Mike DeGruy will be missed :(

My heart broke when I read the news a few minutes ago that Filmmaker Mike DeGruy died in a helicopter crash in Australia. I was waiting for my son to come down from his friend's apartment where he had been watching the Superbowl, and I was browsing through the Huffington Post app on my phone, and I saw a story about filmmakers dying in a crash. You never think you will actually know the people...And when I saw his name, my heart skipped a beat and my jaw dropped. Not Mike! Mike is so alive, so vibrant, so funny, so kind. Mike had a head full of silvery grey hair and a smile that lit up a room - or the boat in this case.

I met Mike when Discovery Channel sent me to Australia in 2008 to blog (Expedition Shark) during the filming of their Shark Week documentary, Mysteries of the Shark Coast.

I remember clear as day. Here's this world-famous and Emmy-award-winning filmmaker, and he was so kind, and so interested in my thoughts and views. That first night, we spent a lot of time talking about evolution and Christianity and the book I was working on (in fact, the dialogue is in my first chapter lead!), and I was likewise fascinated by his gnarled up arm. "What happened, shark bite?" I joked - since we were about to spend the next 10 days diving with sharks. "Actually... Yes." he replied. Then he told the tale of how he was attacked by a shark in Enewetak atoll when he was diving, and barely made it to the boat to be rescued. "What kind of shark?" I asked. "You don't want to know," he said. "Gray reef sharks." I didn't "want to know" because they were the very sharks we would be diving with for the next ten days... along with whitetips, silvertips, and the possible tiger and hammerhead (both of which we did see while there).

I kept in touch with Mike now and then because my ex-boyfriend Sean and I had talked about producing a documentary based on a story Sean knew about in the Solomon Islands and Mike was interested in producing it. After Sean and I stopped seeing one another I'd check in with Mike now and then by email to say hi. Our paths never crossed again but I deeply admire him and his work, and especially the sunshine with which he lit up a room and the kindness he showed me. He was one of a kind. I treasure the time I spent on that boat - it was the absolute BEST assignment of my life, hands down. You can read my experiences from the Discovery Channel blog here (Fear) and here (the rest of the Expedition Shark blogs). I also blogged about it on my Bohemian Adventures blog here (shark reflections), here (shark mysteries) and here (i love my job!).

And so life passes... my deepest condolences go out to his family and friends. He left the world a better place for his passion for the sea and the work he left behind. Tell someone you love them. Life is too short to waste. Make it count. As I wrote in the first blog of my series, Fear:

"The reality is, everything in life carries risks. Driving in my car, living in a city, bearing children, flying, crossing the street. One thing I know for certain: I risk that when I am born, I will die. But this I also have found to be true. Life is best lived in service of those who can not speak for or easily help themselves – and that includes marine wildlife."

And one thing we can say for sure, Mike lived his life - his career - in service of marine wildlife and other conservation issues that he and many others felt passionate about saving. And the world is definitely better for it. I leave you with some of my favorite images of Mike.

The guys were playing around with one of the sharks caught for research, which they kept in a kiddie pool! This is Sanjayan, Richard and Mike.
What a fun time - they climbed right in with the shark!
Mike had the greatest smile and laugh!All geared up and ready to dive.
They captured a very small juvenile shark in what they discovered was probably a shark nursery in the lagoon at the center of the atoll (Osprey Reef). This was a night dive.
Mike holding a coconut rattle, used to call in sharks.
Mike and Celine Cousteau on board the Undersea Explorer.
One of the few photos of Mike and I together (on my camera, anyway, since someone else had to shoot this from my camera!) You will be missed!

sharks and weiners

Left to right clockwise - Richard Fitzpatrick, Dean Miller, Mike DeGruy and M. Sanjayan on board the Undersea Explorer holding down a whitetip reef shark as they prepare to take data and film the documentary Mysteries of the Shark Coast at Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea off the coast of Australia
Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp

I am not quite sure why I'm not blogging so much lately. The more time that goes by the more it seems overwhelming to begin to blog, so I better just do it. I've been insanely busy - but then again when am I not? I am struggling with the thought of my book needing to be completed by June 1. I got a whole lot done in the early months of this year and then sort of stalled due to other deadlines. I had that article on cyanobacteria due, and then Tuesday I gave a talk at my son's school called the Tree Huggers Revenge: Why People Need Trees. I am trying to put a copy of my Powerpoint from my tree/forest talk online but the PDF I made using Adobe Converter turned everything sideways. Harumph. Any ideas on how to turn a PPT file into a PDF without it turning weird like that?

Oh. My. God. I just laughed so hard at this essay about a dad and his young daughter's obsession with weiners on the blog Wind In Your Vagina by Black Hockey Jesus (don't ask, just read...). It will make you laugh!! Weiners.. The comments are especially hilarious too!! Such as, "She does have a point. It is considered polite to keep your weiner in your pants. Especially at a restaurant."

Speaking of weiners, I'm working on an article on shark virgin birth - aka parthenogenesis - and why sex evolved in the first place. There are costs and benefits, evolutionarily speaking, to sex as opposed to asexual reproduction. My article will discuss several recent cases of virgin birth in various species. The two that have been genetically confirmed are a hammerhead (bonnethead specifically) and blacktip shark but they've now found suspected and probable cases with white bamboo sharks and a whitetip reef shark - the same species I saw in Australia when I wrote the Discovery Channel Expedition Shark blog. That means that sharks that give live birth and that lay eggs can reproduce asexually. So why do they have sex? Why did sex evolve? That's the question of the hour...

One kind of cool thing that happened was one of the scientists that I interviewed for my article said that Mysteries of the Shark Coast was one of the best documentaries he'd ever seen (that's the documentary I was blogging about the filming of in the Expedition Shark blog), and thought it was cool I was there during part of the filming. This scientist is actually doing a similar project to what Fitzpatrick and colleagues are doing on Osprey Reef but on the Eastern Shore Board of the U.S. and he - and another shark scientist - invited me along with their research. Hell ya!!! Now I just have to find a magazine to give me the budget...

shark reflections

Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp
Richard gives a whitetip reef shark some water which flows over its gills and helps it breathe out of water.

This is a blog entry that I wrote as the last entry but they ended up just ending on the previous day's so I thought I'd post it here. I just found this, and thought it was an interesting summary and reflection on the trip back in April.

And for those who watched the show, I am in it in several places- way in the background but I'm there! I am the only blonde on the boat so if you see blonde hair, that's me. I am in one scene wearing a black sarong and a hoodie carrying an extension cord. I walked into the scene when they were filming - oops!

I'm in L.A. and arrived without a hitch. Hanging out with Paige today and tomorrow.

Reflections

I have seen a lot of wildlife around the world in my writing career, but the experience of scuba diving with sharks – scuba diving with sharks for goodness sake – was truly one of my life’s best. I had the opportunity to see these magnificent, graceful, agile, sleek, sensual animals, more ancient than the dinosaurs, swimming through the azure ocean completely in their element. Wow.

It amazes me that so many people have such fear of these creatures, animals that showed absolutely no interest in me as I spent time in their underwater world. I did not register in their minds as something to eat or attack. I was just another part of the underwater furniture.

I watched the movie Nim’s Island with my kids today, and after watching a scene with three sharks circling around a boat, I thought to myself, ‘That is why people have such fear of sharks.’ Misconceptions about “man-eating” sharks get perpetuated by Hollywood, by news reports of shark attacks, and maybe even by our own instinctual fears. Yes, sharks can be dangerous, as Mike can attest, but why such drastic disconnect between the reality of swimming at arm’s length from these agile creatures and the utter terror expressed by so many people?

I wish people had less fear and more awe for sharks. I wish more people revered sharks and wished to protect rather than to destroy their lives for short-term economic gain. Shark fins sell for around $40 per fin in a Hong Kong market , and upwards of 29,000 can end up on a single boat. The amount of money to be made from shark finning makes it well worth the risk of accidentally taking the wrong species (some of which are protected under international agreements such as CITES), which happens frequently according to researchers at the Guy Harvey Institute.

Unfortunately, of the 400 species of shark, few receive any sort of global protection at all. For most species, so little is known that it’s simply impossible to say whether the populations are stable, declining, or critically imperiled.
Scientists have no way to accurately census sharks, so the best estimates come from mortality data. Up to 73 million sharks get finned per year, and certainly many more go undetected. We do know sharks reproduce slowly, most having only one to two offspring per season. That means it takes a long time for a depleted population to recover. Scientists have no idea what would happen to oceanic ecosystems if these top predators disappeared, but the effects would surely ripple throughout the marine web.

Every person - and every generation - should have the opportunity to swim with sharks as I did. Unfortunately, that won’t happen if their habitat, including Osprey Reef, remains unprotected. Conserving Osprey Reef, along with other isolated reefs in the Coral Sea, has been a long-time passion of JR’s. Much of what will be seen in Expedition Shark hailed from the pipe dreams of this man. He came to Australia from the U.S. many years ago, but quickly achieved success interweaving business with conservation. He is the person who first introduced Richard to Osprey Reef, and also to Raine Island where the crew filmed tiger sharks feeding on green turtles (and no, Ian, sea turtles are not just hamburgers-with-flippers, despite what Richard may say). It was JR’s dream to set up a monitoring system around Osprey Reef to find out more about how sharks and other marine creatures use the habitat. And now, through the Expedition Shark documentary, these sharks, these reef ecosystems, and these scientific endeavors will receive an international audience. JR should rightly be a happy man. And he is, but I also know from talking with him and the others that the work remains far from complete.

A lifetime of research lies ahead, and yet more urgent is the need for science-based conservation of sharks and any currently unprotected reef habitat. Agreements between fisheries organizations and tourist operators are highly commendable, but ultimately can change in an instant without any formal governmental protections. Osprey Reef has suffered abrupt coral bleaching and coral death, particularly notable in its central lagoon, but its beauty, biodiversity and brilliance stands out like a gem among gems among Australia’s reefs.

Expedition Shark wouldn’t have happened without the hard work and bright personalities involved. Richard’s zany sense of humor adds a lot of fun to the film. Mike has a smile that lights up a room, not to mention the wealth of knowledge he has and his incredible bravery working with sharks despite admitting he still has some fear every time he swims with them. Sanjayan adds his fun personality to the mix, and entertains with his perspective as a terrestrial ecologist. Celine brings a conservation ethic as well as an always bright smile to every scene. And those crew members who stay mostly behind the cameras have contributed every bit as much as those in front. The past several months have been a whirlwind of filming, and the producers and editors are busy in the cutting room, getting the show into final form. This has been an incredible opportunity to bring awareness of the plight of sharks and the groundbreaking research being done at Osprey Reef to the world.

shark mysteries

Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp
Richard looks up while Mike deGruy and Sanjayan hold down a whitetip shark. Dean is in the background hanging off the back of the duckboad.

Last night I got to see the final product of the documentary filming that I witnessed part of when I first went to Australia in April, Mysteries of the Shark Coast (You can read my Expedition Shark blog live from the field here) I watched the show at my friend Melody's house because I don't have cable anymore! It was so cool to see it, and be like, "I remember when they filmed that!" and "Oh ya! I remember when he said that!" I am in the background in several shots, very very background but I'm the only blonde in the show so if you see some blonde hair quickly flitting through the scene, that's me. We're going to watch it again Saturday - woohoo! How cool is that. This photo to the right, I think Cat Gennaro took it, or maybe Sanjayan, but that is what I was wearing in the documentary thyough there are also a couple places where I'm wearing a black sarong, in one scene I was walking through the shot (oops!) bringing out my extension cord so I could upload the photos and blog entries via satellite phone to the US!

Alanis is coming to Texas - yay! Well I had something else to say but I can't remember so this is all for now. If you watched the show, let me know what you thought!

cassowaries and sharks

Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp
My adorable kids under a ginormous staghorn fern in the rainforest in the center of Australia's Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island - and a World Heritage Site.

I'm starting to get excited about my upcoming trip to Australia! I leave August 5th for a couple days in L.A. and then on to Australia. I am going to spend a few days in Mission Beach and talk to people who are working on cassowary conservation. Cassowaries are an endangered bird that lives in the rainforests. They are relatives of emus and ostriches, and really cool. And there's only around 900 left in the wild! The recent Cyclones that have struck the Australian coast have wreaked havoc on their habitat, and many people started feeling sorry for them and started leaving fruit out to feed them. Well that turned out to not be such a good idea... it led to a lot more car strikes and dead birds. So feeding cassowaries was recently made illegal. There's a rehabilitation center led by the Australian Rainforest Foundation that works with injured birds, and I'm trying to also meet with some biologists studying the birds.

I first learned about cassowaries when I was at the School for Field Studies (SFS) Center for Rainforest Studies in Fall of 1990 as a college student, and was fascinated that they're the only bird that can "scarify" certain rainforest seeds. Many seeds must pass through the gut of an animal to germinate, but some rainforest trees have fruits with seeds so large that only the cassowary can eat them. There are not any large mammals in Australia and the cassowary is the biggest animal there! So if it goes extinct, many rainforest species may go extinct also.

Speaking of SFS, remember how I went back to the Center when I had a couple extra days at the tail end of the first trip in April, after the shark blog work, and I gave a talk to the current students? Part of this "Visiting Alumni" program was that I also write a short article about the visit and my career for their Alumni newsletter, and you can read it here, Wendee Finlay Holtcamp: Return to Warrawee.

Also mark your calendars, the documentary that was being filmed during my shark blog work, Mysteries of the Shark Coast (formerly called Expedition Shark) airs in the U.S. during Thursday of Shark Week which is July 31st at 9pm EST, and that is 8pm my time (Central)! We're having a viewing party!! Unless I got cut out, I may be in the documentary background as the "shark nurse" handing biologist Richard Fitzpatrick tools as he surgically inserts the radio transmitters into the whitetip reef sharks at Osprey Reef.

Last year during the 20th anniversary, Discovery Channel got a lot of grief because they focused so much on shark attacks. This year they changed their tune and focus much more on conservation and the ways we humans have attacked sharks!

(Image Copyright (c) 2008 John Rumney)

Last but not least, check out the new Sharkrunners Game Season 2: Australia - the Great Barrier Reef, which I wrote the "facts" for... it is all based on the actual data Richard et al collected on real sharks, their movements are tracked from the transmitters that were put in while I was at Osprey Reef! (they put some in at other times too, but... still! Cool!)

pics from the coral sea

This shark diving expedition in the Coral Sea is covered in far more detail on the Discovery Channel Expedition Shark blog I reported, but here are some of my personal photos along with a few from others that complement my personal version of the trip.
Sunset over the Coral Sea, first night out.

Me doing a giant stride entry on my 1st dive in the Coral Sea. Photo Courtesy Sanjayan.
Richard Fitzpatrick wrangles a whitetip reef shark while Mike deGruy is ready to help- bringing it on board the Undersea Explorer after catching it undersea with "shark rodeo" - lassoing it with a rope. All in the name of research of course!

The Undersea Explorer and the dinghy used for some of the research.
Sanjayan, Richard and Mike get cozy with a whitetip reef shark in the kiddie pool.

Richard and Mike get a hold of a whitetip reef shark on board the Undersea Explorer which they're about to implant a radio tracking device in.
Richard, Dean & Sanjayan work on whitetip reef shark.

Richard adjusting the hose on a whitetip reef shark on board the Undersea Explorer. The hose keeps water flowing over its gills. A grey reef shark being worked on. You can see the incision on its abdomen where Richard implanted a radio tracking device - aka "pinger" and sewed it up.

The beautiful Coral Sea.
Cat Gennaro and I on the second day aboard the Undersea Explorer. Photo courtesy John Rumney.
Mike deGruy and JR Rumney with a coconut rattle, which have been used for milennia to attract sharks.
Expedition Shark producer Mark Ferns catches up on work.
Mike deGruy and Celine Cousteau, presenters on Expedition Shark, hang out on the lower deck.
Me, Mark Ferns and George Evatt (underwater videographer). Photo courtesy John Rumney.
Undersea Explorer Engineer Brendon Robinson caught in the act... eating! :)

Topside cameraman for Expedition Shark Athol Foster.

Me Scuba diving. Photo Courtesy John Rumney.
Checking out a whitetip reef shark in the kiddie pool on board the Undersea Explorer. Photo courtesy John Rumney.

Dean Miller, Richard's research assistant and videographer, dresses up in some of the boat's "gear" while Cat looks on.


A chambered nautilus they caught in traps, and released again after marking for research purposes. John "JR" Rumney, Gabriel (dive instructor) and Tony (chef) hanging in the lower deck where everyone eats and works.

Sanjayan, Expedition Shark presenter and The Nature Conservancy lead scientist, showing the "reef cam" they place down at about 30 meters every day, then pick back up later in the afternoon. It's placed at a "cleaning station" where sharks and rays literally line up to get their parasites cleaned off their skin by cleaner wrasse fish.

Sean came with me to visit Warrawee, aka the Center for Rainforest Studies where I gave a guest lecture to the current students. It was so amazing to be back at this place that I spent time at in 1990 and that truly changed my life both personally and professionally. I love this Australian rainforest with all its tree ferns, vines, lianas, lush jungliness... and brush turkeys and pademelons hanging about. Me jungle woman! Sean knows a lot of the edible plants and so was teaching me about that. What is it with me knowing people who love edible plants and like to live on the land?!!! (I read a humorous essay on NPRs All Things Considered called "Married to Mowgli" about Matt who was/is very into edible wild things and once fed our kids maggots, erm carpenter ant larvae...).

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On another note... I ran into the chair and think I broke my friggin toe. Hurts like sh%^ and I can't walk on it - or my foot. Or pretty much at all. OUCH! Its getting worse. I don’t want to pay a crapload of $ for a dr to wrap it and stick a popsicle stick on it… so should I do it myself? The thing that sucks is now I can’t run or do yoga and I totally must have gained 5 lbs on that boat …. they feed you soooo well!!!

at peace

Just back on land from one of the most incredible trips of my life. I loved absolutely everything about it. Of course, you can read all about it on the Discovery Channel Expedition Shark blog (& 1 more post still to be posted there...) but here are some more personal reflections. I couldn't have asked for a more amazing group of people to spend the last 10 days with. Each one of them in their own way unique, kind, generous, funny, brave, inspiring. I hope to keep in touch with them! I know for sure I've met some who will be friends for life.

I'll post some of my photos here when I get home. I am going to the SFS Center for Rainforest Studies on the Atherton Tableland, inland from Cairns in a bit. I'm giving a talk as an alumni about being a science writer, returning for the 1st time since I studied there in 1990. It was a very personally and professionally life transforming time in my life and will be really wonderful to go back there.

I fly home on the 17th, Australia time, and that means returning also on the 17th since we're a day ahead here. You know I absolutely love this town, Port Douglas. I love Australia. I really want to live here! I have at least 5 years before I can, I'm in Houston til the kids go to college, but I really would love to live here.

Diving was sharks was one of the most incredible things I've ever done. And I've done a lot of things and seen a lot of places. I hadn't gone diving since 1992... but I felt completely natural in the water, diving, and completely safe and at peace with the sharks and in that watery realm. I did a refresher in Cairns and then did 3 dives on Agincort Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef, before leaving for Osprey Reef - if you read the Expedition Shark blog you'll know it's an isolated seamount reef in the middle of the Coral Sea halfway to Papua New Guinea. But diving with whitetip reef sharks, silvertip sharks, and grey reef sharks swimming all around... and seeing a big-eye thresher, tiger shark and the kaleidoscope of colors of the coral reef fish, corals, sea cucumbers, anemones, octopus, nautilus, corals of many variety... that was truly one of the best experiences of my life. Wow. I can't wait to go diving again.

We had really rough seas on the way back. Unlike the trip out, this time I learned my lesson and took seasick tablets, so I felt a bit better but you really can't do anything when the boat is rocking like mad, crashing against the waves. I had all these ideas of writing my book chapter while on the boat, but.... well that just didn't happen. However I did have some great conversations that can become a part of some of that.

Here are the radio interviews I did with Discovery Channel Earth Live:

• Interview one with Wendee Holtcamp -It was a rough ride out to Osprey Reef, but well worth the effort.
  
• Interview with photographer Cat Gennaro - How do you capture a shark on camera? Cat, expedition photographer, explains.
  
• Interview two with Wendee - It's Shark Central at Osprey Reef - the perfect place to capture sharks for radio ID tag implantation. Wendee was in the thick of this "shark rodeo" and describes what happened.
  
• Interview three with Wendee- Seems like only yesterday that Wendee arrived at Osprey reef looking a little green from her 20-hour boat ride. But time flies and Wendee, Cat, the scientists and filmmakers are calling it a wrap.

I think the links go to the same place but then you have to click at the 1-2-3-4 buttons on the bottom (or "Next").

Ciao for now. xoxo