i’m greg marshall inventor of Crittercam
it’s a camera system of a research tool
that we deploy on the backs of wild
animals to see what they’re doing when
we can’t be there to observe their
behavior National Geographic Explorer
was with me on my very first expedition
to deploy a critter cam or shark and it
turns out it was a lot more dangerous
than I ever imagined
the concept was pretty straightforward
catch the shark control it dived with it
and do the deployment and on the bottom
where we could control the shark and its
environment was comfortable that was a
bad decision as I tried to insert the
dart into the base of the dorsal fin
that the shark flinched basically got
out of the handlers control Nick is in
the water filming the whole scene and
watches as the shark swims away and he
decides to follow the shark and and
filming one of the handlers decided to
come back and to recapture the shark he
reaches down with a hook stick and hooks
the shark again in the mouth of course
the shark does what any animal would do
to protect itself it comes back and
turns immediately toward the closest
target that it imagines present flicked
at this pain which happens to be Nick
less than two seconds later I’ve got a
shark suddenly trying to tear my right
leg off I took the camera shark bites
the camera and I kept pounding it and
every time the gel opened a little bit
wiggle my leg out cuz I know if another
split second or two I’d have known at
least no foot Nick because were
scrambling to get to the surface with
the shark on his feet I knew it was only
15 20 feet from the surface but I had no
help I struggled to get now with
one leg working up to the top and the
shark was coming at me the whole time
and then I just kind of ran out of steam
and for the first time in my life I
dropped the camera
soon the cameras dropped from Nick’s
hands and it falls down to the bottom of
the ocean and that cloud of sand and my
right hand slid right into the shark’s
mouth my thumb my finger would
completely split up to the bone and I
hear one of the local fishermen scream
he’s dead
first thing I saw Nick was in essence
almost as if he were being pushed out of
the water
next thing blue sky they pulled Nick out
of the water and he’s waiting obviously
he’s not dead but he’s in trouble he’s
in real trouble
I just remembered his little voice
saying hang in there don’t pass out
he looked ashen he looked terrified he
looked in shock wasn’t screaming just
remember him saying it got me it got me
and I was flown from Cancun to to Miami
you know we were totally focused on Nick
when Nick was finally taken care of
there’s nothing else that we can do and
we walked back down to the beach and one
of the fishermen came up to me and said
well you know what do you want to do
with the shark and the what shark they
said well we got the shark again
the prevailing sentiment was you know
out of respect for what had happened to
make an out of respect for the shark
itself who really felt that the best
thing to do was to complete the project
and actually go through with it so
that’s we did that shark was the very
first critic Pam deployed on a wild
free-ranging animal that accident
happened in May in August of the same
year we did another show for National
Geographic so I actually got back to
work with sharks which I still love
doing but I’m just glad that you know I
I’m here to tell this story and it does
have a good ending I mean I didn’t I’m
not missing anything and I’m still happy
filming sharks I’m just a little bit
more careful on how I go about it
it’s a camera system of a research tool
that we deploy on the backs of wild
animals to see what they’re doing when
we can’t be there to observe their
behavior National Geographic Explorer
was with me on my very first expedition
to deploy a critter cam or shark and it
turns out it was a lot more dangerous
than I ever imagined
the concept was pretty straightforward
catch the shark control it dived with it
and do the deployment and on the bottom
where we could control the shark and its
environment was comfortable that was a
bad decision as I tried to insert the
dart into the base of the dorsal fin
that the shark flinched basically got
out of the handlers control Nick is in
the water filming the whole scene and
watches as the shark swims away and he
decides to follow the shark and and
filming one of the handlers decided to
come back and to recapture the shark he
reaches down with a hook stick and hooks
the shark again in the mouth of course
the shark does what any animal would do
to protect itself it comes back and
turns immediately toward the closest
target that it imagines present flicked
at this pain which happens to be Nick
less than two seconds later I’ve got a
shark suddenly trying to tear my right
leg off I took the camera shark bites
the camera and I kept pounding it and
every time the gel opened a little bit
wiggle my leg out cuz I know if another
split second or two I’d have known at
least no foot Nick because were
scrambling to get to the surface with
the shark on his feet I knew it was only
15 20 feet from the surface but I had no
help I struggled to get now with
one leg working up to the top and the
shark was coming at me the whole time
and then I just kind of ran out of steam
and for the first time in my life I
dropped the camera
soon the cameras dropped from Nick’s
hands and it falls down to the bottom of
the ocean and that cloud of sand and my
right hand slid right into the shark’s
mouth my thumb my finger would
completely split up to the bone and I
hear one of the local fishermen scream
he’s dead
first thing I saw Nick was in essence
almost as if he were being pushed out of
the water
next thing blue sky they pulled Nick out
of the water and he’s waiting obviously
he’s not dead but he’s in trouble he’s
in real trouble
I just remembered his little voice
saying hang in there don’t pass out
he looked ashen he looked terrified he
looked in shock wasn’t screaming just
remember him saying it got me it got me
and I was flown from Cancun to to Miami
you know we were totally focused on Nick
when Nick was finally taken care of
there’s nothing else that we can do and
we walked back down to the beach and one
of the fishermen came up to me and said
well you know what do you want to do
with the shark and the what shark they
said well we got the shark again
the prevailing sentiment was you know
out of respect for what had happened to
make an out of respect for the shark
itself who really felt that the best
thing to do was to complete the project
and actually go through with it so
that’s we did that shark was the very
first critic Pam deployed on a wild
free-ranging animal that accident
happened in May in August of the same
year we did another show for National
Geographic so I actually got back to
work with sharks which I still love
doing but I’m just glad that you know I
I’m here to tell this story and it does
have a good ending I mean I didn’t I’m
not missing anything and I’m still happy
filming sharks I’m just a little bit
more careful on how I go about it
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