TV Talk: Shark attack survivor becomes ‘Shark Week’ mainstay

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

Shark attack survivor Paul de Gelder has been a mainstay of Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” programs since 2013. For one of the five shows he appears in this year that will air on Discovery and stream on Max/discovery+, de Gelder returns to the location where he lost his right leg and part of his right arm in a 2009 shark attack.

“I’m going back to the place where my life was changed forever, where I was nearly killed diving,” de Gelder said of “Sydney Harbor Shark Invasion” (11 p.m. July 7). “And it was not just in the same place that I got attacked, but all over the harbor for a series of weeks actually looking for bull sharks, which is the stupidest thing ever.”

De Gelder was a diver in the Australian Navy when he was attacked.

“I didn’t blame the shark,” he said. “I chose an inherently dangerous life. You can’t choose that life and then get upset when something goes wrong and blame the thing that hurts you for your choices.”

De Gelder’s interest in shark conservation developed in the years after he was attacked as Australian media came to him for interviews whenever sharks returned to the news.

“Really, borne from necessity of not sounding like a dummy on television in front of the country, I thought, I better learn something about these animals because I knew nothing about them except (that) I didn’t want them anywhere near me,” he said. “As the old adage goes, knowledge dispels fear.”

This year’s other specials that feature de Gelder include:

“Great White Serial Killer: Sea of Blood” (10 p.m. July 8): De Gelder joins a shark investigator and a local biologist to explore why sharks are attacking divers near a small Mexican fishing village.

“Deadliest Bite” (8 p.m. July 9): An exploration of sharks’ jaw mechanics and how sharks’ jaws and teeth deliver lethal attacks.

“Shark Attack Island” (10 p.m. July 12): De Gelder and a team try to identify which shark species is attacking near a South Pacific paradise.

“The Real Sharkano” (8 p.m. July 12): De Gelder visits a remote island that’s 30 miles from an underwater volcano.

“Yeah, the title is pretty sensationalist,” de Gelder said of “The Real Sharkano,” “but it was actually a very real and very serious show. But then also, I’m in it, so there’s a lot of nonserious stuff.”

Filmed in the Solomon Islands, “The Real Sharkano” also explores “the indigenous tribes that live on these islands and rely on the ocean and the fish for that whole community,” de Gelder said, “so we’re getting to spend time with them and learn about their culture.”

De Gelder said while underwater diving looking for crocodiles, he could hear a rumbling sound, which was his first clue that an underwater volcano was nearby. Eventually, he went diving 100 feet from the volcano with his GoPro camera.

“And the volcano erupts,” de Gelder said. “It’s crazy, crazy stuff.”

Now in its 36th year, this year’s “Shark Week” counts John Cena as its host as Discovery continues to churn out new shark-themed shows (21 new hours this year). De Gelder said it’s not that difficult to come up with new episodes.

“The science is advancing every year. We’re on such a steep curve of technology and science with everything in our earthly realm at the moment that there’s always new studies to look at,” he said. “Unfortunately, sharks are probably the worst PR client ever. You stand up for them and say, ‘No, they’re not after us,’ and then they go and eat people.”