Sharks Up Close star Bertie Gregory flees filming in fear amid horror storm

Sharks may rule the ocean - but Bertie Gregory sets the record straight as he says they’ve never been more at risk.

The wildlife filmmaker returns to our screens with Sharks Up Close, a new feature-length documentary for National Geographic, following on from his hit series Animals Up Close.

This time, the 31-year-old swaps snow leopards and forest elephants for the world ’s most misunderstood marine predator: the great white shark.

As ever, Bertie Gregory’s approach to filming is immersive and adrenaline-fueled - sometimes to a fault. “It’s hardwired into me to keep filming. My first instinct is to hit record and decide later if it goes in the film,” he says.

One scene for Animals Up Close led him to film African forest elephants in a treehouse made of metal platforms. “We were right in the middle of a lightning storm,” he remembers. “We had to zipline torrential rain to a safer tree with no metal. I was giggling with fear but filming the whole time.”

Now Bertie faces the good, the bad and the ugly side of marine life. “In the world of wildlife film and ocean conservation, it's no secret sharks are in serious trouble,” he says.

“We kill over 100 million every year. It's easy to blame the shark fin trade in Asia, but here in the UK, we kill plenty too - often as bycatch or even sold in fish and chip shops under different names.”

Filmed off the coast of South Africa, in Plettenburg Bay, Sharks Up Close sees Bertie attempt to swim alongside a great white - a childhood dream for many, but a complex and sobering mission in reality as he teams up with researcher Lacey Williams.

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“I realised how at risk great whites are while I spent time with the local community, learning from scientists and guides,” Bertie says, “They’re facing a perfect storm of threats - both natural and human-made.”

Among the most urgent, Bertie points to controversial bather protection systems used in parts of South Africa. “Along the coast, lethal methods like baited hooks and drum lines are used to reduce human conflict, but they kill sharks,” Bertie says.

“At the same time, the shark’s prey, smaller species like smooth hound sharks, are being overfished. Young great whites rely on these species.”

It’s this loss of prey, he explains, that’s silently fuelling their decline. “When people say conservationists only care about charismatic animals like lions, polar bears, or great whites, what they miss is that protecting these predators helps protect entire ecosystems,” Bertie insists.

“They’re indicators of ocean health. If you want healthy oceans—and we need them for food, climate regulation, and even the air we breathe - you have to protect the species that maintain that balance.”

But humans aren’t the only threat, with killer whales known to hunt great white sharks. “Killer whales might seem friendly to humans, but they're not to anything else in the ocean. They’re the true apex predators,” Bertie says, “So although we think of great whites as untouchable predators, they’re under serious pressure from all sides.”

Despite these enormous challenges, Bertie refuses to lean into despair. “It’s heartbreaking. But I don’t believe in doom and gloom as a motivator,” he says.

“People already feel overwhelmed. Instead, I focus on hope and recovery. Nature is incredibly resilient. If we give it space and protection, it can bounce back on an extraordinary scale.”

That message of hope is sprinkled throughout Sharks Up Close, which captures unexpected and moving encounters. “Some of our most incredible encounters were totally unexpected, like with Southern Right whales.

These amazing whales were heavily targeted during the whaling era because they float after being killed,” Bertie says. “But thanks to protections from the 1970s, they’re making a comeback.

The area where we filmed is a sanctuary for Southern Right whale mothers and calves. We had magical dives with them.” One particularly dramatic scene sees two mother-calf whale pairs being harassed by a pod of bottlenose dolphins.

The documentary also completely breaks convention by embracing the unpredictability of nature. “Without giving too much away, this isn’t your typical wildlife documentary. We often celebrate the ‘wins’ but this film embraces failure too,” Bertie says.

“Nature doesn’t always deliver what you expect. But if you're passionate and persistent, it might give you something even better than what you planned.”

What Bertie is trying to shift, ultimately, is the narrative around sharks - especially great whites. “We’ve spent too long fearing great whites when we should be fearing for them,” Bertie says.

“Yes, they can be dangerous, but coexisting isn’t about controlling sharks -it’s about controlling human behaviour. When attacks happen, it's due to mistaken identity. Sharks don’t want to eat humans - we’re not fatty enough like seals and we taste strange to them.

But their hunting method involves striking hard and fast, so if they get it wrong, the consequences for a human can be catastrophic.” The solution, he says, lies not in culling but in changing human behaviour.

“The key is reducing the chance of a mistake: don’t swim at dawn or dusk, in murky water, or when you know a shark is nearby,” he says.

But at the heart of Sharks Up Close, this time round, is a deep belief in action and impact. “Yes, the planet’s in trouble, but the work isn’t hopeless,” Bertie says.

“If we stop trying to “save the world” and instead fix one problem at a time - one coastline, one species - we’ll see real results. That’s what drives me: hope, action, and the joy of celebrating the times we get it right.”

Sharks Up Close with Bertie Gregory airs on Tuesday 8 th July at 8pm on Nat Geo Wild.

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