Get ready for the “coolest moment” in Shark Week history. Before the 35th annual Shark Week kicks off Sunday, July 23 on Discovery, Dr. Austin Gallagher opened up to PopCulture.com about the “action-packed” and “adrenaline-pumping” specials shark enthusiasts can expect this year as he debuts the new specials, Belly of the Beast: Feeding Frenzy and Monster Mako: Fresh Blood.
In Gallagher’s Belly of the Beast: Feeding Frenzy, which launches Shark Week on Sunday, researchers with cameras “brave a great white shark feeding frenzy” from inside a life-size whale carcass decoy in a Shark Week first that really pays off. “Belly of the Beast is by far the most exciting action-packed, real, adrenaline-pumping Shark Week show that I’ve ever seen, let alone [been] part of,” Gallagher told PopCulture. “You can expect to see some of the most intense up-close interactions with [great white sharks] … and we actually spotted and tagged the largest [great white shark] in South African history on this show – maybe the largest [great white shark] ever worldwide.”
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Designing a massive whale carcass decoy to try and get closer to great whites than ever before, Gallagher explained that the purpose of the experiment was to see if scientists could bring out the “elusive” larger sharks that have “kind of disappeared” in recent years due in part to two dominant orcas. “What’s happened off of South Africa is that the population of great white sharks has changed dramatically in the last five or six years,” he continued. “It’s still a hotspot, but there has been this emergence of these two shark-killing killer whales that are named Port and Starboard. And what they’ve done is they’ve killed dozens of white sharks.”
With new predators taking their place at the top of the food chain, Gallagher said there are now “just these patches of small, messed up populations of [great white sharks],” leaving researchers wondering where the larger ones have gone. “Why this is important is that we need to figure where these large ones are if we want to actually be effective with our conservation,” he explained. “So this could really help save the species from regional extinction, which is a real threat for [great white sharks].”
The discovery of the largest great white shark possibly ever is easily “the coolest moment in Shark Week history,” Gallagher said, and Belly of the Beast provides a whole new spotlight for great white sharks to swim into. “It’s not all about the breaches or the cage dives, which are great, but this is about getting close to them in new ways and really gaining the trust of these huge [great white sharks] with this whale carcass decoy. … I think it’s a huge moment for Shark Week.”
Belly of the Beast: Feeding Frenzy premieres July 23 at 8 p.m. ET on Discovery. Then on Thursday, July 27, Gallagher returns for Monster Mako: Fresh Blood at 9 p.m. ET, as he and legendary free diver Andre Musgrove get up close with massive mako sharks and great white sharks off the coast of California.
