"NARRATOR:" "An epic journey across the oceans, filled with dangers." "Seen through the eyes of a great white shark." "The waters around South Africa contain one of the densest populations of great white sharks anywhere on Earth." "Michael Scholl has identified over a thousand great whites by the unique markings on their dorsal fins." "[CAMERA clicking]" "But out of all of them, one stood out." "She was named after shark-lover Nicole Kidman." "Michael has photographed Nicole dozens of times, year after year." "That was nice." "Nicole would come up and kind of stick her head out of the water." "And we had this eye-to-eye contact which is a really, really good feeling." "Nicole became, I would say, as close to a friend as you can have with an animal." "We had this personal contact and I got to know her patterns." "NARRATO:" "R But one pattern in particular baffles Michael the most." "Each year, from January to June, Nicole disappears." "Where does she go?" "Sharks are protected in South African waters." "But beyond lies peril." "Michael seeks help from Dr. Ramón Bonfil, lead scientist with the Great White Shark tagging project." "[SCHOLL speaking lNDlSTlNCTLY]" "Nicole is fitted with a miniature computer to track her movements." "She left with a satellite tag on her back, she left with a little hole from a tissue sample, uh, and basically we were left with the questions." "NARRATOR:" "She is about to embark on an epic journey across the seas." "She'll have to eat on the run." "And getting a meal won't be easy." "Nicole is about 1 2 feet long and roughly 1 1 00 pounds, about half the weight of a full-grown female." "And when competition for prey heats up, size counts." "Nicole can reach speeds up to 25 miles an hour." "The seal is faster." "But Nicole has an edge." "She can detect tiny electrical fields her prey gives off." "The seal has to surface to breathe." "[SEAL BARKS]" "It's Nicole's last chance." "This meal of energy-rich blubber could sustain Nicole for over a month." "[birds squawking]" "And she'll need it." "She's heading into a lonely abyss that will take her thousands of miles from home." "Off the coast, the scientists who tagged Nicole plot her journey." "This is really interesting because all the other sharks that we have tracked stick to the coast, go up to Natal, come down." "They basically never leave, um, more than a few hundred kilometers from shore." "And there we have one that just" " Basically, just, you know, beelines south, uh, far from any coastline." "NARRATO:" "R Green and pink indicate tagged females hugging the coast." "But not Nicole." "She heads into the South Atlantic." "Nicole is now 300 miles from home." "A great white can always find a meal in South Africa, but not in the South Atlantic." "Nicole is blazing a trail as strange as it is rare." "And no one knows where she's bound, or why." "Twenty-six days after they tagged Nicole, she changes direction." "After heading southwest, she suddenly veers southeast, possibly to hitch a ride." "Below Africa, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans collide, a whirlpool constantly churns." "Nicole could ride this powerful current as she travels east." "Her destination remains unclear, but her course has taken a dangerous path." "She's left the safety of the South African waters." "SCHOLL:" "The moment she's in international waters she's in danger, be it from tuna-fishing boats or from shark-finning boats." "NARRATOR:" "For millions of years, the great white has hunted, unchallenged, at the top of the food chain." "But things have changed." "Somewhere up ahead, a higher predator waits for Nicole." "[TRACKER BEEPlNG]" "Twenty-eight days after being tagged, Nicole maintains her mysterious course." "But something else changes." "Sharks tend to stay within a few hundred feet of the surface, within the dimmest rays of sunlight." "But Nicole heads much deeper." "Every 30 seconds, her tag records light, pressure and temperature." "The data shows her diving past 1 ,000 feet," "2,000 feet, to over 3,000 feet deep." "Nicole dived to 982 meters which is a huge depth." "It's, uh, about three times the height of the Eiffel Tower, or about three times the limit of, uh, human divers with specialized equipment." "It's an amazing depth." "NARRATOR:" "No great white has ever been tracked so deep." "Down here, tiny predators glow with bioluminescence, possibly to lure prey." "Nicole has developed her own ways to hunt in the dark." "She can detect the scent trails of other animals." "And she also uses a sixth sense." "The slightest twitch of any creature discharges an electrical field which is picked up by the electro-receptors on Nicole's snout." "These receptors are so sensitive, that she can detect a millionth of a volt." "Nicole's reasons for diving this deep are still unclear to scientists." "Prey can be found both in the depths and closer to the surface." "Like so much shark behavior, her dive can't be fathomed." "Pressure doesn't bother Nicole, but the depths do hold a challenge." "It's cold." "She dives to 3,000 feet beneath the surface, where the temperature hovers below 40 degrees." "Few sharks can survive here." "But the great white is built for the cold." "Nicole's blood is heated by her swimming and metabolism, which raises her body temperature up to 58 degrees warmer than the water." "Yet staying warm can drain valuable energy." "The tag reveals she continually returns to the surface for warmth." "But now even the surface can be cold." "Nicole has traveled so far south, she's entered an area known as the roaring forties." "[wind whistling] lt's named after its constant winds." "And it's too chilly for most sharks." "The cold slows their metabolism, making fast prey harder to catch." "But Nicole is warm-blooded, and can hunt in these cold waters." "Swimming through wind and storm, she hits the jackpot." "A bounty of food." "Marion Island." "Twelve hundred miles southeast of Nicole's home waters," "Marion Island is one of the most remote places on Earth." "[penguins BLEATlNG]" "And a perfect place to start a family." "King penguins lay their eggs here." "Fur seals birth their pups here." "And so does this giant." "Nicole could be closing in on a huge source of energy." "I definitely think that she could be hunting elephant seals, especially the more juvenile ones and the females," " not the big male ones." "BONFlL:" "Mm-hm." "[BOTH growling]" "NARRATO:" "R A bull can weigh up to 5,000 pounds, much of it blubber." "Maybe she's sticking lower, like 1 00 or 200 meters, uh, kind of waiting for an elephant seal maybe to go up to the surface." "She's got enough light to have a perfect silhouette of that seal coming up." "And using her stealth, she's basically invisible if she's under the elephant seal." "NARRATOR:" "But Nicole has competition." "[TRACKER BEEPlNG]" "Nicole has traveled nearly 1 ,200 miles from her home waters in South Africa and counting." "The scientists who tagged her have never seen anything like it." "BONFlL:" "Instead of going up north, maybe making a loop back towards Madagascar, and then the coast of South Africa, she continues going eastward into a completely uncharted, um, area." "So something is driving her." "She's determined to go somewhere, and we don't know where and we don't know why." "NARRATOR:" "Her direct course seems to exhibit one fundamental behavior:" "migration." "She has company." "The wandering albatross nests on the Indian Ocean islands before leaving for months on end to feed." "Its wingspan measures up to 1 1 and a half feet, largest of any bird." "Along her journey, Nicole senses other creatures." "Some unseen, but heard." "[WHALES singing]" "Diving deep, she enters a concert hall." "[WHALE growling]" "These are the songs of humpback whales." "They could be thousands of miles away." "How do their choruses reach Nicole?" "The answer is in the water." "A unique combination of temperature, pressure and salinity creates an ideal channel." "Whale songs are thought to bounce along this channel like light in a fiber-optic cable." "Nicole can detect low-frequency vibrations." "It's the world's loudest dinner bell for this great white." "The promise of blubber may be the lure of this unparalleled cruise." "It's been 50 days, and Nicole could very well be hungry." "The nearest whale may be far, but other prey are nearby." "She can smell it." "Fish leak chemicals from their bodies that are carried along by the current." "Great white sharks can detect minute quantities of scent in the water." "SCHOLL:" "They're just perfectly adapted to their environment." "Tuned with every sense they've got." "They're the perfect predator in the ocean." "NARRATO:" "R Nicole is tracking a school of hunting tuna." "If you're a small fish, tuna are the terror of the high seas." "They share many of Nicole's adaptations for hunting." "Like a great white, they have a hydrodynamic shape to decrease drag." "And they're propelled by a powerful tail." "Tuna can also maintain a high body temperature, so their muscles can work better." "But for all their speed and strength, tuna have one big weakness:" "They're delicious." "But Nicole's hunt is interrupted." "Because once again, she has competition." "Dead ahead, 3,000 hooks strung over 60 miles." "A long line of fishing fleets set over 4 million hooks a day." "That's over a billion hooks annually." "[SH ip WHlRRlNG]" "Over a million tons of tuna are consumed annually in the United States and Japan, the world's largest tuna markets." "But Americans eat the most cans of tuna, more than one out of four." "And sometimes tuna becomes shark bait." "Nicole can sense the metal rig by her electro-sensory mechanisms." "Detection could save her from the hooks." "But then again, who can resist a free lunch?" "Nicole is in the gravest danger yet of her journey." "Strangely enough, the boat itself saves Nicole." "The noise and vibrations overload her senses and she retreats from the long-liners." "BONFlL:" "They pose a real threat to all sorts of animals, white sharks included." "Uh, I am amazed that Nicole was able to make it thru that forest of hooks that were there to catch tuna." "NARRATOR:" "It was a close call." "But worse hazards lie ahead." "Out here, even sharks are fair game." "Since leaving Africa, Nicole has followed a clear course." "She appears to be navigating across the Indian Ocean." "And if so, how does she do it?" "Some researchers suggest sharks may navigate using the Earth's magnetic field." "This field is generated by the churning molten core deep inside the Earth." "And the salt water, which is rich in ions, can conduct electricity." "As Nicole swims, her electro-receptors may detect the magnetic field in the water." "The orientation of the field could help Nicole maintain her heading." "She also spends more time at the surface in the deep sea than she does in coastal waters." "Maybe in addition to, uh, following some magnetic, uh, signals, she has to be using her eyes to look at something that is out there in the surface layer." "And the most obvious thing that I can think of is the sun." "NARRATO:" "R Since the dawn of sailing, mariners have steered by the sun." "And it's possible Nicole does too." "Other senses may also guide her." "She can gauge the direction of the ocean swell." "And detect variations in temperature and salinity." "Nicole could use these cues like a compass." "She seems to know where she's going, day or night." "Nicole's not only blazing a path, she's opening a window into the secret world of the great white shark." "But something in her path is missing:" "It's day 86." "Four thousand miles from South Africa," "Nicole reaches what may be the end of her journey." "This is the fate Nicole faces." "Every year, up to 73 million sharks die for one reason only:" "their fins." "Shark finning is really one of the most cruel and wasteful industries that humans have devised." "Most sharks are caught and usually finned while they're still alive." "I don't need to explain why it's cruel to basically cut off the limbs of an animal while the animal's still alive." "They throw away 95 percent of the shark, which is a huge waste." "NARRATOR:" "Of all threats to Nicole, the appetite for shark fin soup is one of the gravest." "SCHOLL:" "If you imagine yourself as a migratory shark swimming across the Indian Ocean, it really is like a labyrinth out there." "For her to basically end up on one of those hooks and end up in a tin of shark fin soup would be" "You know, would be devastating to me, anyway." "NARRATO:" "R Nicole's tag reveals she has entered the killing zone." "Luckily, Nicole escapes unharmed." "But her path is still strewn with danger." "Day 1 00 and Nicole's tag shows her entering the busy shipping lanes of Australia." "Humans don't need to hunt Nicole to harm her." "They can just leave their trash behind." "Debris can be deadly." "Great white sharks breathe by swimming, so they never stop moving." "A stray net can cause death by drowning." "But a vital instinct helps protect Nicole from debris." "Contrary to myth, she isn't a mindless predator that eats anything." "Instead, she bites to investigate potential prey." "[QUACKS]" "NARRATOR:" "For Nicole, a petrel is a snack, not a meal." "But a banquet lies ahead." "More than three months after she was tagged," "Nicole nears the bountiful coast of Australia." "And something else is arriving too." "[TRACKER BEEPlNG]" "The data tag shows Nicole heading right into a force of nature." "[THUNDER CRASHES]" "It's February in the tropics." "Hurricane season." "At sea level, swimming in a cyclone is like swimming in a washing machine." "Nicole's tag reveals how she handles the swirling waters." "She dives a hundred feet to get under the surge." "Down under, Nicole maintains course while Australia is hammered." "As the weather clears," "Nicole approaches Ningaloo Reef off the coast of northwest Australia." "She's covered 6,000 nautical miles in 99 days." "A world record." "It's the longest known transoceanic migration of any fish, and the fastest known voyage of any shark." "Previously, the oldest record was held by a great white traveling from California to Hawaii." "Nicole has covered nearly three times that distance." "But why?" "The reason may be in the waters itself." "Nicole has entered the warm, shallow waters of a coral reef." "A wellspring of life." "Predators passing through linger around Ningaloo to feed." "Hundreds of fish thrive here." "Ningaloo is one of Australia's most beautiful reefs, and a protected sanctuary for marine life." "Here, the coral is the main attraction and this reef is about to put on a lively show." "Nicole arrives just in time to catch it." "The next full moon will trigger a choreographed spectacle." "The mass coral spawning at Ningaloo." "Millions of reproductive cells spew out of the living corals." "This much bait will definitely draw a crowd." "Millions of small fish." "And bigger predators." "Whale sharks." "The biggest fish in the sea." "For all its size, it feeds mainly on tiny organisms, like plankton and krill." "Months later, humpback whales pass through on their annual migration northward, to calve." "But some whales don't make it." "[birds squawking]" "It's a mouthful for Nicole." "After feeding all summer in Antarctica, the whale arrived in Australia fattened for the feast." "An adult humpback can weigh nearly 80,000 pounds, 70 times more than Nicole." "Still, 6,000 miles is a long way to go for a meal." "Could it be that another appetite still needs to be satisfied?" "Sex." "Nicole may have trekked to Australia seeking a mate." "And there's plenty to choose from." "Great white males hang out here, drawn by the abundant prey." "But what's wrong with the males back in South Africa?" "Les Noble is a leader in the study of shark genetics." "NOBLE:" "Nicole probably went to Australia in order to find a super-male, as she sees it." "One who is not even distantly related to her." "And so that might maximize the quality of the offspring that she'll produce later on." "NARRATOR:" "No one has ever witnessed the birth of a great white shark." "And where they mate is also unknown." "Reproduction is a mystery." "Nicole herself may be too young to mate." "Last time we spotted Nicole in South Africa, she was around 4 meters." "And normally we don't believe white sharks to be sexually mature, at least female white sharks to be sexually mature, at that size." "But we know so little about those sharks that we" "You know, we could speculate that she might've been one of those precocious sharks, maybe." "Or that we simply are wrong with what we usually think white sharks get sexually mature at." "NARRATOR:" "Great whites live in distinct populations across the planet." "But in 2001 , a DNA study suggested males roam between populations, possibly to prevent inbreeding." "Females stay put." "Or so it seemed." "There were two possibilities as to how great white sharks were using the oceans." "One was that maybe males undertook transoceanic migrations and the females stayed at home." "The other was maybe both males and females undertook transoceanic migrations." "So this pointed to a real mystery that we wanted to solve." "NARRATOR:" "Nicole's epic journey is proof that both males and females roam the oceans." "But solving the mystery raises an alarm." "If pregnant great whites are crossing the oceans, the species is more vulnerable than previously thought." "In some waters, 80 percent of great whites have vanished." "In most waters, sharks like Nicole are not protected." "February 28th, 1 1 2 days after Nicole was tagged, her trail goes cold." "Her tag has automatically released." "[TRACKER BEEPlNG]" "After floating to the surface, the tag transmits the data of Nicole's voyage to a satellite." "The satellite then relays the data back to Earth, to the scientists." "In a perfect bookend to the journey, the tag broke free from Nicole just a mile off Australia." "White sharks are usually considered to be fairly coastal animals, uh, remaining on the continental shelf." "And there she was, swimming across an entire ocean and diving to, you know, huge depths." "With Nicole, information that she gave us was a great discovery." "Something new to science, she broke a lot of records, and it was so, uh, far the best, uh, shark that we have got." "NARRATOR:" "But what has become of Nicole now that they can't track her anymore?" "Nearly six months go by." "Then, in 2004," "Dyer Island receives a visitor with a distinctive fin." "When that fin basically cut through the surface of the water, I recognized Nicole's fin immediately." "And it was just-- l mean, I couldn't believe it." "NARRATO:" "R Michael photographed Nicole 1 4 times that season." "[CAMERA clicking]" "SCHOLL:" "If you just look at those white lines that line up the different notches along that fin, uh, this basically proves beyond any doubt that it is indeed the same shark we're talking about, Nicole." "She was a very special shark already but, uh, her coming back to South Africa, I fell in love with the shark, uh, even more." "I just love this fin, I mean, this fin is just, you know, uh... I'll recognize it anywhere, uh, immediately and, uh, I'm still hoping that one day we'll spot her again." "[bird SQUAWKS]" "NARRATOR:" "But the next summer, Nicole didn't return to Dyer island." "Or the next." "SCHOLL:" "What happened to her?" "We simply don't know." "She might have been caught on one of the millions of hooks that are spread across the Indian Ocean." "She might have encountered a killer whale, who knows?" "Um..." "All we know is that we haven't spotted her so far, and it would be really good if we could see her again."