Fabien Cousteau (Jacques’ grandson) has left the
Guadalupe
Islands. Now, he’s in
Australia where he and
Troy – his animatronics-shark/one-person submersible – are trying to study the
differences between Mexican great white sharks and those found off Australia. According to Cousteau, the sharks Down Under appear to accept
Troy as one of their own, and they defer to it as they would to a dominant female.
Mounted behind Troy’s eyes are cameras that feed footage to a monitor inside the steel-frame, where Cousteau rides. The outer shell is wrapped in Skin Flex, a stretchy plastic used in Hollywood animatronics and for artificial limbs. Cousteau, using scuba gear, controls the shark and makes it interact with real sharks.
I want to believe that Troy works and that Cousteau is learning a lot. However, I met some guys from the Guadalupe Islands a few months ago and asked about Cousteau and Troy. All they did was laugh. What do you think? Do you think this sounds like a winning idea, or is Cousteau grabbing at straws?
1. The traditional way of studing sharks is by watching them through a cage and attracting them to that cage by chumming, which means that we really don't know much at all about the natural behavior of these animals.
Fabien is an exremely observant guy so if we can learn about sharks this way, he is the perfect person to find that out.
somebody has to try a new approach or there will be no advancement.
falling flat on your face or taking the next step, either way we are moving forward.
Posted at 8:56PM on Nov 1st 2005 by g