By ANGELA GREGORY
WHANGAREI - Fear of sharks is universal, but New Zealanders and Australians are more scared than most, says the presenter of a television series being filmed off the Northland coast.
"It's because we don't have land animals that can eat us alive," says marine biologist Ian Gordon. "We have
nothing apart from sharks, and that's a strong motivation to worry."
Gordon has himself been "nailed and bitten" and once needed 20 stitches to his head.
"But sharks are really quite predictable," he says. "I now have a sixth sense that tells me when it's not a good time to approach them."
Gordon is the frontman for a 13-episode series on sharks being made by Natural History New Zealand and a United States cable channel, Animal Planet.
Each 30-minute show will study particular shark species, and the film-makers are at Tutukaka this week and next in search of mako and blue sharks.
They want to find out if mako remain in the area after feeding on burley.
There has been concern overseas that tourist operators are encouraging dangerous sharks to stay close to shore, in range of swimmers, by regular luring with bait.
Gordon will place radio tags on the sharks to track their movements after they feed on burley.
He says some sharks - such as the whaler sharks in the coral environments of the Great Barrier Reef and Fiji - remain in one area, but generally "they have a strong desire to cruise."
"My theory is that they will hang around until they have fulfilled their physiological requirements - a belly full of food - and move on.
"One blue shark was tagged here a few years ago and was caught about a year later off Chile, 2500kms away."
After the New Zealand shoot, the Dunedin-based crew will follow Gor-don to Australia, Hawaii, Mexico, Florida, the Bahamas and Monterey Bay.
In the Caribbean, Gordon will swim with some of what the series' promotional mat-erial calls "the world's most fearsome creatures," although he insists that those fears are largely unfounded.
Influenced by Jacques Cousteau from an early age, Gordon hopes the information gleaned from the series will prove useful in global shark management.
He is especially keen to see great whites protected off the New Zealand coast, as they are in Australia and South African waters.
