“When you see a shark underwater, you should say, ‘How lucky I am to see this beautiful animal in his environment.”
Eugenie Clark
There is no such thing as “learning to live” with sharks and other wildlife. We live because of them. or more specifically, because of the vital role they have served within our ocean for millennia.
Waking up well before the sun and climbing up to the deck of the SeaLegacy 1 had become an ingrained part of daily life since we made the Pacific crossing from Mexico to Tahiti. The only thing different about this particular morning was the palpable excitement building in the air as the crew, and I prepared for our most anticipated dive of the trip. With the full moon filling the starry sky overhead, we pulled on our masks and slipped down into the pitch-black depths.
At first, the world around us was deceptively quiet. It would not be long, however, before the waters began to churn, signalling the official start of one of the greatest spectacles in the ocean.
A blacktip reef shark glides over the shallow coral heads, creating rippling reflections in the mirror surface with its dorsal and tail.
Located roughly 700 nautical miles north of Papeete, the Fakarava atoll is known for its crystal clear lagoons, idyllic beaches, and coral reefs teeming with life. Countless species of fish and birds, as well as sharks, sea turtles, and even manta rays, patrol the reefs in relative peace through most of the year. However, the story changes in the warmer months when thousands of resident grouper begin to congregate for the annual spawning.
Over the course of a few weeks, more and more fish appear – the females heavy with eggs and the males patiently waiting for their chance to fertilize them. They make their way to the mouth of the channel between the atoll’s lagoon and the open sea, an area of about 10 x 30 nautical miles. Every six hours, the deep, clear water of the ocean rushes into the lagoon and then, for another six hours, rushes out. The ebb and flow of the currents help flush nutrients out into the sea and provide the perfect chance to disperse the groupers’ eggs. When the tide finally reaches its highest point around the time of the full moon, the stage is officially set, and spawning can begin. Following closely in the wake of the fish, however, is a fleet of hundreds of sharks roving like motorcycle gangs over the reefs.
A large female tiger shark lifts her great head towards the sun-streamed surface of The Bahamas while a handful of remoras hitch a ride. Seeing sharks on a dive is a healthy sign that the ecosystem is in balance.
My team and I had positioned ourselves where we had the clearest vantage point at the edge of the atoll. As we descended along the drop-off at the mouth of the channel, we started to see thousands of groupers positioned along the coral heads. They seemed to know that as long as they kept perfectly still, their camouflage would keep them safe from passing predators. Each grouper had its own coral head and their big eyes would slowly turn to follow the progress of the prowling sharks. Every once in a while, the silence would be shattered by a loud crunch echoing through the depths, and suddenly, the waters would be filled with the twisting and thrashing of hundreds of sharks.
Finally, at about 100 feet below the surface, the females began to release their eggs and the waters around us exploded in a frenzy. Every time a female grouper would rise in the current to deliver another cloud of eggs, dozens of males would follow her and douse them with milt. All at once, thousands of groupers took their cue, racing to perpetuate the cycle of life before evading the swift descent of hundreds of sharks in a spectacular show that only nature could orchestrate. The scene was at once breathtaking and heart-wrenching – and it was over in the blink of an eye.
So many of the vital cycles we witness within nature can appear incredibly chaotic and even violent to us humans, so much so that it leaves us questioning their purpose. What we do not always see, however, is the hundreds of millennia it took for an ecosystem to reach its precarious state of equilibrium. Every tiny detail, from the mottling of the grouper’s scales to how each and every egg is either fertilized or consumed by another organism, contributes somehow to that balance. Even predators like sharks have their own role to play, distributing valuable nutrients across the reef.
At the end of the day, there is no such thing as “learning to live” with sharks and other wildlife. We live because of them. Or more specifically, because of the vital role they have served within our ocean long before humans ever cast the first net to fish its waters. My hope in capturing the wonder, drama, and beauty of places like Fakarava is to help inspire local efforts to protect these wild and vital ecosystems for future generations.
With gratitude and hope for the future,
