Discovery Channel’s Shark Week 2009:

Start: Sunday Jan 18, 730pm Finish: Saturday Jan 24, 730pm Duration: 6 days, 2 hours per evening Marathon: Sunday Jan 25 from 1130 -1930 (2008 premieres only)

AUST TV PREMIERES

Mysteries of Shark Coast

Australia's northeastern coast is a hotbed for shark activity. Its tropical seas are home to more sharks -- and more different species of sharks -- than any other in the world. But there's trouble in the sharks' stronghold Down Under - even here the sharks are disappearing. What's happening to them? Is it something we're doing . . . or do we not fully understand the real lives of sharks?

A special cross-discipline team made up of a marine biologist, a filmmaker, a conservationist and an adventurer will band together to undertake the largest shark tagging expedition in Australian history. Their mission: To discover the cause for the mysterious decline in sharks along Australia's coast... and figure out how we can help the situation. The team will deploy crittercams and remote cameras in several locations to explore and record secret shark behaviors and to gather new insight into the still largely secretive life of the ocean's ultimate predator.

Mythbusters Shark Week Special 2008

After taking a bite out of some common shark myths, the MythBusters are thirsty for more! The MythBusters grab their wet suits, spear guns and sunscreen and hit the deep blue to take another bite out of shark folklore. Featuring these myths:

Peeper Shark (does gouging a shark's eyes prevent attack?) Dive instructors swear by it, victims have lived to tell the tale, but amidst of the frenzied furore of a shark attack, is it really possible to locate and then gouge out the eye of your attacker? Is this really a valid survival technique? To find out, Adam and Jamie have built the ultimate shark robot. It’s a 20 foot long great white that not only looks like a great white, it thrashes like a great white, it chomps with the same bite force as a great white and it’s genuinely scary. It’s a seriously impressive build and seeing it in action is something else.

Surviving Sharks

What do sharks really like to eat and how can we stay off the menu? Host, Les Stroud (“Survivorman”) jumps into the water with sharks that have particularly bad reputations: the Bull, the Tiger and Reef Shark. He tests how these animals determine what’s good to eat...and what's not.

Dirty Jobs 3 Ep 13: Greenland Shark Quest

In this special episode of Dirty Jobs Mike heads to the edge of the Arctic Circle, on the northeast side of Canada (Baffin Island) in search of one of the most mysterious sharks known to man: The Greenland shark. These sharks are easily the least understood large shark and learning more about these slow-moving behemoths could help scientists understand the ecological changes in recent years occurring so rapidly around the Arctic and what their immediate impact on the food chain is. Mike teams up with scientists Dr. Steven E. Campana from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography and Dr. Aaron Fisk from the University of Windsor to help them with their research.

When Mike and the crew arrive they quickly realize the biggest challenge of this job will be trying to keep from freezing to death. The first to temp that fate is crew-member, Dan who falls into the water while their guide stops to inspect a crack in the ice road. Not only is the life of the crew in danger, so is their equipment, as all the batteries are completely frozen. Added to those troubles, when Mike finally gets to the job site it appears that someone or something cut the bait line. Mike and the crew carry on, however, and bait a new line. This is a seemingly easy task, but Mike struggles and must duct into the shed several times to try to keep warm. Thankfully this second effort is successful and they manage to catch a female Greenland shark.

Following that, a large male shark is caught and since he is was not hurt in the process he is tagged and released. Scientists will gain further knowledge from him by tracking his progress and travels. In the end, Mike recognizes what a rare and amazing opportunity it's been, but is still happy to leave and head back to the comforts of home.

How Not To Become Shark Bait

Escapologist Jonathan Goodwin, egged on by his two sidekicks, is thrown into a perilous situation in order to show us how NOT to become shark bait. These guys are thrill-seekers with a purpose: they want to understand the science behind situations and test to the limit everything the world can throw at them. And the more dangerous it gets, the more the hosts relish watching their friend learn How Not to Become Shark Bait.

Ocean Of Fear

A drama documentary featuring the story of the of the USS Indianapolis in World War II. Inside the sinking and the horrifying shark attacks that cost hundreds of soldiers' lives. The ordeal of the crew is a testament to human endurance in treacherous conditions. Over six hundred men fought to the death with deadly predators in their natural habitat. Since a torpedo strike that had sunk their ship in just 12 minutes, some 900 of the 1,200 crew had been forced into the sea alive. Wounds, thirst, the cold of the night and the blazing heat of a Pacific day had taken some. But the sharks had taken most.

Encore Programs

SHARK ATTACK SURVIVORS

This special exposes the truth about the world's most efficient marine predator through an examination of shark attack case studies and first-hand accounts. Viewers will learn important information on how to avoid or survive a shark encounter as shark experts reveal the science and psychology behind shark behaviour patterns. Take a closer look at how sharks select their prey and why attacks occur in the first place.

PERFECT PREDATORS

Friday January 23, 830pm

Since before man walked on the Earth, various species of sharks have survived by becoming efficient and skilled predators. Over many centuries, different types of sharks developed highly refined instincts and abilities in order to thrive in a hostile and totally unforgiving world. But what separates special creatures such as the Tiger, Hammerhead, Bull, and the Great White from the nearly 400 other shark species, how did they develop their sophisticated abilities to ruthlessly hunt and dispatch their prey so well? This two hour special investigates and reveals much about these fierce creatures by tracking and observing them in their hunting grounds in oceans around the globe. The program ranks a number of shark species according to their skills, level of development, and status as the ocean's ultimate hunters. Examine the science behind these sharks' special abilities and the fascinating links to undersea communication and even submarine warfare.

SHARK FEEDING FRENZY

Thursday January 22, 830pm, 1x60

A shark's diet is the dominating factor in virtually every facet of its life. Are humans on the menu of the most feared sharks on earth? Or are shark attacks on humans simply shark mistakes? Experts and camera crews above and below the water will unleash a lunchbox of treats for sharks in Nassau and Grand Bahama Island, Venice Louisiana, Santa Barbara Island off California and Neptune Islands of Australia. The experts will monitor what they eat and what they pass up and will test for and monitor shark reactions to the food's flavour, sight, scent and sound.

TOP FIVE: EATEN ALIVE

Wednesday January 21, 830pm, 1x60

Witness five of the most amazing stories of shark attack survival, told by the victims themselves, and takes the viewer into the experience of confronting the sea's top predator and living to tell the tale. An abalone diver is swallowed head and arm into the mouth of a Great White and lives without losing his catch. A young woman swimming in the deep ocean near Easter Island is caught in a tug-of-war between her rescue boat crew and a massive shark with her leg in its jaws. A shark scientist surrounded by a dozen predators in the Bahamas for a television program has his calf bitten off on camera and defends the shark's actions to this day. Another abalone fisherman has his arm bitten off, yet has no memory of the moment of attack. A woman vacationing on a yacht near a remote Pacific island is pulled underwater by a nine-foot tiger shark, and fends it off with a punch to the nose, while her shipmates scramble to find help in the middle of nowhere.

SHARKMAN

Saturday January 24, 730pm, 1x120

Michael Rutzen wants to put his knowledge of Great White sharks to the ultimate test. He is planning an extraordinary experiment: to take a wild Great White shark and place it into a trance like, immobile state called tonic. Then he will place a large syringe into its lateral line and retrieve a sample of blood. All of this will be done while free-diving in the open sea. The direct beneficiaries of his audacious plan will be medical scientists who are studying the extraordinary properties of shark antibodies, but there is also a deeper dimension to this challenge, which drives Michael onwards. He believes that Great Whites are not the mindless killers we make them out to be, that they are far smarter and more sensitive than popularly believed. He says he can communicate with them in a profoundly new way.

About the Coral Sea

Australia's Coral Sea is one of the world's last remaining pristine tropical marine environments.

Covering approximately 1 million square kilometres - three times the size of the neighbouring Great Barrier Reef (and four times the size of Great Britain!) - the Coral Sea comprises a series of spectacular coral reefs, formed by underwater mountains, rising thousands of metres from the sea floor.

The Coral Sea is a rare example of a marine environment that is thriving. Bountiful fish populations including grey and white tip reef sharks, hammerheads, manta rays, tuna, barracuda, turtles, whales and rare sea creatures such as the nautilus inhabit the waters, alongside an incredibly diverse range of corals.

Back the Coral Sea.