Spoilers forward for Shark Week 2023’s “Monster Mako: Recent Blood” particular on Discovery.
Discovery is the place to be each summer season for every week stuffed with shark motion, and 2023 is the thirty fifth anniversary of Shark Week. The primary few days of this yr’s occasion lined every little thing from orcas as nice white serial killers to how shark cocaine was made for a Florida experiment, however “Monster Mako: Recent Blood” checked out two massive species in a brand new mild. Nice whites and makos had been in contrast all through the particular, and Shark Week skilled Dr. Austin Gallagher spoke with CinemaBlend to increase on “Monster Mako” feedback about which species is extra highly effective.
On this particular, Dr. Austin Gallagher and his crew had been on the hunt for some huge mako sharks which can be sufficiently big to feed on seals and sea lions, just like the closely-related nice white sharks. Any common Shark Week viewer who was tuning in earlier than Jason Momoa got here on as host for 2023 seemingly is aware of that makos are identified for his or her velocity and breaching capability; what about their dimension within the waters off California?
Properly, the scientists and divers had been capable of get the samples they wanted to show that some makos are certainly sufficiently big to eat seals and sea lions, and “Monster Mako” ended after making the assertion that “Many imagine, pound for pound, the mako is essentially the most highly effective shark within the ocean.” After I spoke with Gallagher on the Shark Week 2023 press junket, he elaborated and defined the significance of spreading consciousness:
Mako sharks are, like I stated, they are a fairly shut cousin. They’re shut genetically, evolutionarily, very carefully associated to nice whites. They are not as huge, however they’re actually cool, as a result of they’re tremendous quick and so they’re tremendous highly effective and so they’re actually acrobatic. They’ll breach out of the water and have these actually superb round patterns and issues like that, which you see within the present. So yeah, I believe it is simply bringing extra consciousness to [the] species. Everyone sort of has heard the phrase ‘mako’ shark, I believe, however they do not know something about it, and it is cool to kind of convey some extra consciousness to them by way of the present.
Mako sharks is probably not fairly as blockbuster well-known as nice whites because of the Jaws franchise (which had an have an effect on on actual sharks that Steven Spielberg regrets) and even the megalodon that’s – sorry, followers of The Meg – lengthy extinct, however specials like “Monster Mako” elevate consciousness in regards to the species. The particular additionally made the purpose that it is tough to fish for makos in a means that does not apply to nice whites, as makos can breach all the best way out of the water and onto a ship in the event that they’re hooked by way of rod and reel.
“Monster Mako” aired simply days after Dr. Austin Gallagher’s first particular in Shark Week 2023, known as “Stomach of the Beast: Feeding Frenzy,” which resulted in a harrowing nice white sequence that he shared “performs out identical to a film.” After I requested about discovering the main focus for the mako manufacturing, he defined how the 2 had been totally different:
The main target for ‘Monster Mako’ is admittedly extra making an attempt to trace down an animal that is on the transfer. Within the white shark present, we’re looking for a shark that we do not know the place it’s. On the mako shark present, we all know there are makos throughout that space, huge ones, however we simply do not know the place they had been. We needed to monitor them down, and that is what we did. We finally received to them, and it is actually extra of a research the place we had been making an attempt to determine the tissue sampling, the mercury ranges within the sharks.
After all, looking for explicit sorts of sharks in an enormous ocean does not have a assured success, and species have been going through totally different sorts of threats lately. This notably contains orcas, with the 2 most well-known shark-killing killer whales even making appearances in Shark Week 2023 regardless of seeming like a “horrible thought” to 1 skilled. Makos face a special sort of risk, as Dr. Gallagher continued:
The mako shark inhabitants has additionally develop into fractured, which is fascinating, as a result of they’re relations of white sharks, however they’ve develop into fractured on account of overfishing by people and it has eliminated quite a lot of the center dimension people. It is left quite a lot of small ones, and it is also left this sort of actually small inhabitants of huge monster makos that we simply see each now and are actually uncommon. So that is what we had been making an attempt to do with this one.
Dr. Austin Gallagher and Shark Week confirmed viewers simply how makos may be thought of essentially the most highly effective sharks within the ocean even in comparison with nice whites, and that is one thing to pay attention to. In truth, if you wish to revisit “Monster Mako: Recent Blood,” you are able to do so already with a Max subscription.
Plus, the Shark Week motion is not over but. The occasion continues on Discovery on Friday, July 28 with “Tropic Jaws” at 8 p.m. ET, “Lethal Sharks of Paradise” at 9 p.m., and “Haunting at Shark Tower” at 10 p.m. earlier than the week of specials ends on July 29.
