Rescuing A 300KG Prehistoric Shark Caught in a Fishing Line | Ocean Vet

This is Dr. Neil Burney. He lives in Bermuda, a stunning Atlantic island 640 miles east of North Carolina, USA. He spent the last 30 years practicing veterinary medicine, but now he's transferring his veterinary skills to help save, protect, and learn more about the incredible marine life of Bermuda's ocean. Alongside his dedicated ocean vet team are a number of scientists, marine biologists, and specialist master divers, helping to perform a number of unique and dangerous procedures in a bid to safeguard critically important marine species. Together, the team will be fitting satellite tags to huge tiger sharks, saving precious green turtles, dissecting giant blue marlin, and obtaining unique toxin samples from 45-ton migrating humpback whales. My knees are like jello. Yes, man. This is Bermuda, home to Dr. Neil Burney, the ocean vet. Sharks. They have existed for over 420 million years. They were around before land vertebrates and even before plant species colonized the continents. They are without question one of the most perfectly formed of all planet Earth's predators. The six-gill shark, like many shark species, is listed as near-threatened. Cruising Bermuda's inky depths at well over 2,000 feet, they often fall foul of deep-sea commercial fishing lines set down for table species such as the Atlantic wreckfish. With no real commercial value, these massive sharks are hauled to the surface, killed, and used as bait. The shark is maybe 80 feet down right now. It's got Drew in the water. In this episode, the ocean vet team are on a rescue mission. They'll be working alongside Andrew Marshall and Stevie Cabral, two local commercial fishermen fishing for deep-sea wreckfish. Want to get it? We'll sort that out later. Maybe Drew... Andrew has requested the assistance of the ocean vet team to attempt the rescue and release of any six-gill sharks that are accidentally caught. Yeah, it's a lot of gear to transfer. You can see there's a big, rowdy sea, so it's all hands on deck. Under the water, Neil will complete a dangerous assessment dive to monitor the condition of a six-gill shark as it ascends from the depths. The team will also be working waterside to free this monster shark, carefully removing the tangled fishing lines and hooks. Slap it with the heel of your hand, man. Slap it as hard as you can. No harm as you can, all your weight. Finally, Choya Ming, the series marine biologist, assists Neil to install a sophisticated PSAT tracking computer, a tag that will reveal if the shark makes it back to the ocean floor and indeed survives. That is a lot of shark. Local fishermen think it's unlikely a six-gill will make it through the catch and release. The ocean vet team are on a mission to prove it can be done. So this is a genuine first for us. We've never rescued a shark from commercial fishing lines, and we've never seen a six-gill. So it's going to be very interesting what happens today. Basically, with the six-gills, they live down deep. When the guys go wreck fishing, sometimes the six-gills will get tangled up in the wreck fishing gear and they get brought to the surface. Stevie and Andrew are out there wreck fishing right now, and they've invited us out today to help them rescue any sharks that might get brought up in the line. Hoses in. The ocean vet team have a vast amount of experience tagging and releasing sharks, including large species like the tiger shark. But Choy and Neil have yet to even see a six-gill, let alone attempting to rescue one from commercial fishing lines. Then we've got at least that is secure. The team need to be able to alter their technique on the fly if they're to stand any chance of getting this right. As always, Neil and Choy are supported by the entire ocean vet team. Andrew Kirkpatrick is the underwater videographer and will help Neil assess the six-gill shark as it's brought up to the boat. Dylan Ward is taking control of the ocean vet boat Bones, and Oscar Doyce is piloting the ocean vet rib, deploying divers and supporting the needs of the entire team. The commercial fishing boat Bay Roots is six kilometers, four miles south of Bermuda's southwest edge. The ocean floor drops away quickly here, reaching depths of 5,000 feet in many places. The Atlantic wreck fish, the fishermen's target species, lives right along this deep shelf, sharing the same habitat as the six-gill shark. So if the guys do bring a six-gill up to the surface today, we're going to try to fit it with this. This is a PSAT archival tag, and it's programmed to record the shark's depth changes after it returns to the depths. That way we'll be able to see whether it's survived its trip to the surface and hopefully our release. You hold on to it, Choy. Sure. At $3,000 a tag, the archival PSAT computer represents a significant financial investment. But this tag won't just be used to acknowledge the success or failure of a six-gill rescue. It will also reveal new and exciting movement information of a species the team knows very little about. Now I'm going to insert this large PSAT archival tag into the fish. Neil and the crew have used these tags on four other species. One was attached to a Galapagos shark to understand more about their long-range migrations. Two of Bermuda's spotted eagle rays also had PSAT tags installed, and the team even managed to install one on a wahoo and to one of the most powerful predators in the Atlantic, the mighty blue marlin. This fish is going to swim, man. His dorsal's up, he's going to swim, I tell you. Once deployed, the computer will record the six-gill shark's depth. The temperature of the water and ambient light levels. This information is stored in the tag's memory and will upload to satellites when it pops off. So I can see Beirut's directly ahead of us. We've got a big swell, so I'm going to keep the boat pointed into the wind as we get all our gear ready for a fairly critical transfer onto Andrew's boat. The team need to move lots of equipment to attempt a rescue. What they don't realize is the fishermen have already started pulling up one of their deep-set lines. It's not until Choi boards the boat that the crew finds out there may be a six-gill shark on the end of the line. We've got to go look at it and we've got to get all our gear on, man. It's going to be a while, so just slow him up. Whatever it is, it's on its way up, and the team need to be ready for it. Okay, the shark is maybe 80 feet down right now. Let's get Drew in the water. Cameraman Andy on the boat here. He's going to go boat to rib to boat with a very expensive camera, so it's all going down now. We've got Drew jumping in the water. Fish is coming up, so we're going to send him down just to be the first eyes on it to actually see what is on the line. And if it's a big shark, then we'll just make a game plan on the fly. Six-gill sharks have a nasty habit of rolling when caught. Sadly, each roll wraps the animal into more hooks and cable. It's this scenario that the teams don't usually deal with. To work out the best way to handle the rescue, Neil and Kirkpatrick need to go down and assess what's on the end of the line. Drew and I are really excited to see if we can get overboard and see if we can do something to help this shark if it is indeed a six-gill. So we're setting up our comm system here. This links up to the comm mast that the guys have. That way, when they're at 80 feet or whatever depth they need to go to, then we can be communicating with them, we can speak, and we can figure out exactly what needs to be done just to give us a couple extra minutes. And yeah, so just going to set it up, drop in the water. With the dive brief and safety checks complete, Neil and Kirkpatrick are ready to dive. After a brief moment of disorientation, Neil and Kirkpatrick start their descent straight down. This animal has been hauled from its home over 5,000 feet below the team. The wreck fish have long worked themselves free. This is the six-gill shark the team are now faced with saving. Okay, so you have a visual of a fish on the line, but you are not sure what it is yet. This is indeed, I suspect, a large six-gill. A large six-gill shark. He has taken the second hook, and there are several other hooks wrapped around him. This is probably a fish of over several hundred pounds, six to seven hundred pounds. We have multiple hooks wrapped over him. However, I believe we shall be able to disentangle this fish fairly easily. That is my hope. Coming up, Neil works to free some of the hooks and line while deep in the ocean, then attempts to attach a tail rope to raise this huge shark the final hundred feet to the surface. Once at the side of the boat, the team will work quickly to remove the final hooks and line before finally attaching the PSAT computer, a piece of technology that will reveal if the team have successfully saved the life of this six-gill shark. So I am feeling, I am feeling the hooks as they are wrapped around the shark. I can see how they are wrapped. I've managed to free one. The third leader that is running through his mouth has encircled the fish. He's tenuously hooked with what appears to be the third hook of the leader, the third hook of the leader. Okay, so now that we have identified it is actually a six-gill, quite a large one, we're going to get our head rope out, our tail rope out, and I'm going to prepare the sling. These guys can be huge, fully grown. They can be 14, 15 feet long and a thousand pounds. We don't know how big it is yet. We're going to measure it, but it's a huge animal. So I'm just pulling out all the stops as I've never dealt with one of these before. This is the situation. The fish has got a hook caught in the corner of his mouth, but the thing that's bringing him up is the entanglement. I'm keen that we don't get him up to the surface and then have him pop that hook and roll around further and get more of a mess and we don't have his head controlled. I think if we at least get his tail controlled from the outset, I can go put a tail rope on him now. And then we'll have his tail up as you get him up. So I'm thinking I'm going to put my dive gear back on and put a tail rope on him with a large buoy that will hold him. If we get him to within 10 feet of the surface, I can simply dive down and snag that rope. The team prepare for the procedure and head back out to the shark as quickly as possible. It's now been just over seven minutes since the team started the rescue. Every minute that passes reduces the chances of a successful release. The decision to attach the tail rope underwater is not just to prevent the animal further wrapping in the lines, but crucially to reduce the time the shark spends at the side of the boat. Neil manages to secure the rope on the tail and indicates to the surface with several sharp tugs. The shark is now semi-secured, preventing any further rolling in the fishing lines. Tail rope is on! The large orange float helps lift the shark's tail up and away from the fishing line. As this happens, the fishing wraps on the shark tighten and force the animal to reverse its original roll, further freeing the shark. So as you can see, the shark is now held to the tail rope. It's now into a rope that is now ready to be lifted up. I'm really excited. This is a big female sixgill shark, the first I've ever seen, and I believe that we're going to be able to get a tag in her and check her survival without a lot of undue distress and trauma to this fish. Next, the team work together to secure this massive sixgill to the side of the boat, a position that will allow the final untangle and tagging procedure. Wow, oh my gosh, that is like a dinosaur on the end of the line. All right, so we've got our tail rope here. What I'll do, actually, excellent. They're very sluggish, which is what we heard, but this is fantastic. She's got nowhere near the fight of a large tiger shark, which is good, but she's rolling a little bit, so she still looks in good condition to me. A few little bumps and bruises, but nothing serious. So I'm just going to tie off her tail right here, and then once she's tied on, we'll get this thing. Oh my God, look at the green eyes. It's like a goblin. The team braced the shark using the same sling as they used whilst working with the tiger sharks. Together with the tail rope, this holds the animal in place so Neil and Choi can start to remove the final hooks and line. So now I have the hook attached, I'm going to cut these away. And then we can get the deep rope, deep one out. Neil has cut the last hook away from the commercial fishing line and attached it to a rope leader to control the head of the shark. This is a much bigger animal than any of the tiger sharks we deal with, but luckily they don't seem to put up as bad of a fight. Look at the glowing green eyes. That thing is incredible. These guys have come from a deep, dark, cold environment. Basically it's devoid of light, hence the large green eyes. He's down, usually they're anywhere from 1,000 to maybe 5,000 feet deep. These guys have been around so long, they actually predate flowers on planet Earth. This is a true living fossil right here. Sixgill sharks are considered the oldest of all modern sharks, dating back some 190 million years. They were around during the early Jurassic period and have had the benefit of an unimaginable time period to evolve into the animal Neil and Choy are fighting to rescue. All right, so with the shark secure, we're going to go for our DNA sample. So I've got my scissors here. Neil is just going to take a clip off the dorsal fin, which you can see is really far back on these guys. Thanks, Choy. Bumpy conditions to work in, huh? There we go. So this DNA is going to go to Mahmoud Shivji at Nova Southeastern University, contribute to his massive database of sharks taken from all around the world. Yeah, I think he's going to be happy as this is a brand new species from Bermuda. Okay, we're going to take a measurement now on this animal. I'm going to guess, you know, 12 or 13 feet maybe. These guys are very long and lean. So, Choy, be aware. His head is free because the hook came out. So I'm going to be trying to hold this and I'm going to measure back. Don't pull it tight until I'm back here. I know. We're going to measure the first one of the fish and then we'll measure the second two. Okay, yeah, that works better, yeah. Because I was going to say, the measurement might end up being approximate because of the way this guy wiggles. Neil shows an astonishing amount of confidence working around this massive shark. He's so focused on the job in hand that he is oblivious to the fact that this massive predator has its jaws wide open, inches from his head. He's happy to put his life on the line while they collect the data and work to free this six-gill shark. So we're going to take her tail length to add to that 11 feet. Yeah, I can see it. It's three foot two on the tail length. Three foot two plus 11, 14 foot two inch six-gill shark. Let's do her girth. That is a monstrous animal. 59 inch girth. It's 59 inch, just shy of five feet around her tummy. That's a big girl. So we've got our DNA clip. We've done our measurements. We know what that are. We know it's a female. So the last thing to do is stick the tag in and then we can release her and hopefully she swims off happy. Okay, here's the scalpel. Thank you. Gentle. I'm going to make a little cut in the skin, just big enough to enter the tag and then we're going to place it into the tissues beneath the skin. The skin is very tough. It's like trying to pluck sandpaper. And with this action of the waves, I'm just trying to avoid slicing my finger. All right. That should be big enough. Yeah, yeah. All right, now you may need... Yeah, we're going to have to drive this with some force. It's in. It's planted. Well done. So the archival tag is firmly planted in her skin and should survive for the four months that we're going to record data from this shark. Now it's merely a question of releasing her. I'm going to put my dive gear on so that I can make sure this shark swims away. So this has been so exciting. And now we've got this big female sixgill and I'm going to release her. And I'm really keen to see that she swims away. Okay, so Neil's in position. I'm in position. We're ready to drop the ropes. So we're all set to have this girl swim away. Okay, guys. Excellent. That is a lot of shark. Neil carefully moves the shark through the water to oxygenate its massive body. A journey close to one mile straight down lay ahead of this incredible prehistoric creature. With the tag firmly in place, the Ocean Vet team can now establish that the shark makes it back to the ocean floor and indeed survives. The shark eventually finds its fins and starts to power down into the deep. As it passes through 60 feet of water, it starts to pull away. Neil is left watching as the animal the team have worked so hard to rescue successfully swims down and out of sight. That was absolutely phenomenal. That shark swam a circle. I was holding onto her. I could feel her start to kick underneath me. She swam back as if to look at the boat. Swam under the keel. I thought, is she going to hit the rudder? No, straight down. And we followed her down probably to about 85, 90, maybe even 90 feet down. And she was just going like a freight train, swimming and kicking back down into the abyss from where she came. It was phenomenal. Great job, everybody. Ocean back to ease. Really well done. Just spectacular job, man. And I land. Good job, man. Love it. Best job in the world. The data from the PSAT tag did eventually reveal the shark's successful journey back to its home some 5,000 feet down. It tracked the shark's regular movements over the following four months and served to prove that although at great cost and effort, it is worth trying to rescue these incredible animals. A little disappointing that you didn't get any right fish. Since the filming of this project, the Ocean Vet team have spoken with other local commercial fishermen and stand by to assist as they continue to save, protect, rescue, and learn more about the incredible marine life in Bermuda's beautiful ocean. Next time on Ocean Vet, Neil and his team witness the deep spawning aggregations of Bermuda's famous black grouper. So now we're into our oxygenated bath. We're going to turn him right ways up. They're on a mission to test new tagging methods both on the seafloor, in midwater, and at the surface. Their goal is to map the population dynamic of this important commercial species, helping the Department of Fisheries with their mission to ensure the survival of a key Bermuda fishery.