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NARRATOR: It's one million square miles of mystery,
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
filled with myths and legends
and astonishing deep-sea creatures.
MAN: There seems to be all these unique anomalies
within this part of the Caribbean.
NARRATOR: From magnetic fields to strange geography
and bizarre weather,
it's the site of countless disasters.
But something is driving some of the world's deadliest sharks
to the Caribbean's mysterious depths.
And one man wants to know why.
What he finds may change what we know...
MAN: This type of footage has never been documented before.
This is just insane.
NARRATOR: ...about Sharks of the Bermuda Triangle.
The Bermuda Triangle.
An enigma wrapped in tales of lost planes and sunken ships.
MAN: Mayday, mayday, mayday.
NARRATOR: But the Bermuda Triangle's biggest mystery
may be its sharks.
What's attracting them here,
and why are they diving to the Triangle's deepest regions?
♪ ♪
AUSTIN GALLAGHER: We do have some acoustic tags.
NARRATOR: Marine biologist and shark expert
Dr. Austin Gallagher has devoted his career
to unraveling the relationship between ocean predators
and ecosystems like the Bermuda Triangle.
As chief scientist and founder
of the non-profit Beneath the Waves,
he believes there is something unusual happening right here.
GALLAGHER: Throughout my studies, I've learned
that tiger sharks spend a lot of time on the surface,
and using these waters to hunt air-breathing animals
like turtles and birds.
But here, tiger sharks don't seem to be doing that at all.
In fact, they don't seem to be
spending any time at the surface.
Tiger shark behavior here is really weird.
I've never seen anything like it.
NARRATOR: The Bermuda Triangle
is often linked with stories
of unique magnetic forces,
confusing compass readings,
and mysterious disappearances.
JOE ROMEIRO: There's always some kind of lore about ships
that couldn't find themselves, or planes that have been lost,
and with these magnetic anomalies,
you can see that, if sharks are truly using magnetic sources
to find one place to the other,
then this place is unique to that.
GALLAGHER: For scientists, it's kind of fun
to go into these places and try to understand what's going on.
The animals look healthier and stronger
than anywhere I've ever seen.
ROMEIRO: That triangle is basically
right smack in the middle
of a huge migratory route
for almost every shark species in the Atlantic.
So within the Triangle, there's always been a lot of thought
of being this mysterious magnetic pole.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Rumors of magnetic anomalies
have long plagued the Bermuda Triangle.
The most famous of these incidents
is the disappearance of Flight 19.
In 1945, five Navy bombers took off on a training mission
from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The squadron leader reported that both of his compasses
stopped working and their position was unknown.
When they didn't return,
a search and rescue plane took off,
but it, too, vanished.
From magnetic vortexes to alien interference,
there have been many theories
to explain the disappearances within the Bermuda Triangle.
Today, scientists believe it's not supernatural forces
at work, only natural ones.
But when it comes to sharks,
something unusual is happening here.
GALLAGHER: Let's be honest,
the Bermuda Triangle is just kind of weird,
and a little freaky.
Interestingly enough,
some of the wildest and strongest animals on our planet
really do prefer to be found in some of these spots.
NARRATOR: The target of Dr. Gallagher's research
is Rose Island,
an 11-mile spit of land
surrounded by underwater trenches.
These waters offer limited food sources for sharks,
and yet still attract them here,
including one of the ocean's great apex predators,
the tiger shark.
GALLAGHER: Tiger sharks really do rule Rose Island.
They are the true knights of this area.
There's a good chance that the Bermuda Triangle is emitting
electromagnetic cues that could be aggregating
these large tiger sharks in the water.
NARRATOR: Tiger sharks are one of the largest, most aggressive
species in these waters and the world,
growing up to 24 feet,
weighing up to a whopping 3,100 pounds.
Unlike great white sharks, known to be notoriously picky,
tiger sharks have been known to eat nearly anything
they encounter; even other sharks.
YANNIS PAPASTAMATIOU: What kind of makes them unique
from other sharks is a very, very broad diet.
Probably the broadest diet of any species of shark.
And part of the reason that they have such a broad diet
is A) because of their size,
but also because they have some pretty unique-shaped teeth,
and those teeth are really good
at sawing through things that are hard.
So that really sort of extends the number of prey items
that they can try to consume.
ROMEIRO: It's the largest predatory fish
in tropical waters.
Its basic job is cleanup crew for the ocean.
Anything that's dead, dying, diseased, or dumb
falls under a tiger shark's category for prey.
NARRATOR: And why all the activity here at Rose Island?
Dr. Gallagher believes this is part of a major highway
along the tiger sharks' annual migration.
ROMEIRO: A lot of what we know about sharks and their migration
is based on magnetic fields.
We believe that sharks follow along these corridors,
up and down these areas, trying to find their way around things,
but usually use these islands, and certain magnetic barriers,
as sort of a map to get from one place to the other.
GALLAGHER: Our hypothesis is that these animals are using
habitats just north of Rose Island
for some type of important purpose.
There's a big drop-off, so it goes from really shallow,
20, 30 feet, to over 1,000 feet,
and really what our objective is on this trip
is to find these tiger sharks
and tag them with some cutting-edge technologies
to help us understand if they are using these deep areas
and why they might be doing that.
NARRATOR: For Dr. Gallagher,
unraveling this mystery of the Bermuda Triangle,
the link between tiger sharks and Rose Island,
may all depend on one particular shark named Mabel.
GALLAGHER: Mabel is a 12-foot tiger shark
that I first met in February 2008.
WOMAN: Okay, which way do you want to go?
GALLAGHER: And oftentimes when you tag a shark,
you pretty much expect to never see it again.
With Mabel it was a different story.
WOMAN: No, no, get someone to measure down on the tail!
MAN: Got it.
GALLAGHER: We actually caught her again
six months later at the same spot.
At that point, we put in an acoustic tag
so we could track her movements.
And what we've learned is that she really loves Rose Island,
but she's only at the surface for short periods of time.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Dr. Gallagher has been watching
Mabel's acoustic pings closely.
He knows her patterns.
GALLAGHER: We don't know exactly where Mabel has been
in between her transmissions,
but based on connecting the dots,
we can infer that she might have been in the deep trench
right off of Rose Island.
These animals are always trying to conserve their energy
and go to areas where they know that something important
is happening, whether it's a food source,
maybe it's where they want to give birth to their babies,
or maybe it's where they want to go mate
to sustain their populations.
The first thing we really need to do
is just do a little check-in with the sharks.
We gotta get eyes on them.
If we can make some preliminary observations
on these tiger sharks, it might help inform
what the next step of our research might be.
NARRATOR: Joining Dr. Gallagher on this expedition
is marine biologist Oliver Shipley,
an expert in shark feeding dynamics.
OLIVER SHIPLEY: The reason that we wanna make the chunks
nice and small is 'cause sometimes
you can actually overfeed the sharks
and then they swim off.
MAN: Tiger! Woo!
NARRATOR: It doesn't take long
before the first tiger shark arrives.
GALLAGHER: Pretty exciting moment here.
We got a tiger shark circling the boat, which is awesome.
We're gonna keep it interested here,
so that'll be great if we can keep the shark around.
We're gonna get in the water now,
try to take a look at what's really going on
with these tigers.
-MAN: You on? -GALLAGHER: Yep.
SHIPLEY: It's always a little bit apprehensive.
There's a few nerves before you get in the water
with a big shark like a tiger shark.
GALLAGHER: Alright, boys, remember what I said?
Eye contact with the shark at all times.
You know, be respectful.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: They use plastic sticks
to keep the sharks at a safe distance.
And they soon spot an intriguing clue.
♪ ♪
This female tiger shark has fresh bite marks on her body;
a possible lead
on what's driving tiger sharks to Rose Island.
GALLAGHER: Cluing in on these little observations,
like mating scars, is really the first step
in trying to uncover this puzzle.
PAPASTAMATIOU: We can get a lot of information
from the presence of fresh mating scars.
ROMEIRO: If it's something usually fresh,
we know that the mating process took place
somewhat around the area.
So we start to get an idea of where these areas are.
NARRATOR: Now, in their search for Mabel,
Dr. Gallagher and his team set drum lines,
a series of baited hooks.
GALLAGHER: So you can actually see, looking out here,
that we have all of our drum lines in this nice, long line.
Basically serves as a nice net,
so if there's any tiger sharks in the area,
they can sort of smell our bait
and then we start reeling the shark in during a tagging.
So we're really setting up this awesome fence almost,
for tiger sharks to come find us.
It can take as little as five minutes,
or as many as five hours.
We really don't know until we bring it up,
which makes that moment really exciting for us,
'cause you never know.
It's like, you know, the lottery every time.
You don't know if you're gonna win or not.
There's something on this, I think.
It's a tiger. Woo!
MAN: This one looks good.
GALLAGHER: Oh, boy.
NARRATOR: Then, after nearly an hour...
MAN: It's swimming like a tiger. It's a tiger.
NARRATOR: There's a bite.
GALLAGHER: Got a beautiful tiger shark.
Oh, my god!
NARRATOR: But is it Mabel?
MAN: Woo!
Oh! Oh, tail.
♪ ♪
MAN: It's a tiger.
Oh!
NARRATOR: Dr. Austin Gallagher caught a tiger shark
in the Bermuda Triangle, but it's not Mabel.
It's a 12-foot-long, sexually mature male.
GALLAGHER: Hold it. Don't let it run, don't let it run.
Do not let it run.
Guys, this is a really strong shark. Okay.
NARRATOR: Finding a male tiger shark may mean one thing:
it's mating season.
GALLAGHER: It's rare that you see a large male shark
of any species in an area where there's a lot of females.
When we saw him, it only supported our theory
that they might be mating here.
No, that's good, that's good.
NARRATOR: In the Bahamas, female tiger sharks
seem to prefer the company of their own gender.
Some scientists speculate that as a group,
it's easier for female tiger sharks
to fend off unwanted sexual advances from males.
MAN: Hang on, hang on, hang on.
MAN: Is this good?
MAN: Yeah, that's fine, tie it off.
And then come in, Mo, and like hold.
PAPASTAMATIOU: When you look at the distribution of sharks,
we have what's called sexual segregation,
which means that you find males and females in different areas.
One popular explanation is that females are avoiding males
outside of these mating periods.
So it makes sense that if she doesn't want to reproduce
at that point, that she avoids
that sort of mating behavior altogether.
And that may explain why you see females in separate areas
from where you find the males.
NARRATOR: With pregnancies that last up to 16 months,
the female tiger sharks only mate once every three years.
When females are ready to mate, it's believed that they let
the male tiger sharks know by releasing pheromones.
If so, this male has likely caught a scent
and is on the search for a receptive female.
GALLAGHER: That shark is definitely
one of the breeding males.
There's few of them.
Here we go, boys.
-MAN: Watch the head. -MAN: Yeah.
GALLAGHER: Alright, I'll take the tag.
NARRATOR: Dr. Gallagher attaches a satellite tag
to the shark's dorsal fin.
MAN: Yep, it's coming, it's coming.
Keep going, keep going. Nice, nice.
GALLAGHER: Satellite tags are awesome.
One of my favorite tools.
These offer scientists like us the chance to collect
high-resolution data on the sharks
without us having to follow them.
NARRATOR: The tag remains attached to the shark,
recording vital information,
including location, depth and water temperatures.
After several weeks, the tag will pop off,
float to the surface
and transmit all the data to a satellite.
GALLAGHER: Being able to get a male with the tag on it
that will actually reveal its depth preferences and locations,
could actually help us pinpoint
exactly where these animals are going to.
So that's really valuable for our larger questions here,
about mating, vertical habitat use
and interactions between males and females.
So, getting a male is actually huge for us.
Tag's in, fin clip.
See, I'm taking a little fin clip here.
Fin clip. Pass it to Jill.
NARRATOR: To study the genetic diversity of these tiger sharks
in the Bermuda Triangle,
Dr. Gallagher clips the dorsal fin
for blood and tissue samples.
GALLAGHER: These are gonna provide invaluable insights
into the genetics and the hormones
and stress levels of these animals.
Oh, he's ready to go.
These are pieces of the puzzle that we're gonna put together
to understand how valuable the Bermuda Triangle is for sharks.
Okay, good?
MAN: Yeah.
MAN: You ready, guys?
GALLAGHER: Push him right that way.
Beautiful!
Nicely done, guys.
Wow, that's a huge shark.
Woo! Whoa! Yes!
That was amazing!
Woo!
NARRATOR: But there's still no sign of Mabel
around Rose Island.
Mabel's acoustic tag should be constantly sending pings,
but so far, there's no signal.
GALLAGHER: The great thing is that tag lasts
for up to seven years, sending a uniquely coded ping
with that shark's identification number out.
We download the data and then we can construct a map
of how the shark uses the waters of the Bahamas.
So she's kind of gone AWOL.
She's probably down in the deep trench,
right to the north side of the island.
This is corroborated by our acoustic data.
NARRATOR: The Bermuda Triangle contains
some of the deepest trenches in the world.
The Puerto Rico Trench, at the Triangle's southern point,
reaches depths of over 27,000 feet.
But Dr. Gallagher suspects that Mabel may frequent
the Tongue of the Ocean, a steep, underwater trench,
less than a mile away from Rose Island.
The deepest branch of the Great Bahama Canyon,
it's named for its shape that's like a tongue.
GALLAGHER: The Tongue of the Ocean drops off steeply,
just half a mile or so offshore.
It goes from about 30 feet to 300 to thousands really quickly.
We really have no idea what's going on
down in the deep trenches here.
Anything could be happening in the deep sea.
It's one of the final frontiers for human exploration,
even more interesting, in my opinion, than exploring space.
ROMEIRO: So, animals of all sorts
can live within this trench,
and it seems like there's reports of all kinds
of different creatures living within the Tongue of the Ocean.
It's sort of become this legendary spot.
NARRATOR: If Mabel is in the Bermuda trenches,
she may not be alone.
Once thought to be a barren zone with few life-forms
able to sustain themselves without the sun's light,
marine biologists have discovered that the deep waters
of the Bermuda Triangle are home to other sharks,
from the megamouth to the sharpnose sevengill.
Among the diverse shark population
in the depths of the Bermuda Triangle,
one small shark stands out for its audacious attacks.
The cookie cutter shark.
A terrifying shark with a deceptively sweet name.
PAPASTAMATIOU: Cookie cutters have very distinctive teeth.
The teeth are actually fused together.
Each individual tooth is fused together,
unlike what you see with other sharks.
NARRATOR: This rarely photographed shark
makes dramatic vertical migrations.
During the day, it dwells in depths of over 3,000 feet,
but at night, it rises up over 2,000 feet to hunt.
PAPASTAMATIOU: If you look on the underside
of a cookie cutter shark,
it actually has cells that produce light,
what's called bioluminescence.
ROMEIRO: When a predator sees the bioluminescence
in the water, it goes over there
to see if anything's been disturbed.
A cookie cutter shark uses this opportunity to latch on
to the side of these predators and take a bite from it.
NARRATOR: The cookie cutter only grows to 20 inches,
yet has the audacity to attack whales, tuna,
even great white sharks.
The proof is in the telltale injury
the cookie cutter leaves on its victim:
a hole in the skin about the size and shape of a cookie.
ROMEIRO: If you ever looked at how they get cookie dough
out of something, it's with a scoop,
and that's basically what these sharks do.
They have this jaw structure that can latch on to the side
of an animal and, like, scoop out a piece of flesh.
NARRATOR: The cookie cutter shark spends its days
deep in the ocean, but even at shallower depths,
these sharks can be extremely difficult to locate.
Tiger sharks are no strangers to these depths.
They routinely swim over 1,000 feet below the surface.
If Mabel is diving into the trenches,
it's impossible to know how deep she's going or why.
To find her, it's a game of cat and mouse.
Her acoustic tag emits a noise that can be picked up
with a hydrophone; a device like an underwater mic,
embedded in the ocean floor.
But the transmitter cuts out at 1,000 feet,
so they must wait for her to swim closer to the surface.
GALLAGHER: We have about 100 sharks tagged
around Nassau and New Providence here,
with these internal transmitters that send out acoustic signals
every minute and a half or so.
So they're being picked up by receivers,
but while we're actually on the boat,
I'm gonna put this transducing hydrophone in the water here.
We can listen for the sharks in the area,
just to check to see if anyone's around, like Mabel.
(static)
Well, we know she's here,
so we're increasing our odds of finding her.
I mean, we could be searching anywhere here.
We picked Rose Island because we know this is her hot spot.
This is where Mabel lives.
I think we have a good chance of finding her now.
(static)
(pinging)
We got something.
Oh, my god.
♪ ♪
(pinging)
GALLAGHER: You hear that?
(pinging)
Guys, it's Mabel, 22689, she's right around the boat right now.
This is amazing!
NARRATOR: Dr. Austin Gallagher continues his search for Mabel,
a tiger shark in the Bermuda Triangle.
She may be close,
but luring her to the boat is another challenge.
GALLAGHER: Really, what we need to do is bait up the area
with her likely favorite food,
which we like to think is barracuda.
Cross our fingers, hope for a little bit of luck,
and see what happens.
Yeah, that looks looking good.
MAN: There's something on it.
GALLAGHER: Okay, we got a shark.
Here we go, boys, here we go.
Yeah, Mo, I like that.
She's a pretty large individual.
NARRATOR: It's a large nurse shark.
GALLAGHER: Yeah, we got a good size nurse shark here.
This is a real diverse area,
so nurse sharks, tiger sharks, lemons, bulls.
We're doing a measurement right now.
We're doing the precaudal length, 155.
WOMAN: 155.
GALLAGHER: Fork length, 174.
Now I'm doing the spaghetti tag.
There, spaghetti tag's in.
Nice!
Woo! Nicely done.
That was great.
NARRATOR: Then, Dr. Gallagher and his team
continue their search for Mabel.
MAN: Grab the gaff, grab the gaff, grab the gaff.
NARRATOR: Soon, they hook another shark.
GALLAGHER: Can I have the gloves?
See how this line is trembling?
Oh, my god, it's big. Is that a hammerhead?
NARRATOR: It's a big one.
MAN: It's a hammer! It's a freakin' hammer!
GALLAGHER: Beautiful hammerhead.
Wow!
Oh!
Watch it, it's trying to run.
This is a huge hammerhead.
Alright, we need to cable it.
MAN: Cable it?
GALLAGHER: Yeah, we're gonna have to cable it.
NARRATOR: Despite the odd shape of their heads,
hammerhead sharks have an advantage
when it comes to tracking prey.
Their wide head is lined with the ampullae of Lorenzini,
electroreceptors that pick up movement of potential prey,
and their eyes have excellent binocular vision,
allowing them to detect stingrays
hiding in the sand below
and potential prey swimming above.
GALLAGHER: Watch it, watch your hands, it's gonna run.
MAN: It's just heavy.
Oh!
GALLAGHER: Not all of it, not all of it.
And we need to move fast
so we get the shark back, released quickly, okay?
NARRATOR: Hammerheads are susceptible to stress.
For the animal's health, they must be quick.
GALLAGHER: What it's gonna try to do
is ram its hammer into the boat.
That's bad.
Let's get a quick measurement and let's move fast, okay?
Quick measurement, let's go.
NARRATOR: There's no time to waste.
GALLAGHER: Let's go, measure, measure, measure!
Spaghetti tag.
Do the spaghetti.
It's gotta happen now, you can't wait, let's go.
MAN: Needle!
NARRATOR: For the animal's sake, and their own,
they must be very careful.
GALLAGHER: Good?
Okay, Mo, it's over.
Get everything off, get everything off.
MAN: Adrian, give me slack! Slack, slack, slack!
GALLAGHER: Move back, Andre, I'm gonna push him towards you.
Move everything back, let go.
Let go, let go!
Yes!
Nice healthy release.
Really good.
Really, really good.
It's this huge predator, it's insane.
It's actually the first one I've seen off New Providence.
It's just the Ferrari of the ocean, unreal.
I'm really tired.
It's the first hammerhead I've seen in a long time.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: The diversity of sharks in the Bermuda Triangle
goes far beyond what Dr. Gallagher and his team
encounter close to the surface.
Deep within the ocean, amazing sharks we rarely encounter
are thriving in surprising ways.
One of the most ingenious is the deep-sea sawshark.
Under 3 feet long,
its saw-like nose is about one third of its length.
ROMEIRO: It rakes along the sand,
trying to find different crustaceans and shrimp
that live within the sand.
It can sit there and hit prey items out of the water,
press it against the sand,
and then it will roll those items right into its mouth.
It's a unique feeding behavior for an animal,
and especially for a shark.
NARRATOR: Despite its chainsaw-wielding appearance,
the Bahamas sawshark is harmless.
It lives at depths of nearly 3,000 feet.
ROMEIRO: Not much is known about the sawshark.
It buries itself in the sand, it's highly illusive,
and it's just one of those sharks you don't see a lot of.
NARRATOR: The Bahamas sawshark is still a mystery.
And it's not alone.
From rarely seen sharks in the Bermuda Triangle's depths,
to tiger sharks that dive deep for unknown reasons,
Dr. Gallagher is determined to uncover the truth.
MAN: Big tiger!
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: From vicious carnivores
to bizarre bottom feeders,
the Bermuda Triangle is home
to hundreds of shark species.
And one of the strangest lives in its deep seas:
the ghost shark.
Its appearance is otherworldly,
with a face that looks stitched together
like a fishy Frankenstein.
In reality, the stitches are sensory organs
that pick up the slightest movement of potential prey.
Its bizarre appearance includes a sex organ on its head.
ROMEIRO: Its sex organ actually has claspers on it
and it can lock into females, and then when finished,
it can retract back into its body.
NARRATOR: Female ghost sharks
don't immediately become pregnant.
They may even wait for years before making use of the sperm.
ROMEIRO: In the deep sea it's believed that it's very hard
for ghost sharks to find each other to mate.
So the female can actually store sperm in her body
till she's ready.
NARRATOR: Female tiger sharks can also store sperm
for months, waiting until they're ready to ovulate.
Dr. Gallagher hopes to catch Mabel before she mates.
GALLAGHER: Part of it is kind of a needle in a haystack.
Certainly luck plays a role.
She really loves Rose Island,
but she's only at the surface for short periods of time.
NARRATOR: While scanning the sea,
Dr. Gallagher and his crew must also watch the skies.
Hurricane season's only days away.
Tropical storms can sweep through the Triangle,
wreaking havoc on land and sea.
GALLAGHER: This time of the year, it can be really stormy,
thunderstorms can come in quickly,
and it can go from zero to 60 real fast.
(thunder)
NARRATOR: Severe storms and looming hurricanes
may be why so many ships and planes seem to vanish
in the Bermuda Triangle.
In 2015, the El Faro, a cargo ship, disappeared.
30 days later, the El Faro was discovered
at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle.
Many believe Hurricane Joaquin was to blame.
Some experts believe tiger sharks may be seeking
deeper waters to take shelter
from the Bermuda Triangle's violent storms.
How do the sharks know bad weather's on its way?
ROMEIRO: The lateral line systems are these two lines
that follow along a shark's body,
that will actually detect pressure systems in the water.
It's this sixth sense that sharks have.
GALLAGHER: Weather plays a huge role in what sharks do.
We know that the weather can profoundly shape
the habitat use of sharks.
We know from other studies that big storms like hurricanes
can actually push sharks outside of the area
for temporary periods of time.
NARRATOR: A tropical hurricane can kill anything in its way.
To survive, sharks in this part of the Bermuda Triangle
must be ready to take refuge in deeper, undisturbed waters.
Each year, massive hurricanes brewing in the Atlantic
tear through the Triangle.
A hurricane's driving winds and towering waves churn the ocean,
mixing water temperatures and salinity into currents
that reach up to 300 feet below the surface.
GALLAGHER: It can be bright, sunny, clear skies one minute
and the next you could be caught in a squall
with torrential downpour and even lightning,
but you never know what you're gonna get,
and it kind of adds an element of sort of surprise
and a little bit of danger to the work as well,
because we're out here in the elements.
NARRATOR: For Dr. Gallagher and his team,
the skies remain clear.
They continue to monitor their drum line in search of Mabel.
GALLAGHER: We know she's in the area pretty close,
so now what we're doing is we're actually trying
to get some bait in the water now.
The boys are getting the stuff out there,
so we can maximize our chance of trying to recapture her,
start learning more about what she's doing.
MAN: That's a big one.
Big tiger!
GALLAGHER: Okay, guys, let's get into gear here.
NARRATOR: And soon, another shark takes the bait.
GALLAGHER: A little bit of slack, a little bit of slack.
MAN: A little bit of slack on that, okay?
GALLAGHER: That's it, that's it.
MAN: That's good, that's good, that's good, that's great.
This is amazing.
NARRATOR: This time it is Mabel.
GALLAGHER: Okay, wow, we got Mabel here.
NARRATOR: Dr. Austin Gallagher is exploring
one of the Bermuda Triangle's many mysteries.
The unknown shark behavior near its deep trenches.
GALLAGHER: Beautiful shark.
We're just gonna see how big she is,
it's been a while since we've seen her.
Okay.
Alright, guys, lean back a little bit.
MAN: Hold on, hold on.
GALLAGHER: We're gonna hook her up with some new jewelry,
and this means new cutting-edge tags.
We have camera tags and a new type of satellite tag
that we'd love to put on Mabel.
NARRATOR: Straining to keep Mabel still,
Dr. Gallagher removes the old tags,
replacing them with satellite transmitters
that will record her depths, temperatures and locations.
MAN: Let me work the leader and just hold the dorsal fin, okay?
NARRATOR: He's also attached a camera tag.
GALLAGHER: It's gonna go deep quick.
Mabel looked amazing.
Got a new tag on her.
What an amazing moment.
NARRATOR: The camera will film Mabel's journeys for 24 hours.
It will then pop off, float to the surface,
and send a location ping for retrieval.
GALLAGHER: Now that our technologies are allowing us
to go deeper and farther than ever before,
we're seeing new species, new behaviors and new things
that are wonderful and really inspiring.
Guys, that was awesome.
MAN: That was insane.
(laughs)
NARRATOR: Dr. Gallagher has no idea how deep Mabel may dive.
In the trenches, sunlight is only visible
in the euphotic zone,
up to 650 feet below the ocean's surface.
Beyond that, in the dysphotic zone,
only a small amount of sunlight reaches beyond 650 feet.
Any life-form this deep must be equipped to hunt or breed
with little visibility.
GALLAGHER: Some species of deep-sea sharks
do have really advanced vision.
Tiger sharks also have a specialized ocular structure
that allows them to detect shadows and silhouettes
a little bit better than other species.
The Tongue of the Ocean probably has
some of these deep-sea-dwelling animals,
such as other small sharks, squid, crustaceans,
and maybe even marine mammals.
These slow-moving animals in the deep sea
could provide an attractive and cheaper food source
for these sharks to exploit.
NARRATOR: In the trenches, not all sharks are apex predators.
Some are just as likely to be prey.
One shark, unique to the region,
is well protected by its own dental suit of armor.
The Caribbean roughshark is named for its course skin.
As with all sharks,
the rough shark is covered with dermal denticles;
small, tooth-like projections, coated in enamel.
These denticles protect
the nearly two-foot shark from predators.
It lives deep in the Bahamas' upper continental slopes
where, like most fish,
it is both predator and potentially prey.
♪ ♪
Back on the research ship, it's been 24 hours.
Dr. Gallagher and his crew get the signal.
Mabel's camera is ready to retrieve.
GALLAGHER: One of our team members actually went out
this morning and recollected the camera tag
that popped off Mabel.
And we actually have this information
on this hard drive right here.
We're gonna plug it in and see what this shark's been up to
for the last day or so.
These camera tags are just amazing.
They can tell us so much about how the shark is using
its environment, where it's swimming, how it's moving.
It is a little risky, though,
because you have to go out and recover this tag,
so when we get this data,
it's just so valuable, it's like Christmas morning.
So can't wait to open up this file
and see what Mabel's been up to.
NARRATOR: Dr. Gallagher wants to know
if Mabel is returning to the nearby trenches and why.
GALLAGHER: So it looks like the camera tag was turned on
just as we released her, which is great.
You can actually see her swimming down
right into the sea grass,
right off the south side of Rose Island.
Yep, she's swimming pretty slow.
Tiger sharks are actually known to be pretty lazy.
And here we have just a day in the life
of a mature female tiger shark in the Bahamas.
When I fast forward the clip to about two, three hours later,
I can see that she's in a completely different habitat.
Uh, she's in the blue now.
She's in the open ocean
and she's starting to swim a little faster.
You see that her gills are opening and closing
as the water comes through.
That's actually pretty cool
that we can see our handprint on her head there.
Tiger sharks actually have a small slime layer on their skin
that protects them from infection.
NARRATOR: As Mabel dives deeper,
the image looks otherworldly.
GALLAGHER: There are very few things that motivate
a 12-foot female tiger shark,
and it really just comes down to food and mating.
Last time we saw Mabel, she went completely AWOL.
We barely heard from her, and it looked like she was spending
a lot of her time in the open ocean areas,
just north of Rose Island, where it drops off really deep.
This video already suggests that this is what is truly happening.
Our depth sensor is telling us that she's at about 100 meters
right now, which is already at 300 feet.
She's starting to slow her tail beat frequency.
This is really cool.
When tiger sharks go down,
they stop swimming, so they can actually just sink.
It's an energy conservation strategy,
and if Mabel's going to be going down to deep waters
to potentially interact with other sharks,
she needs to save up as much energy as possible.
It's definitely some of the coolest data I've ever got.
I have goose bumps right now, just looking at this.
Pfff, wow.
I can't believe what I'm seeing.
Mabel is opening and closing her mouth, and this is a social cue.
Mabel is calling for a mate right now at about 400 feet.
Our infrared camera is starting to kick in.
Okay, so now she's really going into complete darkness.
-(clunk) -Whoa!
NARRATOR: Then he sees it.
GALLAGHER: Wow, okay.
(clunk)
So, Mabel just got hit.
NARRATOR: Something no one has ever seen before.
GALLAGHER: I'm just gonna pause it and go back.
This is amazing.
So there's a lot of ideas kind of flowing through my head
right now, what this could be.
(clunk)
GALLAGHER: I think Mabel is calling for a mate right now,
at about 400 feet.
NARRATOR: After an intense search for Mabel,
a tiger shark living in the Bermuda Triangle,
Dr. Austin Gallagher has finally tagged her
and retrieved the video from her 24-hour camera.
As far as Dr. Gallagher knows, this is the first time
anyone has captured tiger shark behavior
in the trenches of the Bermuda Triangle.
GALLAGHER: This is the coolest data
that I have ever collected in my career.
People have been putting camera tags on sharks and animals
for many years now, but I don't think they have ever seen
anything as cool as this.
NARRATOR: For Dr. Gallagher,
the footage is nothing short of extraordinary.
GALLAGHER: Okay, wow. So Mabel is doing a deep dive now.
You can see that she's going just down along the edge.
And our depth sensor is now reading about 800 feet,
so this is crazy.
I can't believe this.
It looks like I am seeing the surface of a foreign planet.
These are deep water habitats that humans can't go to.
Our infrared camera is starting to kick in.
Okay, so now she's really going into complete darkness.
So I think she was signaling to a male previously,
and now she's at 1,000 feet.
This type of footage has never been documented before.
-(clunk) -Whoa!
So, Mabel just got hit.
NARRATOR: And then, something incredible happens.
GALLAGHER: I'm just gonna pause it and go back.
Something just moved Mabel
and pushed her over to the entire side.
I'm actually seeing the camera tag move as well,
slightly, kind of in response.
Okay, it just happened again, like a whiplash.
(clunk)
And again.
So Mabel just got hit three times from the left side, hard.
It looks like it moved her about 3 feet to the right.
This is amazing.
So there's a lot of ideas kind of flowing through my head
right now, what this could be.
I think that she just got hit by that male.
I think she is experiencing a mating attempt right now,
from a male.
Yeah, this is conclusive.
There's nothing else down in the deep trench here
that could be moving a large tiger shark like Mabel.
This is just insane.
I think we've discovered something
truly groundbreaking here.
We may have just made a quantum leap in our understanding
of shark biology, just from this video.
PAPASTAMATIOU: No one has ever seen tiger sharks
actually mating in the wild.
GALLAGHER: I think that Mabel's data
and that from her relatives, suggests that we have found
a conclusive mating area for sharks,
here in the Tongue of the Ocean in the Bahamas.
NARRATOR: If Mabel is any indication of her species,
the oceanic trenches of the Atlantic
may be the tiger sharks' preferred mating location.
PAPASTAMATIOU: The reason it's important is that
for wide-ranging animals like tiger sharks,
it's gonna be impossible to protect all the waters
that a tiger shark will move through.
Instead, what we can try to do is protect areas
that are really important
to the sort of life history of that species.
ROMEIRO: Finding the tiger sharks' mating grounds,
or the tiger sharks' birthing sites,
are like finding the holy grail within the science community.
If we know where these areas are,
we can better protect these areas
and thus protect these animals.
NARRATOR: Although Dr. Gallagher's research
will continue,
this footage appears to reveal something remarkable.
The Triangle's deep trenches
may be a hot spot for tiger shark mating.
GALLAGHER: Some of the wildest and strongest animals
on our planet really do prefer to be found
in some of these crazy spots.
So it's not really that surprising to me
that the largest predator in tropical waters
really loves its home in the Bermuda Triangle.
NARRATOR: With breakthrough footage like this,
scientists like Dr. Austin Gallagher
are shedding new light on the secretive lives of...
Sharks of the Bermuda Triangle.
Captioned by Side Door Media Services