Review of the Day- SHARKMAN

Today's review of the day is about a show I caught last week on the discovery channel that really impressed me.  For those of you who don't know, last week was SharkWeek on the discovery channel.  Every year for one week, all the programs on that channel are shark programs.  Sharks are fascinating creatures, so I decided to watch a few.  One of the shows I saw was a 2-hour program called "Sharkman."

This show is about a man named Michael Rutzen, who lives in South Africa, and frequently free dives with Great White Sharks.  I must point out that up until about 2 years ago, every program that involved great white sharks, was a show with a bunch of people inside of a cage.  No one was willing to get into the water (cage-less) with this huge monsters.  The year before I had caught a program where for the first time people ventured outside of the cage, but really didn't interact with the sharks, and returned to the cage frequently.  Pretty amazing in itself, but then I saw this years program, "Sharkman," and I was blown away.

This guy has no cage on standby for retreat, just scuba gear and swims with these 15-foot great whites.  And the most amazing part is he interacts with the sharks, grabbing their noses and punching them if they get too close, just to see how they will react.  But thats not all, he discovered by accident that if he grabs their nose, they appear to become paralyzed (motionless), or catatonic (sleep like trance).  So he decides to investigate and discovers that studies have been done in smaller sharks, prove a reaction called "tonic-immobility."  Apparently in some sharks, if you grab their nose in the right spot and right way, they will go into this sleep like state.  So after learning how to do it, he attempts to use the technique on a Great White Shark.  I won't spoil it for you but its pretty amazing stuff.  If you get a chance to check out "Sharkman," you won't be disappointed.