Look at This Fucking Shark
Deep Blue is one of the largest great whites ever caught on film, with an estimated length of 20 feet. That’s funny because she looks at least 5,000 feet long to me. In the gif above, she’s like, “Hey guys, my head is literally the size of your body lol.”
This week, shark researcher Mauricio Hoyos Padilla shared this previously unseen footage shot in 2013 off the coast of Mexico’s Isla Guadalupe. Padilla was also featured in the Shark Week 2014 special Jaws Strikes Back. At the time the video below was shot, Deep Blue was pregnant.
When I saw Deep Blue for the first time, there was just one thought in my mind: Hope. A shark of that size is at least 50 years old and that tells me protection and conservation efforts are really working. Deep Blue has been spared from longlines and the inherent dangers of being in the wild, and somehow she has found her way in the vast ocean.
They remain in this protected area for a few months but now there is a new challenge. This amazingly enormous female is carrying several little baby white sharks, just waiting to be swimming free in the ocean. When white sharks are about to give birth, they get close to the shore and deliver their pups in shallow areas known as nursery grounds, which are full of food and free of predators. Unfortunately, these areas are close to shore and are vulnerable to several human threats and Deep Blue, her pups, and fellow white sharks need your help!
Padilla is the general director of the conservation initiative Pelagios Kakunjá, which accepts donations here.
We should all be so lucky to look as good at 50 as Deep Blue does. Sometimes I love living on this planet so much, I barely can find words to express it. Sometimes a shark high-five (from this previously posted footage of Deep Blue) says more than I ever could.
