Across from my desk, I have a poster of a great white leaping from the water. Bought the day after I went cage diving in South Africa, the iconic image was captured by Chris Fallows. Any time I have to deal with someone annoying, I look at the massive teeth in the photo, and I'm instantly bolstered. "Grrr..." I think. "Don't fool with me!" Consequently, it should come as no surprise that Chris Fallows is something of a hero to me.

Equal parts wildlife photographer, conservationist, researcher, and superhero, Chris Fallows is most famous for photographing South Africa's great white sharks breaching. Shooting sharks since 1998, Fallows and his wife Monique are active shark conservationists and recognized authorities on great white shark behavior. Recently, I caught up with Chris and asked him about his work with great whites and other sharks. Not surprisingly, he has some very pointed opinions about these important fish and people's ambivalent attitude toward them. Check out this installment of 10 Questions for... and see what he has to say! (As an aside, in my excitement, I forgot to ask him about his involvement with the Mountain Dew commercial. I'll have to cover that in a follow-up.)

Without further ado...

Divester: How did you become interested in sharks?

Chris Fallows: I have been involved with nature since the age of 2 when my father would take me to many of Africa's great game parks. When we moved closer to the coast, my interest naturally turned to the sea and I started working with local net fishermen who at that time were killing sharks. We began a programme with them whereby we started taking the sharks out of the nets and releasing them alive into the ocean. In early 1992 we caught a young great white in the nets. I took the data from this tagged shark to a group working with white sharks and they asked me if I wished to go on a few volunteer trips with them. I obviously accepted and then worked with white sharks at Dyer Island for 4 years before the area became overcommercialised. In 95/96 we started doing exploratory trips to seal island and quickly realised it was a very special place with amazing behaviour and are still happily working there today. Although most of our work is known to be with white sharks, we do in fact love all sharks and get the same amount of pleasure working with many of the species we have along our coastline. We also travel whenever we can to go see other sharks around the world.

Divester: Have you noticed that certain sharks have certain "personalities"?

CF: Undoubtedly, the white shark has a very distinctive personality and it is one of the greatest things about working with these animals to be able to see just how different one shark is from the next. You also therefore have favourites and we have over the last 11 years at Seal Island seen certain sharks for over a decade.

Divester: Have you noticed any change in shark behavior over the course of your career?

CF: No, not the change in behaviour but definitely the change in numbers. Many people are saying the white shark population in South Africa is growing; we strongly disagree and base this on having kept data since day 1 when we first started working with these sharks. In the last two years we have seen a more westerly distribution of white sharks during our spring months in false bay and believe this to be related to the scarcity of other species of sharks which formerly used to be abundant in other areas of the bay and which the white sharks are known to feed off during these months.

Divester: Have you noticed any change in people's attitudes toward sharks over the course of your career?

CF: Yes, there are definitely many more people pro-sharks now. That said, though, the main role-players and decision makers, the governments of Africa, are still not interested in protecting sharks and in South Africa there is a lot of talk but no action. Many highly threatened sharks are still fished without any regulation. We still have permitted and dedicated shark longlineres along our coast and absolutely no restrictions are placed on their activities. They catch at least a thousand sharks per trip of many species. For a country portraying itself as being eco-friendly we have a long way to go to achieve what we say.

Divester: Anyone who has seen Air Jaws has seen the incredible power of a great white. Describe the first time you saw a great white breach.

CF: It was from a 3.5 m inflatable dinghy in 1996 whilst towing a life jacket behind my boat. A small white shark took to the air, which I missed. 5 minutes later a bigger shark breached in all it's magnificence and ever since that day I have been spell bound by the majesty of this amazing animal.

Divester: How often do you see great whites breach?

CF: During the months May-Sept almost on a daily basis particularly during the heavy predation months where up to 20 natural breaches can be seen in a day.

Divester: I went shark cage diving in Gansbaai in 2001. The tour operator chummed the water to attract sharks, which was effective, but many people think chumming causes sharks to associate humans with food. What do you think?

CF: For the last three years we have not chummed for white sharks and have had at least the same amount of sharks as the commercial or research boats chumming next to us. Around large seal colonies chumming is not necessary as the seals' waste is a huge natural attractant anyhow. With regards to causing sharks to attack human this is absolute nonsense. It is a big jump in cognitive association for a shark to make to link a trail of minced up fish with humans and then go and attack them. Fishing boats have been chumming for centuries with no great increase in shark attacks. What may influence shark attack is our continual degradation of the eco-system and wiping out the white sharks natural food sources causing these animals to have to cover far greater areas to find food and obviously with ever increasing numbers of people using the water the chances of an interaction are greater, this is not rocket science.

Divester: You run tours to see blue, mako, and great sharks. How do these trips differ from each other?

CF: With the white sharks, we work around seal colonies and don't offer any dives from the sanctuary of a cage. We work with mako and blue sharks far offshore in warm, blue water that is over 1000m deep. Here we free dive with them using only blunt ended shark prodders should the sharks become too frisky. These trips take out only small groups of people so that we can always safely control any interaction. We also see huge tuna and many other species on these trips and it is truly a great natural adventure. Each year we also do some extreme exploratory trips to remote parts of Africa looking just for sharks, this often takes us 5 days sail from land into completely unspoilt environments and where shark numbers are still relatively abundant.

Divester: Recently, Jean-Michel Cousteau left the safety of a cage and hung onto the dorsal fin of a great white. Do you think this so-called "shark riding" is the future of human interactions with great white sharks? Is swimming with great whites a good idea? Do you think the sharks are bothered by this?

CF: I really hope not. I think it is courting disaster really and also showing complete disrespect for the animal. Why do you need to hold onto the shark, is it not enough to simply be able to just share a special moment with such a magnificent animal and watch it gracefully just cruise by rather than doing circus tricks with it?

If the individual is experienced with free diving with sharks and understands some of the many mannerisms of white sharks then I don't really have a problem with it. When however inexperienced people get in the water with the white shark to make films or because they have enough money to pay an operator to allow them to do this then i believe it is wrong and is courting disaster. If that person gets bit, the press will have a field day and once again demonise the animal not the human.

No shark likes having its tail grabbed and many react negatively to being touched, I can't see why sharks would enjoy having a un-streamlined extra 80kg to carry round with them?

Divester: Is it possible for humans and sharks to share the ocean?

CF: Yes, it certainly is, anyone who has seen a white shark or any shark for that matter can only be left in awe of their majesty and grace and yearn for another interaction. We brave huge seas, gale force winds and over 120 days at sea each year hoping to just get a glimpse of these creatures as they are simply so awesome to encounter.

What we need to stop is people who simply don't give a damn about their actions and will continue to eat shark fin soup simply because of the elevation in social status it offers. No matter how many people love sharks they will still disappear off our planet whilst there still is a mentality out there that thinks it is fine to kill huge sharks & dump their still living carcasses back into the ocean simply so that they can be counted socially. Governments need to wake up quickly and conserve natural resources as wiping out apex predators will have dire consequences. Imagine the Serengeti without lions, leopards, cheetah and the implications of rampant overgrazing, then soil erosion and so on. Well if we continue as we are, without doubt similar issues are coming our way, perhaps a way of the shark really biting back!