SharkWater
Jaws Demystified
An interview by Bonnie Laufer-Krebs
This is a story about one man’s crusade to save the world’s sharks from their greatest enemy, ourselves. Sharks have long stirred hostility and anxiety in the human soul. Countless books, films and sensationalized headlines have made the mere idea of “shark” synonymous with images of vicious attacks by indiscriminate killing machines.
The truth is that sharks have much more to fear from us, says filmmaker Rob Stewart, who has spent years and hundreds of hours of videotape, trying to prove just that to a skeptical public.
Toronto-born Stewart, an experienced diver and underwater photographer, joined members of the Los Angeles-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society aboard the Ocean Warrior for a four-month expedition to deter poaching of sharks in Costa Rica and Ecuador—the perfect opportunity to start filming his documentary on declining shark populations.
However, a series of life and death situations including pirate boat rammings, attempted murder charges, arrests, espionage, corruption and hospitalization were the last things he expected on his journey that has become the beautiful and revealing film, Sharkwater.
Bonnie Laufer-Krebs had a chance to talk to the young filmmaker about his passion for saving sharks and their importance to life in the oceans and to life on the planet.
Tell us about the first time you saw a shark.
I was a kid. I was free diving with just a mask and a snorkel. I had wanted to see a shark my whole life. I had read about them in books. I’d watched them on television and I thought they were the coolest animals on earth. As I swam around the corner of a reef, I saw a shark. I was just amazed because it was so cool to see something so big and so powerful and so perfect.
Why save sharks? What makes them so important?
Species evolving in the oceans over the last 400 million years, have been shaped by their predators, the sharks, giving rise to schooling behavior, camoflage, speed, size and communication. They have survived five major extinctions and now they are being fished out. Many countries have no sharks left because they are being illegally harvested for
their fins and poachers are now fishing sharks from other countries, countries that depend on sharks for food. But no one wants to save sharks, people are afraid of them.
Do specials proclaiming it the “summer of the shark” because of attacks and the JAWS perception upset you?
It really pisses me off. You understand where they’re coming from because a dangerous shark makes money and sells papers. If they tell you a shark is beautiful and perfect and wonderful and won’t attack you that’s only going to make news once. But if they tell you “Shark attack. Shark attack.” That’s news every time. It’s ridiculous, but you know they are doing it just to play off people’s fears. The reality is totally different. Half the time it is a small shark that accidentally bites someone’s foot. You could have gotten the same injury from stepping on a piece of glass. It’s crazy how the media approaches it and
they’ve given sharks such a bad rap. It’s ludicrous because so few people get bit.
When did you begin thinking about making a documentary?
I was working as a wildlife photographer and I had done a bunch of different articles in some really big magazines on what was happening to sharks around the world after I discovered illegal shark fishing in the Galapagos. We set up a little fund where people
reading the articles could donate money towards a patrol boat in the Galapagos islands. We received virtually no money. I realized there’s got to be a better way to reach people. Print clearly wasn’t the most powerful medium I could be using. And then I figured “ok what if I make a movie about it?” I had never shot a video camera before. I just sort of
decided I was going to make a movie. I found some people that would loan me some money to rent some cameras and I got started.
Tell us about shooting the film.
The movie’s gone in every different direction imaginable. When we started, I knew nothing about movies or how to shoot them. So I started just thinking about making a beautiful underwater movie about sharks. And then when I was on this trip with the Sea Shepherd organization and world-renown conservationist Paul Watson, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. We collided with a shark-fishing boat in Guatemala that was chasing us out of Costa Rica. I never got into the water the first month there. So my underwater documentary dreams were vastly diminished. Then I sort of decided this was a really cool story, and decided to film everything that was going on.
Tell us about shark-finning.
Sharks are caught for their fins. Poachers cut off the fins and dump the bodies overboard. The fins are sold for shark fin soup and though many countries have banned shark-finning, millions of sharks are illegally harvested each year. When we arrived in
Costa Rica, the crew of the Sea Shepherd was arrested for attempted murder for the crash, despite the fact the president of the country invited us there.
Everyone else involved was wondering why the whole judicial system was attacking us. While
onshore, we had a chance to find out more about the shark-finning operations. Shark-finning is illegal in Costa Rica but shark fins were showing up all over Asia that came from Costa Rica. We figured there had to be some deeper meaning to all of this.
We met someone who believed there was a connection between the Taiwanese mafia and all the shark fins turning up in Asia. We started checking it out and this guy had a few places where he knew we would find fins. We started investigating and there were fins everywhere.
There were miles of fin operations with thousands of fins drying on rooftops, people bringing in fins. We quickly figured out there was an enormous amount of money coming into the country and there was this whole underground multi-billion dollar industry.
Were you nervous?
Absolutely. We ran at some point. The operators came at us with guns. And we had to run. I wish we could have stayed. I wish I had the balls to stay, to keep filming. We had to hop in cars and leave. Our guide later told us the shark-fin “mafia” was on the lookout for us and it would not be a good idea to walk around town.
You also caught the flesh-eating disease.
Exactly how I got that I’m not sure. I had cuts all over my feet and something must have gotten in and infected my lymphatic system. The only way I knew I had it was my lymph glands were swollen. I went to hospital a few times in the Galapagos and they just gave me anti-inflammatories. A few days later I went to a doctor who spoke a tiny bit of English who looked at my leg. He took blood tests and said you’re staying here. You may lose your leg.
Was there any point during the filming you thought about throwing in the towel?
This was close. This was the ultimate low. Everything had gone wrong. We’d been kicked out of virtually all the countries we had been to. I would have been arrested if I went back to Costa Rica, and at the end of all this, I had not shot anything underwater. I had come to shoot an underwater documentary and instead shot all this human drama.
And now I was possibly going to lose my leg.
The situation sucked and I had a girlfriend in Toronto going crazy and my parents were wondering what was going on and I couldn’t tell everybody what exactly was happening cause it would make it worse for me. The only thing I could do in the situation was laugh about it. I also made the decision that I hadn’t made the movie I wanted to make yet, or gotten back underwater with sharks.
So much was left to be done. It would have been crazy to give up at that point. So I stayed there (in hospital) for a week and eventually the infection cleared up and off I went again.
What are you ultimately hoping people will take away from your film?
There are a few things. The simplest one is that people view sharks differently. They’re not dangerous. They’re not mindless killers. They don’t eat people and I think, as long as people view them as dangerous predators, people aren’t going to care about them.
They’re not going to want them to survive on the planet. They want to get rid of something they’re afraid of. I hope that it helps to start reversing the way the media has portrayed sharks and gives people information and the tools they need to make better decisions to be able to say “okay, I’m not going to be afraid of that” or “I’m not going to
listen to this headline.” In order for humans to survive on this planet, to have such an irrational fear of sharks is not a good thing.
The other thing is that we’ve been in this few thousand-year trend of destruction. It hasn’t been cool to conserve, to promote sustainable use the environment, of the oceans. But I think people are going to start realizing that if were going to survive on this planet as a species, we need to conserve it and protect it.
Shark Finning Facts
What is Shark Finning?
Shark finning refers to the removal and retention of shark fins and the discard at sea of the carcass. The shark is most often still alive when it is tossed back into the water.
Unable to swim, the shark slowly sinks toward the bottom where it is eaten alive by other fish.
Shark finning takes place at sea so the fishers have only the fins to transport. Shark meat is considered low value and therefore not worth the cost of transporting the bulky shark bodies to market.
Any shark is taken-regardless of age, size, or species.
Longlines, used in shark finning operations, are the most significant cause of losses in shark populations worldwide.
Shark finning is widespread, and largely unmanaged and unmonitored.
Shark finning has increased over the past decade due to the increasing demand for shark fins (for shark fin soup and traditional cures), improved fishing technology, and improved market economics.
Shark specialists estimate that 100 million sharks are killed for their fins, annually.
One pound of dried shark fin can retail for $300 or more. It's a multi-billion dollar industry.
Impacts of Shark Finning
Loss and devastation of shark populations around the world.
Experts estimate that within a decade, most species of sharks will be lost because of longlining.
Unsustainable fishery.
The massive quantity of sharks harvested and lack of selection deplete shark populations faster than their reproductive abilities can replenish populations.
Threatens the stability of marine ecosystems.
Loss of sharks as a food staple for many developing countries.
Local waters are invaded by large industrial, foreign fishing vessels that threaten traditional sustainable fisheries.
Threatens socio-economically important recreational fisheries.
Obstructs the collection of species-specific data that are essential for monitoring catches and implementing sustainable fisheries management.
Wasteful of protein and other shark-based products. Up to 99 per cent of the shark is thrown away.
Are there laws against shark finning?
Each country with a coastline is responsible for laws and regulations pertaining to fishing in their waters.
A number of countries have shark-finning legislation. Many stipulate that fins must arrive in a 5 per cent weight ratio of the shark carcasses onboard.
Only a few countries demand that sharks arrive in port with fins attached.
According to the IUCN Shark Specialist group, the easiest way to implement a ban is to require that shark carcasses be landed with fins attached.
The possession of fins alone on vessels would thus be illegal.
Shark finning violates the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.
Shark finning is contrary to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's International Plan for the Conservation and Management of Sharks.
The United Nations Convention on the Trade of Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) lists the whale shark, basking shark, and great white shark as species that could become threatened if trade is not controlled.
To date, 169 countries have agreed to be legally bound by CITES.
Websites about sharks and shark finning:
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
ReefQuest Centre for Shark Research
Sources:
IUCN Shark Specialist Group. "IUCN Information Paper. Shark Finning." 2003.
IUCN Shark Specialist Group. "Shark Specialist Group Finning Statement."
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society - www.seashepherd.org. "Longline Fishing."
WildAid & Co-Habitat. "Shark Finning." September 2003.
Sharkwater - Movie Synopsis
"An eye-opening film...visually stunning... this movie will change the way you see our oceans."
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-Bonnie Laufer, Tribute Magazine
For filmmaker Rob Stewart, exploring sharks began as an underwater adventure. What it turned into was a beautiful and dangerous life journey into the balance of life on earth.
Driven by passion fed from a lifelong fascination with sharks, Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as bloodthirsty, man-eating monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in the evolution of the seas.
Filmed in visually stunning, high definition video, Sharkwater takes you into the most shark rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world's shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
In an effort to protect sharks, Stewart teams up with renegade conservationist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Their unbelievable adventure together starts with a battle between the Sea Shepherd and shark poachers in Guatemala, resulting in pirate boat rammings, gunboat chases, mafia espionage, corrupt court systems and attempted murder charges, forcing them to flee for their lives.
Through it all, Stewart discovers these magnificent creatures have gone from predator to prey, and how despite surviving the earth's history of mass extinctions, they could easily be wiped out within a few years due to human greed.
Stewart's remarkable journey of courage and determination changes from a mission to save the world's sharks, into a fight for his life, and that of humankind.
Rob Stewart 1979-2017
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