House of Sharks

Once upon a time,

in a realm beneath the waves...

there lived the most feared rulers the ocean

has ever known --

great white sharks.

For centuries, they were thought

to be lone hunters.

But in the kingdom of New Zealand,

a new legend is taking shape.

A tale of warring clans...

Wow!

...battling for supremacy.

Wow!

Whoa!

Some believe three houses rule these waters,

each with its own territory.

Its own court. Its own ruler.

But no one has ever investigated this legend.

Until now.

Each of these houses could have

a distinct genetic fingerprint.

- -Keyed up!

So our main mission is to really get

as many DNA samples as possible.

-Look at that. -Wow.

In this kingdom, the sharks won't give up

their secrets easily.

We are gonna create this kind of war between

all of the sharks in the area.

Let's see who comes to dinner!

Whoo-hoo-hoo!

Release the bait bombs! Yes!

Oh, no!

White sharks across the world

aggregate at particular locations.

And here in New Zealand is a place called Edwards Island.

Surrounding Edwards Island, a small piece of land

just off the New Zealand coast,

is an underwater kingdom.

Here, there is everything a great white needs.

Deep, cold water...

and abundant fish and fur seals,

which has attracted one of the largest great white

populations in the Southern Hemisphere.

I've been lucky enough to come back to Edwards Island

for the last four years.

And every year, we see individuals

are returning together.

You can kind of tell there are some sharks that

seem to know each other.

Just in the way that they don't spook each other,

there's no real aggressive encounters.

Perhaps it's this bloodline use of this location.

I've been working with this population of great whites

for over 20 years now.

Whether they're buddies or whether

they're brothers and sisters

or related or not, I've definitely noticed that

from one year to the next, I'll see a particular shark,

and I will be expecting another group of sharks to show up.

So the theory behind the houses of sharks is that

there might be some sort of social connection between

the sharks or each house,

which may contain a family group of sharks.

They could be possibly related.

But the only way to prove that

is to get DNA from all the sharks.

Leading this quest, Dr. Tristan Guttridge.

At his side, is Kina Scollay

and marine biologist Melissa Marquez.

This mission forces us to

rethink great white sharks' social norms.

Maybe they're not as solitary as we think.

For the last four years, the team has been building

a photo ID database around Edwards Island.

Every shark, every sighting,

time stamped and mapped.

This is Edwards Island.

And I think what's interesting here is that

this is a small island.

This is, what, like, a kilometer long.

But within the island, we've got these

kind of micro habitats.

On the east side, we've got this kelp forest.

And on the west, we've got this kind of more sandbank section.

And on the northern side, we have this rocky sort of cove

with dramatic ledges and these little channels

carved through it.

And this is the largest female we've seen.

Her name is Cleopatra, almost 18 feet long.

Cleopatra is the big shark here.

She seems to be kind of the queen

of the House of Edwards, ruling the east side of the island.

She's not a monster. She's a matriarch.

And these sharks could be her imperial court.

On the west side of the island, the House of Hades.

Among the sharks here,

one name stands out -- Lorenzo.

A fully mature male,

more than 15 feet long.

If Cleopatra is the power in the east,

Lorenzo may be a rival force in the west.

In the north of the island, we've got the House of Bluff.

In the last couple of years that we've been up there,

we've been able to document really well, two sharks,

Chomp and Posh.

First documented in the northern part of the island,

these two great whites are fiercely competitive

with other sharks.

Chomp and Posh have actually turned up

on multiple occasions, both on the east and the west.

So it kind of begs this question, you know,

are they kind of mates?

Do they hang out together at other islands?

Like, what's going on here?

In this legend, they're the raiders of the kingdom,

always ready for a fight.

So what's your plan?

How are we gonna get down there and give these samples?

I think the best way is to perhaps...

become one of them.

Well, what do you got here, bro?

OK, you ready?

Look at that!

-Wow! -Sweet, bro.

This is the ultimate shark cage, the rover.

It looks just like a shark.

The rover is modeled after a 17-foot female great white.

It's equipped with a one-inch-thick

acrylic cockpit.

And if the sharks attack, a safety valve can be activated

to inflate an emergency bladder,

sending the rover racing back to the surface.

Nice counter shading, and even a lid to get in and out of.

That's amazing.

It's difficult sometimes to get samples from those animals

that stay at the bottom, and this will allow me

to look like a white shark myself.

They might come and check me out,

and I can get those important biopsies.

Love it.

Sometimes at the top, only half of the sharks will come to the top.

-Right? So... -Right.

Good to be able to get to the bottom.

But what do you think about the countershading, Melissa?

I mean, look, you're not gonna be able to have a black wetsuit

and be in the white part of the belly of the shark.

Countershading is all about that dark color on the top,

the lighter color on the bottom.

So you're gonna have to do something about that.

Right, and I do have a full white suit to wear.

Obviously I've got my black BCD,

but I am taking account that I'm gonna be in the belly,

which is the white part of the body.

So you're embracing your inner shark and you're basically becoming one.

This is... I've always wanted to be a shark

and finally I can be one.

-Kind of like a white superhero suit. -Right, exactly.

Still got a pretty big blind spot of all of this kind of up here

not allowing you to see,

so your field of vision is really gonna be below.

So it'll be up to us with communication

to make sure that you're aware of what's hanging around at the top...

-Right, right. -...not being able to see.

So if I get a little nibble on my pec fin,

I'm not gonna know about that.

-Well, ignorance is bliss maybe. - Right, right, right.

No, it'll be good.

Maneuverability-wise, how do you think you're gonna be able to,

clean shot-wise, get a sample?

Or is that gonna be a little bit of a hindrance of having bars--

Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's a-- it's a big shark,

so it should be reasonably spacious.

There's enough space there.

I can also unhinge it if I need to and pull the whole face down.

OK.

Don't know how motivated I am gonna be to do that, so we will see.

But the cool thing is, is I can also look underneath me as well,

so that'll be-- it's not just this front section.

I can look down and underneath too, SO...

Yeah, the whole thing, I think once it's in,

it's gonna give me a great opportunity

to not only observe these animals and get a bit closer to them,

hopefully, and see some behavioral interactions between individuals,

but also get those samples as well.

-Brilliant, mate. -Yeah.

I mean, I'm truly excited to get in this

and experience what it's like to be a shark.

I mean, who knows?

It's cool bro. I can't wait to see you do it.

-Shark. -Shark.

Let's go get you in the water, bro.

-Awesome. - Yeah, let's do it.

So this is day one.

We are getting ready to put our shark cage into the water

for the very first time.

I'm really interested to see how this is gonna work,

because this is something like I've never seen before.

So what we've got right now

is we've basically got a little bit of a cradle underneath this shark