human killer in ocean

Watching Discovery Channel's annual "Shark Week" specials makes one wonder if the station is in cahoots with a swimming pool company.

The 22nd annual festival of dorsal-finned predators could keep the hardiest surfer on land. Stunning photography makes viewers feel as if they're there, which is terrifying, especially because this year's films are especially bloody. Yet for those who can't get enough of sharks, it's the place to be.

The week launches Sunday at 9 p.m. with an excellent docudrama, "Blood in the Water," which carries a viewer discretion warning. The first known shark attacks in the United States occurred off New Jersey during a heat wave and polio epidemic in the summer of 1916. Swimming in the ocean was still a relatively novel concept, and no one knew of sharks attacking humans.

It's against this backdrop that the film - hewing closely to period fashion, settings and language - unfolds. As the film repeats throughout, these attacks inspired the story of "Jaws." In 12 days, five people were attacked, four killed.

As a lifeguard watches, a man flails in the waters off Beach Haven. A lifeguard rescues him, and the victim is brought into a hotel, where his physician father couldn't save him. Most doctors were not yet trained in administering transfusions, and the 25-year-old man bled to death.

Soon others would be attacked. The film weaves facts into the narrative. For instance, an extremely strong swimmer can cover five miles per hour.

"Even Michael Phelps cannot outswim a shark," says Andy Dehart, a shark specialist with the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C., in an interview.

Dehart says questions linger over what type of sharks attacked in the summer of 1916. After the young man bled to death, an athlete was the next victim. The lifeguard who pulled him from the water says, "I remember thinking he was very light for a big man, then I saw his lower legs were completely gone."

Don't swim erratically . . .

Dehart, fascinated by sharks since he first saw one at 5, offers the following advice should anyone find himself close to a shark: "In most places in the world, if you are out swimming or snorkeling, you are extremely safe, in most cases," Dehart says. "If you are in the Keys or off the coast, they are most likely small, extremely nonaggressive species that have rarely been implicated in any attacks. If you are in water where you can see 30 feet away, these are great circumstances. You are pretty safe. My personal advice is observe sharks' behavior and consider yourself lucky and enjoy the experience just as you would viewing a mountain lion from a distance."

However, he and survivalist Les Stroud, who is in the Monday special "Deadly Waters," advise if a shark is circling, it's considering you as food. Maintain eye contact and head to shore, but not erratically.

Stroud took to the Bahamas, South Africa, South Australia, Fiji and Miami to discover why sharks attack most often in those locales. The common factor, he says, is "people in the water."

A 'taste test'

Some sharks, Stroud says, are accidental predators. "Even though they generally live on another form of prey, they are big and opportunists and have sharp teeth. If they are not sure about it, they do a taste test," he says. "Problem is, when a big shark does that, you lose an arm. When we are in those areas and a couple of the top sharks that are opportunistic like the great white and tigers, then we are in the line of fire same as when we encroach on polar-bear territory or tigers and black bears."

After much swimming with sharks, Stroud says he's learned "it still hurts when you get bit. Every year I seem to get a new scar. This year I took a bite on my right hand, and the shark had my whole hand in its mouth. I have been bitten three times by sharks. Being bitten by Caribbean reef sharks is like being bitten by a Rottweiler. They bite you, but it's not going to kill you. They're gentle unless you do what I did - feed them fish for a while, then jump in the middle."

Monday also has "Day of the Shark 2," in which a great white breaks through a shark cage, trapping the divers. Tuesday brings the gory "Sharkbite Summer," a clip show of ugly incidents from the summer of 2001 that chronicles accounts of people being bitten. News footage and interviews with survivors and victims' families fill out the show.

Wednesday's "Great White Appetite" features the shark everyone fears. Thursday's "Shark After Dark" focuses on what sharks do at night, which is pretty much what they do during the day.

"It's so darn true we know so little about them," Stroud says. "They live in a place we can't. They go to a place we can't. We will die in an hour and 10 minutes; we get in and get out. They're beautiful and benign and ferocious and terrifying. What's not to be fascinated about sharks?"