Sharks Big Blue UK

Today, we're on the island of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides,

looking to get up close and personal with the shark.

It's the ocean's greatest hunter,

evolved over 450 million years

to thrive in almost every ocean on the planet.

Including ours. There are sharks right here in UK waters

but that's not all.

Some can grow up to a staggering ten metres in length.

That's as big as a bus.

And some of those big fellows are right here

because this is one of the best places

to spot the UK's biggest shark species.

There are actually over 30 different species of shark in Scottish waters

and we're hoping to catch up with some of the jaws

that surround our shores.

But, don't worry, these are not fish to be feared.

'Later, I'll be proving that as I head to Cornwall,

'hoping to come face to fin with the beautiful blue shark.'

Oh, she's right here.

'I'll be tracking down evidence of baby sharks

'on one of our most popular beaches.'

Oh, guys, guys, look, look, look! CHILDREN ALL TALK AT ONCE

'And every day, we're joined by intrepid wildlife cameraman Richard Taylor-Jones,

'who today is investigating the relationship

'between our ocean's biggest and smallest creatures.'

Their life depends upon all these lives.

'We'll also be joined by some familiar faces

'sharing their best past experiences of marine wildlife.'

But, first, Richard's going to give us the lowdown

on some of the amazing shark species living in UK waters.

'For the last 20 years,

'I've been working as a cameraman,

'filming wildlife all over the British Isles.

'When it comes to capturing shots of sea life,

'you definitely need patience and a fair bit of luck.

'The majority of our sharks are resident

'so they're here all year round.

'And that's mainly because there's food and a lot of it

'and they have different ways of finding it.

'Bizarre-looking angel sharks inhabit the depths,

'waiting for an unsuspecting fish to pass.

'Bottom-dwelling smooth-hounds lurk around the shallows,

'hunting out hermit crabs.

'And huge basking sharks sweep the open ocean for plankton.

'Not all our sharks are here year-round.

'Some are seasonal visitors.

'The beautiful blue shark can be seen from June to September.

'During those summer months, the mako shark pays us a visit too.

'It's the fastest shark in the ocean

'so isn't quite as easy to spot.

'Skates and rays are basically flattened sharks.

'Instead of having boned skeletons,

'skates, rays and sharks are made up of cartilage.

'This is what defines them as a group.

'Sharks don't have the best of reputations

'but they actually play a very important role in our seas.

'Whatever they eat,

'they are at the top of the food chain in virtually every location.

'This means they keep populations of other fish in proper proportion.

'Without them, our seas would be a very different place.'

Sharks, of course, unlike dolphins, are not mammals but fish.

They don't have lungs that breathe air.

Instead, they have gills that extract oxygen

from the water as it passes through them.

But, not all sharks share exactly the same biology,

especially when it comes to reproduction.

Some sharks give birth to live young, whereas others lay eggs,

as Lindsey found out when she went to Devon.

'You may think seeing a shark on a trip to the beach is highly unlikely

'but amazingly, they're not that far away.'

In fact, right now, I'm just metres from sharks

and this curious little object is my evidence.

'But, what is it?'

A bit of seaweed.

-Seaweed.

-Seaweed?

Shark's egg?

'Emma's got it right. This is a shark's eggcase,

'sometimes called a mermaid's purse.

'Cat Gordon, from the Shark Trust, explains more.'

So, these eggcases are laid in pairs

and there'll be a yolk sac inside there

that will give the embryo everything it needs

and then, as it grows, it'll kind of fill the eggcase

until it's ready to hatch out of this opening up here.

-Just here?

-Just there, yeah.

So, the young will emerge as a fully formed miniature version

of the adult that's ready to swim off into the sea and fend for itself

and this empty eggcase can get dislodged quite easily

and that's when it's washed up onto the beach.

'Two of our British sharks,

'a few rays

'and all of our skates lay eggcases.

'You can tell the species by the shape, colour and size,

'just like birds' eggs.'

We've got the two on the end here that are the shark species

so that's the small spotted cat shark

and then we've got the nursehound

that's got those curly tendrils on the ends.

And then these ones are all our skates and our rays

so you can see they've got this pointed horn on each corner

and then we've got this one.

Look at that beast, that's huge!

It's bigger than my hand, what's this?

So, that's a flapper skate eggcase.

It was previously called the common skate

and that's from one of the largest skates in the world

which gets a wingspan of about 2.5 metres across.

Can I find this here?

Not down here, no.

It used to be common all the way around the country

but now there's only a few strongholds left

up on the west coast of Scotland and around Orkney.

That's massive.

'I may not be able to find a flapper skate eggcase here on Wembury Beach

'but I've got a good chance of finding the other species.

'Shark, skate and ray populations are fluctuating

'so the Shark Trust set up a project called The Great Eggcase Hunt,

'encouraging everyone in the UK to get out and see what they can find.

'The information helps the Shark Trust understand

'how many sharks we have and where they breed.

'Today, I've got some help from the children of Wembury Primary School.'

Where should we be looking and what are we looking for?

OK, so, all of this seaweed makes up the strand line along the beach.

That's where everything gets washed in from the sea

so we need to look in there for all of these eggcases.

-Are we ready? CHILDREN:

-Yeah!

-Yeah? Let's go.

'The best time to look is after stormy weather,

'when lots of seaweed and debris is thrown up on the beach.'

Oh, guys, guys, look, look, look!

-I moved it.

-Did you find it?

-Yeah.

-You moved it from under here?

It's got the curly bit on the end.

Given the size of that one, which one do you think that might be?

It could be this one here.

Exactly, so yeah, that one is a nursehound eggcase.

It's a little bit broken up but it's a nursehound's.

'Finding this eggcase could be proof

'that nursehounds breed right here off Wembury Beach

'so Cat's taking me into the water and if we're lucky enough,

'we might find an eggcase with a live embryo inside.

'These shallow waters are beautiful.

'As we swim through them,

'we see a rich variety of seaweeds in all shapes and colours.

'Throughout spring and summer,

'the female will deposit the eggs amongst these weeds.

'Eggcases themselves aren't that camouflaged

'but algae will grow on them,

'making them hard to find.

'And sadly, that's the case today.

'But other snorkellers have found them right here at Wembury

'and this is what they saw.

'These are nursehound eggs.

'When held up to the sunlight,

'you can even see the shark developing inside.

'It's remarkable to think that just metres from this busy beach

'is a shark nursery.'

If you want to have a close encounter with a shark

in UK waters, then get down to a beach near you

and start looking for mermaid's purses.

Join in the Great Eggcase Hunt.

And I'm delighted to say that lots of you have been doing just that.

The map that Lindsey has here shows all the eggcase sightings

reported since 2003.

Lindsey, is there anything in our neck of the woods?

Take a look at this. This is Tiree, round about here.

-Under that splodge.

-That's right, and guess what?

On the 7th of July, somebody found a giant flapper skate eggcase,

so that means they're living just off the shores here.

And, Lindsey, I've just got to show off a little bit here

because just a couple of weeks ago,

I was out here in Gunna Sound with my sister and her family

and my brother-in-law shot this rather amazing footage.

-Wow!

-Have a look.

-Gosh, it's huge!

-It's a big one.

We saw six huge basking sharks, just metres from where I am now.

And just a few days ago, my son Oscar took these underwater images while

snorkelling, and grabbed this shot of a basking shark actually breaching.

It looks stunning.

It was a really wonderful thing to see, but I have to say,

we were very lucky because, in fact, nationwide,

basking shark sightings have been really down this summer.

I asked Richard Taylor-Jones to try and find out why.

Well, it's all down to what they

like to feed on, which is contained

within this seemingly clear seawater

I have in this beaker. It's plankton.

And, believe it or not, within this beaker alone, there are more

individual creatures than there are people in the whole of the UK.

Effectively, what you have in here is a whole living ecosystem,

a Maasai Mara of herbivores eating plants

and carnivores eating the herbivores.

It is a quite incredible living soup.

Astonishingly, it's this invisible soup supper that sustains the mighty

basking shark and I would love to see this

micro world that they are so dependent on.

So, I've come to a plankton research laboratory in Plymouth to

meet with Dr Nick Owens.

He and his team have a raft of powerful microscopes that

enable them to see plankton in incredible detail.

What I'd really like to do is take this seemingly empty beaker

and actually get some shots of the live animals in here.

-Could we sort of use this set-up to do that?

-Yeah, most certainly.

Yeah, let's do that.

Where do we start?

We start by getting some of that out into a little dish like this

-and under the microscope.

-OK. Well, let's get to work.

By using specialist kit, I can attach my cameras to the

microscopes and start to film the plankton in incredible detail.

And this micro world comes to life.

Oh, my goodness me! Masses of stuff!

Yeah, all sorts of things whizzing around.

One in the middle there, you can see it's got a...

-That's one of these copepods.

-Mm-hm.

And these are favourite food of young fish,

even up to those basking sharks you've been talking about.

That's absolutely amazing.

-Can you see that? Is that...? The pulsating...

-That's...

-Is that a little jellyfish?

-That's a little jellyfish.

-Wow!

This is just fascinating, being in a

lab and seeing what the basking sharks are

feeding on, that their life depends upon all these lives in here.

Yeah.

So, could it be that this plankton

is affecting our basking sharks this summer?

There has been an ongoing study

since the 1930s that could help get some answers.

The study uses an ingenious collecting machine that is

towed behind commercial ships.

140,000 miles have been covered this year alone.

I'm going to join operations manager Lance Gregory to pick up

a recorder from the Plymouth to Roscoff ferry.

Lance, this is a pretty heavy looking piece of equipment.

How do you actually get it over the side of the ship?

As you can see, over here, we've got the ship's mooring winches,

we've got a davit and it goes over the side, on a 10mm steel wire rope.

OK, so basically, it's chucked over the edge on a big string.

-That's right.

-And how does it actually work?

We've got water and plankton coming through this aperture at the front.

It gets trapped on a band of silk, another piece of silk goes

over the top and, effectively, we get a plankton sandwich.

The crew will tell us where it's gone into the water,

where it's come out of the water,

and then we can assign that segment of silk to that part

of the ocean and then the scientists can start doing their stuff.

In the lab, every silk is logged, as to when and where it came from.

Then, it's painstakingly analysed and the results are very revealing.

The sea's warming up, global warming,

and what that is doing is it's shifting

the distributions of the plankton, so for instance, the colder

water species is much richer in fat,

therefore a much better food source, and they're moving north,

out of the North Sea, to be replaced by a copepod that actually isn't

such good food and that will have a big impact on such

things as basking sharks.

It seems that one of the possible reasons

we could be seeing less of the huge basking sharks

around our shores is the lack of the right tiny stuff around our shores.

Climate change appears to be altering

the plankton around our coast.

And that, I hope, Hugh, goes some way to answering your question.

Now, this over here is Gunna Sound,

one of the basking shark hot spots of the UK.

Anything out there right now, Lindsey?

No luck so far, Hugh, but I do live in hope.

Actually, speaking of extraordinary sightings,

back in July this year, a member of the public took some amazing

footage of sharks just off from RSPB Medmerry in West Sussex.

Take a look at this footage.

The RSPB officer who filmed this video said there

were around 50 smoothhound sharks in this one little spot.

Each shark measures up to 1.5 metres in length, so it's understandable

that the people watching were pretty surprised to see them.

Experts think they came in to the shallows to hunt for hermit

crabs and other marine life.

But after three days, they vanished as quickly as they arrived.

A real mystery.

And it isn't the first time sharks have come close to shore.

This is a blue shark filmed in Pembrokeshire.

The Shark Trust have said this behaviour is very strange.

Most likely, it was a very young shark that had mistakenly

swum into the shallow waters.

But don't be scared.

There have only been two unprovoked shark attacks in England

since 1847, neither of which proved fatal.

The common skate or flapper skate is a species that's particularly

struggling.

The One Show's Mike Dilger went to find out how they're being

protected.

The Sound of Jura on the west coast of Scotland is home to

one of our largest and rarely filmed fish.

Today, I'm joining sea angler

Ian Bowart, who is hopefully going

to help me catch more than just

a glimpse of one.

Ian is part of the conservation effort for the enormous common

skate, which sadly today is anything but common.

That's about a 180 pound fish going back.

They're massive! Look at the size of that!

They're actually classed as critically endangered.

They're on the same list as Siberian tigers and polar bears.

Eight years ago, Ian established the Scottish Sea Angling

Conservation Network to protect vulnerable skate and shark species.

Skate are bottom dwelling fish, closely related to sharks,

so hauling one up from the depths is going to be tough.

-30 minutes later...

-Got something here, mate.

-Get the harness.

-OK.

And now I need to bring it up through 450ft of water.

Argh!

-That's it.

-God! Quite a pull on it!

This fish isn't going to go up in 30 seconds.

You could be here 40 minutes.

I'm seriously overheating. I'll have to take my hat off.

It's hard but vital work, as Ian's tagging programme is

unravelling the mysteries of the skates' life.

The remarkable thing is the tags have shown the fish

don't go very far.

In fact, 66% of the fish we've tagged have been recaptured

within five miles of the original capture site.

Ian hopes his work will lead to the Sound being granted

Marine Protected Area status,

as it's so crucial to the skate's survival.

And after the hard work reeling,

I finally get my first glimpse of this amazing fish.

It's coming, it's coming!

It's coming! It's flippin' huge!

-Ha-ha! Wow! Look at that!

-Come in behind me.

Oh, my word! I've just caught myself

an absolutely enormous skate.

What a beautiful animal! Look at that!

Oh, my word!

In order to get the skate on board and tag it, we need to use hooks.

It might look uncomfortable,

but Ian's work has shown there's no lasting damage done

and the data gained of course is incredibly valuable.

Wow! Look at that!

That is amazing!

I can't believe that this fish exists in British waters.

We need to minimise the time the skate is out of the water,

so first task is to harmlessly tag it with a unique code attached

to its giant wing.

Check out the wingspan of this. It is a fish I'm talking about, not a bird.

What a specimen!

But we need precise measurements for the scientific records.

-53 inches by 80 inches.

-Yes.

-Is that a big size?

-It's a good fish.

And that equates to a 12 stone fish, the weight of a fully-grown man.

We've got the tags in, we've got the measurements,

so a kiss and a cuddle and put it back.

-Job done.

-Yeah.

But with a fish this size, it's a task that's easier said than done.

Argh! Yes.

-Ready to go?

-Yeah.

Ha-ha-ha! There it goes!

-Just flapping off into the deep.

-And gone.

But our job for the day isn't done

and it's not long before we land another of these incredible fish.

A smaller one, but it's a male.

When I say smaller, I still mean very big.

You can see the row of teeth and it's got a surprisingly large mouth.

Anything that gets in there, basically, is history.

They feed on other skate species and crustaceans.

Males are smaller than females and there's another obvious difference.

The main difference is the claspers. Now, these actually are the penis.

A skate, shark, literally has two penises.

Skate are long-lived animals,

potentially living up to 100 years of age.

Any idea how old this might be?

I would guess, based on the size, about 20 years old.

So, there's a fair bit of growing in that one yet. It's a young teenager.

-It's a pretty fine specimen though.

-It's a lovely fish.

-Let's get him back in the water.

-Yes.

To date, Ian has tagged 3,000 individuals and each one returned

safely increases our understanding of this spectacular skate.

Ian and his team are playing a massive role in conserving

this beautiful species.

Let's hope the skate we've caught today will steadily

but surely repopulate the seas further afield once more.

In the Atlantic,

blue sharks migrate from the eastern seaboard of the United States,

following the Gulf Stream, and by the summer it's thought that many

thousands of them are arriving here on the UK coast.

For a very particular reason,

I've hankered after seeing blue sharks in the wild for years.

And in June this summer, reports from fishermen indicated that the

sharks had started to arrive in Cornwall.

By the end of July, they were seeing them almost every day.

So as soon as there was a break in the weather,

I headed down there myself to see if I could catch up with them.

If I'm lucky today, I could have one of the most exciting marine

wildlife encounters that Britain has to offer.

But there's another reason that I'm really keen to catch up with

Cornwall's blue sharks today.

I've actually met them before, under very different circumstances.

Back in 1974 on holiday in north Cornwall, I was already

a mad keen fisherman and me and my friend Charlie

had heard it was possible to go shark fishing.

And this is the Super 8 footage that my mum took of that trip.

We did actually catch four sharks that day and I caught one myself.

Clearly at the time,

this was about the most exciting thing that could happen.

But all these years later I really don't feel good about the fact

that I killed a shark.

I'm afraid I didn't have a thought for marine conservation back then.

But today I want to go out there, say hello to the blue sharks of Cornwall

and make amends for something I did 40 years ago that frankly, I regret.

I'm joining John Richardson from the Shark Trust

and heading out of Penzance harbour.

Fishing for shark does still happen here but attitudes have moved on.

Since you were fishing as a kid it has changed completely.

Nowadays it's almost always catch and release.

Some of them will bring them on to the deck very quickly

and they might get a photograph and take measurements

which are really useful information and they will get them

back in the water as quickly as possible with the minimal impact.

So does catch and release angling provide a good opportunity for anglers

to actually collaborate and help scientists and conservationists such as yourself?

Yes, it certainly does. They can tell us the species, the size, the sex,

all sorts of really useful information about shark populations.

Today, we won't be catching sharks.

I just want to see them in their natural environment.

Blue sharks are found in the deep, open ocean

so we are heading ten miles offshore.

Skipper Charles Hood is taking me

to what seems like the middle of nowhere.

What I've done over the years is come back to the places we have been seeing them

and for some reason, maybe it is where the currents meet or where the tides meet,

this is a good spot where we regularly see them.

To encourage the sharks to come to us, we are

chumming the water with minced up dead fish.

Following Shark Trust advice we are not actually feeding them,

simply laying a scent trail to attract them.

And if we do see them, we should be in for a treat.

Living up to 20 years,

blue sharks can reach almost four metres in length.

As the name suggests,

they have a distinct metallic blue across their backs.

The underside is actually pure white. This is for camouflage.

That feature does not protect them from their biggest predator.

Us.

Globally, they are one of the most widespread sharks on the planet,

but they are also one of the most heavily fished.

So they're being caught around the world for their fins and for their meat.

And what is the impact of this fishing on the blue shark population?

Recent research suggests that the Atlantic blue shark population alone

has decreased by 30% in the last three decades.

That is due to commercial fishing

and also the fact that there is no catch limits at all.

We know that they are out there somewhere

but catching sight of one on a trip like this is never a given.

Maybe the sharks remember me from all those years ago

because today they are staying well clear.

When you're constantly staring at the ocean waiting for something to happen,

waiting for a little shark fin to appear,

your mind can start playing tricks on you

and you start seeing those shark fins popping up all over the place.

And then, finally, after four and a half hours...

There it is.

..we get our first glimpse.

That was definitely a blue shark.

It was definitely a shark, wasn't it?

And with a shark in the vicinity, we get kitted up.

Before I have a chance to get in the water, the shark comes back.

But at least I'm ready with my underwater camera.

She's right here.

She's coming in again.

And then, after a sniff of mackerel, she disappears.

I enter the water hoping she will return.

But it seems she's had enough of us for today

and my hope of swimming with her is dashed.

Well, it has been about half an hour since we last saw her

and I think maybe that's it for today and she's headed off.

But I did see her.

She came really close to the boat and it really was very exciting.

I can't change what I did 40 years ago but I hope that now fishing

practices have changed, sharks have a brighter future here in the UK.

It was breathtaking to see one, this time where it should be.

She's right here.

Sharks belong out in the wild.

And very much alive.

Now, perhaps at the beginning of this programme

you were just a little bit wary of sharks.

Maybe more than a little bit wary.

Maybe you were outright terrified.

Well, I hope we have managed to convince you to love

and not fear this amazingly versatile group of fishes.

They play a key role in maintaining the balance of our oceans,

not just here in the UK but all over the world.

That is all we've got time for today but we will be back tomorrow

with another dip into our extraordinary marine scene here in the UK

and we will be taking a closer look at the diverse sea birds

that fly and live around our shores.

I'll be holding in my hands a baby puffin,

which in case you didn't know is called a puffling.

How cute is that?

And I'll be scrambling up a rock face to try and place

a tracking device on one of our most superb seabirds, the gannet.

That's all for now.

Meanwhile, we will leave you with some fantastic sharks.