Netflix Camera Crew Attacked by Sharks While Filming Docuseries

A nature documentary crew got a little too close and personal with nature than they probably would have liked. The crew of Our Planet II, Netflix’s Sir David Attenborough-narrated film series, were attacked by sharks while collecting footage for the docuseries near Laysan, one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, in a scene that Producer Huw Cordey told Forbes “was like something out of Jaws.”

The four-part series explores the world’s natural beauty and the mystery of animal migration and the impact of climate change. According to Cordey, filmmakers were planning to do “an underwater shoot with the tiger sharks,” but ran into trouble when “two sharks attacked them.” Cordey explained that the crew was filming in the shallows at Laysan, and on the first day of the shoot, “the tiger sharks were around.” Cordey added, “It was like something out of Jaws.”

Director and producer Toby Nowlan told Radio Times the crew had spent five days sailing to reach Laysan, where no one has filmed before. After reaching their destination, the crew set out in inflatable boats to find the sharks. Not long after, things took a terrifying turn.

“This ‘v’ of water came streaming towards us and this tiger shark leapt at the boat and bit huge holes in it. The whole boat exploded,” Nowlan recounted. “We were trying to get it away and it wasn’t having any of it. It was horrific. That was the second shark that day to attack us.”

Thankfully, the film crew was only about 100 meters (328 feet) from shore, and they managed to get their boats back to land, where they patched up their boats and then sent out a small rubber dinghy, which was attacked by giant trevally that knocked its motor out.

Located about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) from the main Hawaiian Islands, Laysan is a feeding ground for sharks. Tiger sharks travel as far as 2,000 miles to the area, where they wait in the waters around the island to feed albatross chicks, which are weak during their first flight, and head towards the ocean. While the waters around Laysan are a prime food source for tiger sharks, Nowlan described their behavior as “extremely unusual,” explaining, “They were incredibly hungry, so there might not have been enough natural food and they were just trying anything they came across in the water.”

According to the Florida Museum, tiger sharks are “known to eat most marine animals, sea birds, the occasional terrestrial animal.” They are also considered to be among the more aggressive shark species and are second only to the white shark in terms of the number of reported attacks on humans, though the Florida Museum notes they “are often curious and unaggressive when encountered.” Tiger sharks are “one of the three species most commonly implicated in shark attacks and fatalities.”