Netflix crew attacked by sharks while shooting docuseries
The Netflix crew that was shooting Our Planet II in Hawaii last week nearly got bitten by sharks, producer Huw Cordey has revealed.
While shooting the four-part climate documentary series, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, the team was attacked by sharks who “leapt at the boat and bit huge holes”.
Cordey told Forbes that “the original idea was to do an underwater shoot with the tiger sharks waiting in the shallows at Laysan”.
“But the first day the tiger sharks were around, the crew got into these inflatable boats – and two sharks attacked them.
“It was like something out of Jaws,” Cordey said.
The show’s director, Toby Nowlan, also revealed details of the incident during an interview with Radio Times.
He said: “This ‘v’ of water came streaming towards us, and this tiger shark leapt at the boat and bit huge holes in it. The whole boat exploded.
“We were trying to get it away, and it wasn’t having any of it. It was horrific. That was the second shark that day to attack us.”
Trying to make sense of the sharks’ actions, Nowlan said: “They were incredibly hungry, so there might not have been enough natural food, and they were just trying anything they came across in the water.”
According to the Department of Land and Natural Resources of Hawaii, the island chain has about 40 known shark species in the waters close to its shores.
The Government of Hawaii reassures the public that “the chances of being bitten by a shark are less than one in a million” in the state.
“There’s probably no aspect of shark behaviour that interests people more than the very rare occasions when sharks bite humans,” the government’s close encounters section says. “And when bites occur, they result in widespread attention, especially if injuries are serious or even fatal.
“It’s important to keep these incidents in perspective, and to remember that in Hawaii the chances of being bitten by a shark are less than one in a million.
“The chances of being seriously injured by a shark are much less than that,” the statement adds. “But considering the tendency of some media to sensationalise sharks, and the fact that shark bites are such unusual events, it’s probably not surprising that when they occur they often generate attention out of proportion to the risk itself.”
The authorities also went on to explain the difference between a shark bite and a shark attack.
Our Planet II is now available to watch on Netflix.
