A Shark Scientist Answers Some Important Questions About "The Shallows"

From Cosmopolitan

Warning: This post contains spoilers about The Shallows.

For a good chunk of The Shallows, it's just Blake Lively against the great white shark that bit her in an epic game of ~survival~. Blake's character, Nancy Adams, deals with everything from a bleeding leg to a swarm of jellyfish to a seagull that just won't go away. Of course, there's also the shark that seems to have a GPS on Blake whenever she tries to swim back to shore or cry for help. Cosmopolitan.com recently spoke with Dr. William "Trey" Driggers, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Researcher who's been working with sharks for 25 years, about what sharks are really like and what their biggest fears are.

I understand you just watched the trailer for The Shallows for the first time.
Yes. It's clearly very sensational … very Hollywood. Absolute worst-case scenarios occurring at one time; this woman hanging onto a buoy, being attacked. There's a lot going on there.

Have you ever been bitten by a shark before?
Yes, but I was on a boat. I just tagged the shark, threw it overboard. And it decided to show me it did not appreciate that. It was more user error than anything. I got 50-some odd stitches for it. It was a pretty good bite. It was like lightning, just attaching itself to my leg. Two of my friends pried it off and threw it back in the water. The shark had every right to do what it did. I bothered it.

What does it feel like to get bitten by a shark?
This is going to sound ridiculous but it did not hurt at all. I think it was just adrenaline. I was holding the shark's head and I don't know what I was hoping was going to happen, other than it would let go. Once it let go, it wasn't very painful. It didn't remove tissue or anything, it basically grabbed around my knee. I'm not saying all shark bites are painless but in my case, it really wasn't. I'll tell you what was more painful: getting the stitches.

In the film, the shark appears out of nowhere and cuts through a wave when Blake's character is surfing. Can that really happen?
Sure. There's a picture out there, I can't remember from what publication, but it's on the Internet, of a shark jumping out of a wave, right behind a surfer. And that was a small shark, maybe a 3-, 4-foot shark. And it had nothing to do with an intentional act. It's pretty common. Dolphins play in waves. You can certainly see a shark in a wave.

Would a shark like a great white be able to knock someone off a surfboard? Is their aim that precise?
With something like a great white shark or a tiger shark that regularly feeds on things that are on the surface, they can see the silhouette from down below and will come up from below to grab it. These are pretty powerful animals, so if they wanted to pursue something at the surface … could they knock somebody off the surfboard? Certainly.

Do sharks hold grudges? It seems like the shark in The Shallows is mad that Blake is near a floating dead whale, which I guess is dinner for the shark.
That could happen but not with any regularity. There are examples of when a human has been attacked and people have gone out to rescue them, that the shark will follow the one person. But that's more a reaction if there's blood and the shark is using its senses to stay with that person. If you can imagine a shark that's trying to feed on some sea lions and it bites one of them, and [the sea lion] gets away, the shark circling around will clearly come back to the one that's bitten. It's easier prey.

How would you compare a shark's intelligence to that of other ocean life?
They have fairly large brains, more so than most fishes. As far as being smart, along the lines of learning things, I don't think you're going to see any trained sharks at Sea World, nothing to that extent. You don't see a lot of interactions or cooperative [behavior] that you'd expect out of a more intelligent animal.

About halfway through the film, Blake's character seems to think that jellyfish can be used as a barrier between herself and the shark. Are sharks scared of jellyfish?
I certainly don't think sharks have any fear of jellyfish. There's an example of a fish in the Mediterranean that has a naturally occurring shark repellent. But shark skin is really thick and it's covered in what are essentially teeth. They're scales, pretty analogous to teeth. They erupt through the skin itself so it's pretty tough. With shark reproduction, a male will come up and actually bite a female and hold on, as they're biting through that skin. They've evolved to be pretty tough in that sense. I've been around large groups of jellyfish and seen sharks in there.

How sharp are shark teeth? Can sharks bite through metal like the shark in The Shallows?
Depending on the species, some have tremendous jaw strength, or bite force, and estimates (these are theoretical because they haven't been measured for white sharks), are up to 4,000 pounds per square inch of force. But with the teeth, you regularly see broken teeth on a shark, when necropsies are done on the animals they've attacked, or a sea lion has made it out of the water, tooth fragments will be found. If a shark were to grab a piece of metal and bite down, and really commit to it, I don't think the teeth would handle it very well.

Would a human ever be able to out-swim a shark?
It really does depend on the species. Getting swimming speeds on fish has been historically pretty difficult, but estimates for white sharks are generally 25 to 35 mph, burst speed, which they wouldn't maintain for an extended period of time. If you think about a human, like Michael Phelps, I think 4.5 to 5 mph is his swimming speed. The comparison between a human's swimming speed and a shark's is night and day. It's basically five times faster, and that's with the fastest human.

In the film, Blake lures the shark to his death by leading it to some nasty metal sticking out of the ocean floor. Would a shark really swim that deep?
I run a survey to basically look at trends and abundance in shark species in the south east, and the gear that we use, we fish for them in the bottom. They lay on the bottom. They undoubtedly go to the bottom.

Do sharks actually like human flesh? If given a choice, would they eat sea lions instead?
Oh, yes. Think about all the blubber, all the energy in a sea lion, it would be much more attractive. They did not co-evolve with us, we're not anything that's a common part of their diet. There would be no reason to have a preference toward us. Some scientists speculate that they dislike the taste of humans. There's something called the bite-and-spit hypothesis where people have been bitten and then the shark basically just leaves.

That happens in the movie. The shark bites a person in a half but both parts of the body wash up to shore.
I don't think there's anything for sport. I certainly don't think they do that. The thing with the bite-and-spit hypothesis (which I personally don't agree with) is a shark like a great white shark, it's relying a lot on its eyes, it's a very visual predator. If the shark goes in and bites a sea lion, and [the sea lion has] these very sharp claws, and it's happening to fight it, shaking it around, if it claws out an eye, well, you're out of business. I think it's more accurate to say they take a bite, then back away, and let it bleed and come back in. They're almost lazy.

Going back to the dead whale, would sharks prefer that over a human like Blake's character in The Shallows?
A floating whale carcass is like an oasis. It's a great place for birds and sharks because they spend very low energy to eat. There are examples of sharks feeding on a whale carcass together and there's no competition, they're not trying to run each other off. There are examples of a large shark being there and other sharks not coming near it. Like a dog would guard a bone. The shark would certainly pay attention to that because it's like, hey, there is a very energy-rich, free meal. If this is a story of the shark just wanting to get her, that's a horrible misrepresentation, perpetuating a lot of the common thoughts about sharks hunting for humans. It's entirely a horrible chance event. There's a human there, there's a shark there, these things happen. It's not a natural event for a shark. It wouldn't be on its radar: Oh, there's a human, let me go get it.

What is a huge misconception that people have about sharks these days?
The view that these sharks are out there, mindless, looking for swimmers. In a sense, they're very standoff-ish. If you're in the water with them, they'll keep their distance. If you're diving and you're looking at them, they will keep their distance from you. They might come in a little bit but if you turn around and look at them, they'll skirt back off. If they're close enough for you to touch them, they shoot off like a rocket for the most part.

They're not as stoic and brave as people might think. They're out there trying to make a living in an area of foraging. If unfortunately a human is there, it could be any number of reasons, almost certainly, they've mistaken a human for something they're trying to eat, like a small fish, and then it happens.

I've heard somebody say you're more likely to be killed by a flying toilet [than a shark]. The probability is so extremely low. You can really use common sense. Don't go stand on a dead whale like this lady did in the movie. Don't do things that seem out of the ordinary. If someone's fishing, don't go into the water. We can coexist within reason. I let my children go in the ocean all the time. I know what's there. It doesn't bother me a bit.

Do you have a favorite shark movie?
I will be honest. A lot of us that work with sharks are made fun of. I was a kid when Jaws came out. I was like, Man, that guy's got a pretty cool job, I'd like to do that. I was on the track to go to law school [and thought ] being a biologist would be pretty neat. A lot of people I work with, it's very similar. I saw the one with LL Cool J, which is pretty crazy. Deep Blue Sea. I haven't seen the ones that have come out recently.

Are you familiar with Bruce from Finding Nemo?
Yes. He seems like a much more pleasant shark.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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