I expected to meet a terrifying “man”, but when I saw him, I realized that it was a defenseless animal, I am more afraid of me than from that. This moment aroused my curiosity and I decided to learn more about sharks. I traveled to the island of Guadalupe off the Pacific coast in Mexico to see huge white sharks, and took a diminutive point camera with me. When I was able to photograph a great white shark, I realized that the camera was more than a tool, it was a way to achieve my goal of meeting with sharks.
Movies have reduced sharks to one or two descriptions for many people: they are terrifying and unsaturated. What do you learn from being with them and why are you defending them?
From a very newborn age I dreamed of being a diver because my parents were divers. While my mother died, when I was only a year ancient, my dad talked about me about his adventures with sharks. He said they were bad. When I was seven, I saw a movie Jaws, And I was attracted by the hero Matt Hooper, a scientist. Finally, when the shark destroys Łódź, the Hooper gets into the cage, the shark breaks it and everyone assumes that he had to be eaten, but eventually survives. Shortly after watching the movie, we went to the beach in Tuxpan, in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz. My dad bought a little dead shark from a fisherman, and I played with him on the beach with my half -brother. These moments led to my love of sharks. For me, life next to animals is my sheltered space. Then I feel serene when I’m really myself. I feel at ease.
Wired discussed how the crossing reached the deep sea, perilous rays and sharks. During the 20 years of meetings with these creatures you saw changes in their populations and how is it to be a witness to influence our oceans?
I saw two phenomena. Without going too far from my house, near the island of Cozumel, off the coast of Rivier Maya in the Caribbean, it was again life than now. But I also saw places such as Cabo Pulmo, at the end Baja California, where 20 years ago there were almost no sharks, and now he is full with them. When the sharks are present naturally, without someone supporting the population and feeding, it is a sign that the ecosystem is fit. In Cabo Pulmo they created protected areas that became points of hope. There is not enough these areas, but there you can find the entire food chain, from sharks to the smallest plankton. When you take sharks, the whole ecosystem becomes unbalanced.
Recently, I saw more and more dead and bleached corals and this is very depressed.
What does it look like?