, January 24, Dr. Brady Barr will take you on adventuresome expeditions investigating little-known species such as sixgill sharks, crocs in crisis, and giant salamanders. In the last of the four new episodes, Brady returns to the guano-flooded bat cave in Indonesia to face the infamous 12-foot-long python in Indonesia that bit him during his last expedition in 2007!
Brady is on a quest to shed light on one of the largest and most ancient creatures of the sea — the elusive sixgill shark. Brady’s goal is to find out more about where these giants, which grow up to 16 feet in length and weigh up to 1,200 pounds, roam. Little scientific knowledge exists about the behavior and migration of these massive animals. In fact, scientists aren’t even sure why they have their namesake six gills instead of the more typical five.
Brady’s journey starts in Central America, 1,700 feet below the surface of the ocean in a homemade submarine. Amazingly, inside the tiny sub, Brady literally bumps into a sixgill shark. The curious sharks come at his sub in twos and threes … and even try to sink their teeth into it. Brady then travels to the Seattle Aquarium, where scientists actually scuba dive with sixgills right in Puget Sound. The scientists are trying to find out why the sharks come to this busy area — and swim just 70 feet below the water surface. They think the sharks might be meeting in the area to breed. To see for himself, Brady dons a dry suit to protect him from the Sound’s bitter cold, and dives in.
Brady then leaves Seattle for the coast of Hawaii, where he joins biologist Dr. Dean Grubbs, who is gathering a scientific baseline of information. At the end of his journey, Brady has a much more complete picture of how sixgills behave. And he achieves his personal goal: He gets nose to nose with a sixgill and even swims with the little-known beast — and in the process captures a tiger shark — almost 15 feet long and pregnant.
January 6th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Anyone recall the name of the website of the sub builder? It was on the side of the sub.