Shark Week 2024: Paul de Gelder Talks ‘Very Emotional’ Return to the Site of His Own Attack (Exclusive)

Paul de Gelder is returning to the site of his own 2009 shark attack just in time for Shark Week. Ahead of the Sunday, July 7, Shark Week 2024 kick-off, the Australian Army and Navy veteran opened up to PopCulture.com about the “very emotional” first journey back to Sydney Harbor, Australia, in his new special, Sydney Harbor Shark Invasion.

De Gelder, who lost his leg and part of an arm to a shark in 2009, returns to the scene of the attack in his new special to investigate a great white shark attack – the first fatal attack the region has seen in almost 60 years and the sixth shark attack recorded in as many weeks. With Madison Stewart by his side, de Gelder investigates how changing conditions and climate change might be changing shark behavior as well. 

De Gelder joked to PopCulture that while he wishes he could be “brave” and say his first return to Sydney Harbor since his own attack was “not terrifying,” he would be “totally lying.” He confessed, “It was pretty scary, to be honest. …  I’d dived Sydney Harbor for years with the Navy, and I’d always been afraid of sharks. But I never saw one, and so I just kind of went, ‘Oh, that’s not going to happen.’ And then it happened.”

“So now for me to go back into that same area, the same murky water, actually looking for bull sharks with bait attached to me – I don’t know if I’m stupid or brave,” de Gelder continued. “But the goal was to try and discover things about these bull sharks in Sydney Harbor, [like] whether climate change and warming ocean temperatures are affecting their ability to migrate out. Are they staying in? Are humans more at threat because of this? So it was a very multifaceted journey for me, and very emotional too.”

De Gelder also travels to a small Mexican fishing village off the Sea of Cortez this Shark Week for his special Great White Serial Killer: Sea of Blood, which premieres Monday, July 8. The shark attack expert joins shark investigator Brandon McMillan and local biologist Gador Mutaner to investigate the village’s two fatal great white shark attacks as they try to develop a plan to keep the villagers and the sharks safe.

“The greatest tool I had here was the understanding and compassion of how seriously this affects not just the industry of this very small fishing village, but the whole community as a whole,” de Gelder explained. “The families, they all knew each other. It’s a very small community, and their whole livelihood is based off of this fishing and this diving. “

The recent shark attacks have “struck fear into the hearts of the whole community” and are impacting the ability of its residents to make a living. “So now what are the options? Do we just go and try to kill these sharks and save our industry and our community, or is there another option?” de Gelder explained. “[It’s] being able to have the capacity to understand what they’re going through and try and sway them to not want to go out and kill the sharks, but also implement tools for them to do their job while staying safe. It was a really big job because they weren’t really open to trying to change, and so we really had to convince them that the sharks are not the enemy, and you can still do your jobs without getting attacked.

Shark Week 2024 kicks off on Discovery Sunday, July 7 at 8 p.m. ET, with Sydney Harbor Shark Invasion airing at 11 p.m. ET. Great White Serial Killer: Sea of Blood premieres the next day (Monday, July 8) at 10 p.m. ET. You can also catch de Gelder’s other Shark Week specials later in the week – Deadliest Bite premieres Tuesday, July 9 at 8 p.m. ET and The Real Sharkano and Shark Attack Island premiere Friday, July 12 at 8 p.m. ET and 10 p.m. ET, respectively. Check out the full Shark Week schedule here.