This article, featured in R&D Magazine, chronicles the efforts of Living Oceans Foundation’s Executive Director Capt. Phil Renaud to document on video a rare shark feeding event in the atolls of French Polynesia.
Documenting Shark Feeding in a “Wild Place”
R&D Magazine
November 9, 2015
Greg Watry
Capt. Philip Renaud, the executive director of the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, was exploring the atolls of French Polynesia when he heard a tidbit of local folklore. For thousands of years, the fishermen of the area told tales of a colossal spawning event. Camouflage groupers traveled in schools to the Fakarava Atoll, where they released eggs and sperm into a narrow channel in the water.
Renaud was prepared to mobilize a film crew to record the yearly spawning event. However, that wasn’t the only facet of the event. Grey reef sharks “have adapted to learn about this (spawning event) too, so they come in for a free lunch,” Renaud says in an interview with R&D Magazine. “It’s an absolute manic feeding frenzy underwater during daylight hours in a very restricted small pass…”
