VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Shark Week’s Dr. Austin Gallagher Advises What To Do If You Encounter A Shark

In his exclusive uInterview, Discover’s Shark Week host Dr. Austin Gallagher explains important information about what a person should do if they encounter a shark in the water.

He advised that if you come across a shark while you are swimming, you should try to assert your dominance rather than swim away from the shark. 

“Standing your ground and making eye contact with, you know, the big predatory sharks like tigers and whites usually is what you need to do,” he stated. “In order to, you know, kind of assert your dominance.”

Typically, when one sees a shark their first instinct is to get away from it as fast as possible, but this can actually make the situation worse. “If you start swimming away fast, yeah, that’s what you want to do, but sometimes you look like a prey item.”

He did note that he tries to use this advice in his encounters with sharks, but that “it’s a different perspective for me” because “usually I’m trying to find them.”

He ended the interview by advising people to “use your common sense” when swimming in water. “You don’t want to be in the water in places or times when sharks are diving. You don’t wanna go swimming near seal colonies.” 

Gallagher is a marine biologist and expert on sharks. His work has focused mainly on sharks and other wildlife animals. He is the creator of the foundation Beneath the Waves, whose goal is ocean conservation. 

He hosted Belly of the Beast: Feeding Frenzy as a part of Discovery’s Shark Week. He kicked off the start of Shark Week by being sent into the water in a whale decoy that was life-sized to learn about great white sharks in South Africa. The special was action-packed as he experienced a feeding frenzy of sharks. 

He promoted the event on his Instagram in several posts, including a picture of him standing on the whale decoy while peering into the water where a large shark is seen swimming. He included some details of the episode writing, “Yes, it was that big. The whale decoy is 22 feet for reference, and I am there just leaning over in pure awe. This whale decoy platform worked to attract the missing large white sharks of South Africa – so incredible – tune in tonight to see the full story.”

In addition, he also hosted another special called ​​Monster Mako: Fresh Blood, which was released on July 27. In this episode, Gallagher and his team tracked mako sharks in order to learn more about the species.