Are sharks the cunning man-eating villains that we think they are? Or, are they simply carrying out their natural role as the ocean's apex predators?
Listen on to fall in love with these "majestic prehistoric creatures", as our guest and shark expert Alessandro De Maddalena describes them, and gain a new perspective on sharks.
Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/roadshow-and-tell/id1666756225
Follow us on Instagram to see photos of stuff mentioned in this episode: @roadshowandtellpodcast
Are sharks the cunning man-eating villains that we think they are? Or, are they simply carrying out their natural role as the ocean's apex predators?
Listen on to fall in love with these "majestic prehistoric creatures", as our guest and shark expert Alessandro De Maddalena describes them, and gain a new perspective on sharks.
Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/roadshow-and-tell/id1666756225
Follow us on Instagram to see photos of stuff mentioned in this episode: @roadshowandtellpodcast
Welcome to Roadshow and Tell, a podcast for people hoping to improve their pub trivia team score. I'm your host, Kate, and I'll visit museums so you can learn things you never knew you wanted to. In this episode, we visit the Shark Museum in Simon's Town, South Africa. Simon's Town is just a 40 minute drive from Cape Town City Center, and is a gateway to the Marine Big Five, that is whales, sharks, penguins, seals, and dolphins. The Shark Museum is a passion project of biologist and Shark expert Alessandro de Maddalena. It's a tiny but picturesque room that overlooks the crystal clear blue waters and quaint buildings of Simon's Town. It's filled with so much Shark paraphernalia and is also used primarily as a space to host lectures about all things sharks. And the best thing about talking with an Italian Shark expert? The delightful way he describes sharks:
Alessandro:hammerhead sharks,, Cow Shark, Blue Shark, Mako Sharks the common thresher Shark, the sandbar Shark, the Southern African Frilled Shark, the Piked dogfish. The Pygmy Shark and the Thorny lanternshark
Kate:So listen on to hear about how cage diving can support Shark conservation, why Jaws taught us poorly about great whites, and why we should all be concerned about decreasing populations of those chompy boys in our waters.
Alessandro:My name is Alessandro De Maddalena. I've been working on sharks for many years. I'm now 52, and I started to be interested in sharks when I was still a kid about seven, eight years old. And then I decided I want to study the sharks and more specifically, great white. I did my studies in natural science at the university in Milan. I took my master degree and then I started to do work about the presence of the great white in the Mediterranean Sea. And I built a very big database, about 600 cases of great whites recorded, both in historical and present day. And from there I started to publish scientific papers about the biology of the great whites in the Mediterranean. Then I extended to other species in the same area, like hammerhead sharks, Cow Shark, Blue Shark, Mako Sharks. And in 2010 I started to work with a cage dive operator here in Simon's Town, South Africa. So I started to work with Chris Fallows and his wife Monique of Apex Shark Expeditions. And then I started to host Great White Expedition with Shark biology courses. In the beginning was like okay, I want to try to do this, but it went so well become a very big part of my life and my work. So I moved here in Simon's Town in 2012 with my family, which means 10 years ago. I continue to work articles and books about sharks also taking photos, drawing illustrations, everything about sharks, giving lectures. Also started to work in Australia hosting similar Great White Shark expedition with Rodney Fox Shark expedition, so the Neptune Islands South Australia. And later also started to host orca expedition or killer whale expeditions in Norway. And one year ago we opened this tiny Shark museum in Simon's Town.
Kate:Wow. So what would seven year old Alessandro who wants to learn about sharks say to your 52 year old self now?
Alessandro:Yeah. You know, that for me, the strangest thing is that when I was seven, eight years old, I watched my very first documentary, the television, you know, at the time there was no internet. Otherwise, there were only a couple of television channels in Italy. So you didn't get many Shark documentaries or none at all?
Kate:Not like now.
Alessandro:Yeah. You see very different. So I watched my very first Great white documentary when I was that age and uh, it was documentary filmed with Rodney Fox in South Australia, and now I'm 52 and I'm working for that man. You know, life is so strange and full of surprise.
Kate:So how did the Shark Museum come to be? Obviously your expeditions were going really well. Why did you start the Shark Museum?
Alessandro:Again, it's a dream of my childhood. When I was a kid I used to build tiny models of a shark museum and that was a kind of an idea stuck in my mind. What happened is that a couple years ago now, we had the, the chance buying the property. And this place was a special one to me because that was actually part of a b'n'b where I used to stay during my very first great white expedition in 2010. So when they put it on sale, I felt like, okay, maybe that's the right time in the right place. We renovated the place and did some major work and then one year ago we were able to open this tiny museum. I mean, it's very, very small, but still this is something important to me. That's uh, the place I wanted to have to be able to do my education activities mostly.
Kate:So you're mostly interested in great whites. Why do you think you're most interested in the scariest Shark?
Alessandro:Yeah. Everybody are very interested in great whites because they're the most dangerous species of sharks. Still not as dangerous as many people think, but it is true. It's the most dangerous species of Shark. We cannot deny it. And lot of people actually got interested in sharks because of the movie Jaws. This is not what happened to me because I actually watched Jaws when I was a teenager, so my passion started before with documentaries and books. Only later I had the chance of watching that kind of movies. Anyway, the main reason why I'm interested in great whites is just because they are very prehistoric. They look like prehistoric animals. You can be in the water with any species of Shark. The smallest one, the biggest one, and all of them are so beautiful. But the great white looks most like a very ancient, prehistoric animal. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a paleontologist. I want to study dinosaurs, but you know, I was reading these books about dinosaurs. They're all dead. You know, there is no chance you, one day you are going to see one a live dinosaur like in Jurassic Park. So when I saw my first great white on the screen, I talk, okay, this one looks like a prehistoric animal, but he's still alive. As I say, those species of sharks are beautiful, but a great white is just more majestic and more ancient the way it looks I mean.
Kate:Okay. I don't know about calling Great Whites majestic, but they're definitely funny looking creatures. you might remember Alessandro said he studied sharks in the Mediterranean.
Alessandro:Yeah. You know that, still today, most people living on the Mediterranean coast don't know about the presence. The And the reason is very simple. There used to be a very strong population in Mediterranean, like centuries ago. And then about one century ago, the population in Mediterranean started to decline. So now there are very, very few great whites left in the Mediterranean. So every time there will be one great white spotted, a lot of media will report the news, like you know, it's kind of the, the first time a great white spot. That's not true. that's totally wrong. Actually, the Mediterranean was the very first place where the species, the great white was first described.
Kate:That's right. The earliest recorded Shark attack ever happened in the Mediterranean. It's all thanks to a vase discovered in Naples dating back to 725 bc.
Alessandro:So they always been there. They always reproduce there. They always fed there. It is simply that like it is happening in so many parts of the world nowadays. The Mediterranean started before the humans started to kill them and to reduce their population. Now there's just a tiny percentage of what the population used to be before. That's why people in Mediterranean countries are not aware of the great white presence because it is so rare to see them, you know?
Kate:Speaking of that, can you tell us about what's happening with this Shark populations in False Bay and Mossel Bay? For reference, False Bay and Mossel Bay are two bays in Cape town, which are known to be particularly sharky
Alessandro:Yeah, let's say that what's happening here, it's just the same happened before in Mediterranean. I always underline this aspect because people usually tend to be very slow in learning. We do a lot of damage to nature around the world. So we must take an example of what happen in other countries, to not repeat the same mistakes, but you see it is not happening. So we have some areas of the world where the population of great whites are properly managed, but not many. In most cases, people are just fishing everything and not caring about these animals. And then in many countries, great whites or other species are protected on paper, but then there is no enforcement or very little enforcement. No control. And then you know, everybody go there and fish the sharks, fish for their prey, kill them on purpose, or kill them as bycatch, meaning trying to catch other species of fishes, and then by mistake, I kill a great white. You know, that's bycatch happening everywhere around the world. It is very sad because you can protect as many species as you want. But if it's not a proper protection, it is just written on paper, it is useless. And now what we are witnessing is that everywhere the number of species that are protected is becoming longer and longer, but enforcement is not increasing. So you understand it's very difficult to actually protect all those species if there is very little enforcement. So what's happening here in False Bay, Mossel Bay, and let's say all the waters in the Western Cape is just the same. South Africa's been the very first country in world to protect the white in 1991. So it's something like an historical record, something to be proud of for South African people. The problem is that in the beginning it worked pretty well because if you teach people that animals can also be use useful to bring more riches to the country more I mean more funds to the country, more tourism, it's good for the shops, for hotels, for the restaurant, not only for the cage diving industry or the diving industry for everybody. So if you properly use ecotourism, that's very powerful tool to teach the entire community, not only people working with wild animals, that these animals are much more worth when they're alive than when they're dead. This has been done in so many countries. Just think, for example, the Maldives. All species of Shark are protected because they make so much money with the diving industry. People dive and travel all over the world from any country to go to the Maldives specifically to dive with sharks. If this population are wiped out, then you lose all this kind of tourists. The same thing working very well with great whites in South Africa, so people were coming to False Bay, Gansbaii, Mossel Bay specifically to cage dive with great whites. And this if properly regulated, is a wonderful activity. If it's not properly regulated may be a problem for the Shark and the public, you know? Then what happen in the recent years, we saw the number of sharks decreasing continuously well before those two orcas arrived on the spot.
Kate:so, like I said, False Bay has earned a reputation as a very sharky area. However, a phenomenon has been observed in recent times that there is an apparent decrease in Shark numbers associated with the presence of two orcas, affectionately known as port and starboard. The two orcas are said to be responsible for at least seven great white deaths since 2015. While pods of orcas have been visiting False Bay for years, they've never hunted sharks. Some scientists hypothesized that the sharks are being scared away from False Bay by this behavior, explaining the decline in sightings.
Alessandro:Now a lot of people, a lot of media are blaming two orcas for the disappearance of great whites in the area. It's not like that. The orcas chase the Shark, kill a couple of them per year, which is nothing for a population that is estimated to be of several hundreds, but sometimes they chase them away. But the sharks, if they're still there, if they're still alive, they come back. You know, if this is not happening, just because the number of sharks started to decrease well before the orcas arrived. So you understand the decrease of sharks is because of fishing, not because of the orcas.
Kate:Because there's not enough fish in the Bay for them to
Alessandro:fish there. There is too much fishing in the entire area, even in offshore waters. So what happens? Too much fishing kill sharks sometimes. So you see that is not only because sharks are culled. By poachers or by bycatch, you know? But also because if we kill their food, they're going to disappear or to move to other areas where there is more food, you know? But there must be other areas where there is more food. Otherwise they cannot survive.
Kate:And what happens if we wipe out sharks? I know a lot of people pro culling sharks. What would happen if we wiped out that top apex predator from our oceans?
Alessandro:You know, there are many affects that is very difficult to predict. So what happens is that you wipe out the population of an apex predator. What's happening, the apex predator is called apex predator because is at the top of an imaginary pyramid. In this pyramid you have at the bottom, you have the creatures, the organism, they do the photosynthesis. So we have the phytoplankton basically in the ocean. Then we have the zooplankton, they feed on the phytoplankton. The producers, the phytoplankton, clearly by photosynthesis, they create the energy. They synthesize the glucose, which is used by all the other levels. So it's used by the zooplankton, it's used by sardines, anchovies, small fish. And then you go up, you find bigger fishes like snoeks, like barracudas, like tuna, and then like swordfish, you go towards the top of the pyramid and the amount of fish, the amount of individuals decrease and their size getting bigger.
Kate:So at the top of the pyramid is you guessed it, those big chompy boys. The actual species of the apex predators will depend on your location. In tropical waters, it could be the tiger sharks or great hammerheads. In South Africa, it's probably great Whites or in Norway or Antarctica, it's probably orcas.
Alessandro:But I mean the logistics is the same. You go to the top, there are very few animals, very few individuals, and very big. Because the amount of energy from the bottom of the pyramid to the top decrease a lot. A lot of this energy that is contained into the glucose, into the sugar basically is lost in the, into the environment at every passage in form of heat. So you get to the top, there's not much energy left. This why we don't have the same amount of great white as we have a sardines or anchovies, or herrings. The smaller fishes are much more numerous, so they are much less vulnerable while the animals at the top, they are much more vulnerable. Depending by the area we count their numbers in hundred. Or in thousands if if some very lucky area. Nobody knows actually how many great whites that are in the Western Cape. Some scientists say 400, some say 200, some say 2000. The problem is that it's impossible to count these animals. You can count animals like dolphins, orcas, humpback whales because they're mammals. They're forced to come to the surface to breathe. But sharks are fishes. You can tag them, you can identify them by the shape of the dorsal fin or the pattern coloration, but still, it is impossible even because great whites don't stay in the same area all the time. They move a lot. Some may stay longer times in a given area. Some other move a lot, some from South Africa to Australia, sometimes they come back. So you have very different patterns of movement. It's not like a proper migratory species.
Kate:And does that make Shark research and field work quite difficult?
Alessandro:Yeah. Clearly it is difficult. We used to work with orcas in Norway. It is much easier because they must come at the surface all the time. Also big dorsal fin, they blow. So from a distance you can spot them easily, you know? And also they travel inside the fjords, so it's quite narrow areas.
Kate:And they travel in packs too, don't they?
Alessandro:Yeah, that's it. So it's much easier to observe them, to find them. With great whites, they don't swim at the surface with the dorsal fin out the water all the time, like in the movies So actually when you see them swimming like that with the dorsal fin out the water, usually it's because we are using some chum or some bait to attract them at the surface. Or when they are hunting, like they're hunting, the seals, they used to spend a lot of time on a surface. Otherwise they don't have a reason to stay at the surface. Most of the time they will spend their time between the surface and down to about 17 meters. They can swim and dive much deeper than that, but they use mostly the first 40 meters of waters and they favor the first 15, 17 meters of water. But not with the dorsal fin out on the surface. So it's very difficult. There is this idea that we must tag all the great whites to follow the movements for me, that's nonsense. In the past tagging was used mostly to see the movement of a species by tagging a few individuals. That was the idea. We take a few individuals and we understand the movements of the entire species. That's a very good idea because when you do that, you can find out if it is proper migratory species.
Kate:Migratory species tend to move based on changing seasons, primarily driven by water temperature. However, most Shark species aren't a proper migratory species. They're philopatric, meaning they move within specific areas, depending on the time of year, driven by factors such as food availability or reproductive needs. So when sharks are tagged for research purposes, their movements don't actually reveal significant migration patterns. Instead, the data often portrays individual sharks returning to their favorite dinner or date spots.
Alessandro:And we know those spots. Like here, Seal Island in False Bay or like the island in in Gans Bay or in Mossel Bay because there is a big source of food. You will see them coming shortly after the period where the seals start to give birth. And that's what the philopatric Animals do. They choose a place. They come back usually every year at that time of the year, but we know these spots, so to see where they go in the meantime, it's quite pointless. We can already tell where they go. They go everywhere.
Kate:So what are some common misconceptions about sharks?
Alessandro:I think the most common is about sharks actually being interested in attacking and eating people. We have 540 species of sharks in the world, and we know for sure because there have been now decades of research on Shark bites, Shark attacks. That when it comes to Shark bites, only about 20 species can be considered actually dangerous to humans, and the only three species can be considered very dangerous. And these three species clearly are the great white, the tiger Shark and the bull Shark. So you consider these species and you put together all the 540 pieces of sharks in the world. How many people are bitten by sharks in the world per year? So the data tell us that there is about 100 people that are bitten by Shark per year. This may vary depending by year. And only 10 of these, or even less depending by year, are actually killed by sharks. So you see that the idea of the killer Shark is totally wrong. Actually, sharks are not interested in humans, and this data prove that that's actually the case. There is no special sharks which is interested in eating people.
Kate:So I know when whales die or get beached, the gases inside them build up and sometimes whales will explode. Does that ever happens to sharks? And what happens when sharks die? Do they rise to the surface or fall right to the bottom of the ocean?
Alessandro:The sharks are cartilaginous fishes. They don't have a, a swim bladder or gas bladder. So they don't have a an organ which is deputed to the buoyancy control. So what happened? They have a huge liver and also a very light skeleton, which is made in cartilage. This why it's so light, the liver is filled with oil with a very low specific weight. And the liver may account up to about 20% of the body weight. So what happens is that the Shark is still slightly heavier than seawater. This is why if a Shark stops swimming, will slowly sink to the bottom. This is why when you see the Shark in the column of water, they're always swimming and never completely still. What happens is that when they die, they usually just sink to the bottom. I mean slowly, but they still sink to the bottom. But clearly sometimes because of decomposition processes, they may go back to the surface and kind of float or being washed ashore.
Kate:So does that mean the bottom of the ocean is like a Shark graveyard?
Alessandro:Yes, absolutely. Because also when we talk about sharks being a very ancient group, which appeared on Earth about 435 million years ago, they have such a long evolutionary history, and as we say, their skeleton is made of cartilage. So we have such a huge amount of species of sharks in this long evolutionary history. And also the lifespan of a Shark is usually pretty long, maybe 10 years, depending by these species, maybe 50 years depending by species. Probably the most common shark in the world has a maximum life span, or 90 years or 100 years. Every single Shark produce a lot of teeth because they replace their teeth during their entire life.
Kate:Okay, so sharks have been here for millions of years, live on average from two to 50 years, and have up to 300 teeth in their mouth during their lives. So can you imagine the bottom of the ocean four is probably just fields upon fields of calcified Shark teeth fossils.
Alessandro:So really the bottom of the ocean is kind of a graveyard for sharks, as you said. This is why we find so many fossil teeth of sharks.
Kate:Do sharks have any friends in the ocean or just prey?
Alessandro:Yeah, that's a good question. It's an interesting question. I usually put in my books like a small chapter about the friends of sharks in the, I mean, these are kind of mutualistic relationships because we have pilot fishes and remoras specifically. They used to stay with sharks. Sometimes small sharks, sometimes big sharks. The fact is that the pilot fishes and remoras have a kind of similar relationship to sharks. We say it's mutualistic because both parts benefit from the relationship. So what happens that those fishes, those bony fishes, feed on the offals of the meals of the shark. So they just wait, the Shark get the prey, and then they will take the scrap of food, but at the same time, by swimming close to the Shark, by staying close to the Shark, they get some kind of a passive protection because not many predator will approach you if you're close to a big predator like a Shark. Also, the relationship is good for the Shark because those fishes will feed on the parasite on the skin of the Shark. So all species of sharks get a lot of parasite, mostly crustacean parasite that we call copepods. You may find them on the skin, on the gills and the cloaca, so the pilot fish and the remoras have the Shark to get rid of at least part of those parasites.
Kate:The Remora also have a very unique anatomical feature in the form of its dorsal fin, which acts as a suction disc that helps it attach to the skin of a Shark. Remoras will often seize the opportunity to clinging onto a shark's skin as it's turning a strategic move that allows them to conserve energy efficiently. Basically, they're the OG clingers of the sea.
Alessandro:So you see, they're very clever, And sometimes they can also eat the excrements of the sharks. We know that this kind relationship is not perfect, because sometimes pilot fishes and sometimes even remoras are found in a stomach of a Shark. So sometimes the predator will actually eat those fishes, but probably doesn't happen very often.
Kate:So you're really playing with fire when you make friends with a Shark.
Alessandro:Yeah.
Kate:So at my local beach in Australia, we have Shark nets and smart drum lines, which cause concern in some people for their ability to attract sharks or also attract bycatch. How can we as ocean users, so surfers and ocean swimmers become comfortable with sharing the ocean with animals like sharks?
Alessandro:Yeah, I think that we are the only species of animals which is not willing to share environment with other species. And we see that all over the world, not only with the sea, but also on land. Just think for example, all the problems we have in Europe with wolfs and foxes. We nearly destroyed the population. These uh, predator. And Now we do a lot of work to rebuild these populations, but still, every time there will be a big discussion, big fight on a political level to reduce the population. Again, Which is crazy to me because these animals were here much before than humans. They have all the rights that we have. We always think about our rights. We have the rights to use the environment. We have the rights to dive. We have the right to surf. We have the right to swim. Actually that's a very wrong point of view, like a childish point of view, in my opinion. We have the right to use the environment. We have the rights to share environment. So I think that uh, the most powerful tool in this sense is education. You know, it's the ocean. The Shark will keep on coming, you know, and also we are killing more and more of their food. So some of them may actually be willing to bite more people because they're coming more closer to shore to look for food. Many times when they bite people just exploratory behaviour. Sometimes it's targeting practice, but we know there have been a few cases of species like a bull and a tiger Shark actually eating the person. But the problem is that we must stop thinking that we have the freedom to do everything and the other species have no rights because we must share the environment. It's much more important to keep the environment healthy and not killing animals, than just being, having the freedom to use the environment to do whatever you want.
Kate:What's the most popular question you get about sharks?
Alessandro:recently, the most common question I get is about the increase in number of sharks, which is clearly not the, the, the, the, the case. Sharks are decreasing. Badly decreasing all over the world. Almost all the species, especially medium sized and big sized Shark, larger sized Shark, these are the most massively decreasing. But people still getting the idea, there are more and more sharks for the simple reason. They see more and more pictures, videos posted over the social media. And that's crazy. Because just think 50 years ago, a guy see a blue Shark near the beach in Sicily. Nobody will ever knew about this case. Now the guy, see that blue Shark near the beach in Sicily? Take a picture or a video and post it on a social media. maybe again, it went viral. And then million of people will see that and they will see, okay, oh, I didn't even know there were sharks in Sicily. You know, all this kind of stuff. It's just getting uh, outta control. It's crazy. So people actually think there is a, a real increase in the number of sharks all over the world. But I tell you that's not the case. The sharks, sharks are decreasing, massively decreasing because of over fishing, dive fishing, target fishing, by catch and finning and all this kind of stuff. So that's I think that's a very important message to bring to the people.
Kate:Alessandro shows me a case with different types of Shark teeth.
Alessandro:So for example, we have some teeth of sharks to show the different shape, which is related to the different diet of the species. So for example, we have a triangular serrated teeth like in the case that the Great White Shark or the tiger Shark or the bull Shark. Also, we have a narrower teeth more pointed that are used to catch very fast swimming prey like uh, bony fishes or schooling fishes and or tearing the prey apart, like in the case of the Sand Tiger Shark. And also we have teeth with more cusp and cusp plates, like in the case of the Cow Shark and we have the Bluntnose Sixgill Shark. Here also we have some egg cases of sharks because some species of Shark are actually oviparous, so they lay eggs. That's the specific case of the Catsharks. Also, I have a Bullhead egg case I recently took at the in the area of the Neptune Islands. That's, that's pretty big. But it can get much bigger than that.
Kate:We see a small anatomical model of a great white,
Alessandro:So I built this anatomical model of a great white that's been quite funny because there is no kind of an atlas of an anatomy of the great white.
Kate:What's the little fish in is?
Alessandro:That's stomach. You see the stomach of a Shark is J shaped. The first part is bigger and is used to store the food. In this case, that's albacore. So it's albacore, a species of tuna You see that it is eaten almost whole, it misses only the caudal fin because the shark cut the caudal fin, the bite, so the prey cannot escape. So that's the space where the food is stored. The second part of the J, the smaller part of the stomach is where the food is actually digested, but sometimes can be stored even for weeks before being digested.
Kate:Eww.
Alessandro:So the body will digest the food when it's really needed, you know? And also that's a pregnant female. So you see that inside the uterus you can see an embryo. It's pretty big, but not full term yet. So you see that there is the yolk sac of the embryo still containing yolk, still containing food. When he will be ready to be born, the yolk sack will be completely reabsorbed.
Kate:when it comes to the gestation period of sharks, it varies depending on the species. But for the majority it spans around 10 months.
Alessandro:But for the species like great white, is it 12 months, so it's longer than humans? Very, very long. This is actually one of the reasons why Shark are so vulnerable. It take a long time to attain sexual maturity. They have very long gestation and they don't produce thousands or millions of eggs per time, like many bony fishes, but just a few units. So for great white, the litter size is from two to 17 pups. So they are very vulnerable because of the reproductive methods. Then here we have this decoy that's a seal shaped decoy that is used to be tow behind the boat. We tow the decoy behind the boat, and maybe we get lucky in one Shark with breach on it. Maybe people think that the great white will breach on the decoy because they think it's a real seal. I don't believe this theory. I think that it doesn't smell like a seal. It doesn't move like a seal. It really doesn't look like a seal at all. So I think that for most great white, they do that. Just targeting practice. This is why even when we have a lot of great whites in the area, you may spend several days before seeing one breach on the decoy, but still they'll breach all the time on the real deal, on the real seal. Anyway, all these bites that you can see on the decoy, they are proper bites of great whites. Here we have a beautiful model of, of an actual great white 5.5 meter female that we observed in South Australia, the Neptune Islands. That is been made by a Russian artist. So you see that it is very beautiful and these all the proportions are perfect. That's an actual model of that Shark you can see the picture.
Kate:The model measures about 15 centimeters and is intricately suspended in resin. Nearby is a photo of the Shark captured by Alessandro. A detail worth noting is the impressive accuracy of the model that faithfully replicates even the minute detail, such as the distinctive bite scar seen in the photograph.
Alessandro:The maximum size of great white that I, I've been able to demonstrate with my studies is 6.6 meters.
Kate:Oof.
Alessandro:But is almost impossible to see animals of that size. So when you see a five meter great white, probably is going to be the biggest you're going to see in your life. So to see a 5.5 meter great white in so many years, so many expeditions, that was very, very lucky. And then here at the bottom we have several teeth of extinct great whites. So that's, these are fossil teeth of great white.
Kate:biggest one was from a Shark called Otodus Megalodon, which literally means big tooth. It was a type of mackerel Shark that existed from 23 million to 3 million years ago.
Alessandro:Many people asked me, you're still alive, because they saw kind of fake documentary that was aired on Discovery Channel years ago, that was fake This animal has gone extinct million years ago. Recent studies say that he may attain it up to 16 meters in length, but the more recent study, again, say that maybe it was up to 19 or 20 meters. And also we have this section, we have ten signs about the biology of sharks. Just explain the basic facts about their classification, anatomy, feeding, reproduction, and then we have a specialized library. And there are more than 100 books on sharks that I collected in my activity.
Kate:And how many books have you published?
Alessandro:Here there is the section with my own books. I published 20 books so far, all about sharks. And also there is a small section of the books uh, by other authors to which I contributed mostly with my illustrations. And uh, you know, I also wanted to show the people the actual size of sharks. But that's a small space. So there was no way to have a kind of a five meter great white inside the space. You know, then people will not be able to even enter. So I ask a local artist that produce this kind of silhouettes, made in wood, showing the actual size of different species of sharks that we can actually find in South African water. So you see, for example, the common thresher Shark, the sandbar Shark, the cow Shark, the shortfin mako, the Smooth-hound, the Southern African Frilled Shark, the Piked dogfish. Yeah, the Pygmy Shark and the Thorny lanternshark. These are two of the smallest sharks found in the world.
Kate:Oh, wow. They're six centimeters at birth.
Alessandro:Yeah. So you see that. These that you can see in these silhouettes are not the maximum size of the species. Because for example, the biggest one we have here is the Shortfin Mako is 2.5 meters. That's the size of sexual maturity for all those species. So the size when they become sexually adult. And the last thing, I had a couple of drawings of illustrations in color made by pencil. These were made by my father, Emilio de Maddalena years ago. And this the, the biggest one that was based on a photo took by Valerie Taylor dangerous Reef in South Australia. He, my father didn't know anything about sharks. He just copy the picture. But the result to me is still the best drawing I've seen of a Shark in my life. So, just a way to remember my father. And the last thing I want to say, that this small museum is dedicated to Sauro Baldi that's the the Dad of my wife. Because we built this space together with my wife, biologist Alessandra Baldi. We thought it was a good idea to dedicate the museum to him because without his support, it would be impossible to create this space.
Kate:Thank you so much for the tour and the interview and for coming on the podcast, alessandro.
Alessandro:It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for the invitation.
Kate:Currently, the Shark museum is open for scheduled lectures or an appointment only with Alessandro. The lectures are in person, but in the future, Alessandro may offer online options. The lecture topics include diet and predatory tactics of sharks, south African sharks, and ethical pra ethical practices in Shark cage diving. He invites other Shark and ocean specialists such as Professor Mike Bruton and Wildlife Ocean photographer Chris Fallows to contribute their expertise as well. So folks don't get your Shark information on social media. As much as I feel threatened by sharks, I also feel a really strong affinity for these creatures. Sharks are a vital part of our marine ecosystems, and if we try and change the balance of sharks or fish or other ocean variables, we could be asking for a disaster. And just like Bruce, the Shark says, in Finding Nemo fish are friends, not food. So let's think of sharks as friends, and not foe, or any other descriptive word that starts with the letter F. Thanks for listening to Roadshow and Tell. If you enjoyed this deep dive into a specialty museum, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode. We're a new podcast. So if you wanna help support us, please share it with a friend and leave a rating and review. If you are involved with or know of a regional or specialty museum that should be featured, please get in touch at roadshowandtell@gmail.com. I'm your host, Kate. Roadshow and Tell was edited and produced on the lands of the Gadigal people. I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the various lands on which you may be listening from, and the lands that the museums featured in this podcast reside on. I also acknowledge any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people listening to this podcast. I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and celebrate the diversity of Aboriginal peoples and their ongoing cultures and connections to the lands And waters of Australia.