About Marine Explorer and White Shark Scientist Ryan Johnson
I was born in the small coastal town of Mount Managanui, New Zealand. My parents, embracing the laidback culture of New Zealand, had travelled to the islands a few years previously from their birth homes of California and England. Like many Kiwi kids, my childhood centered around Rugby, the outdoors and the beach. Between rugby training and playing, I was typically found playing in dirt patches, exploring the sand dunes or swimming at the beach. Today I find it prophetic that my favorite beach was named ‘shark ally’ whilst my Dad made the local newspapers of England performing shark stunts (see pictures).
Early on I committed myself to a life outdoors, and as university approached I easily enrolled into a zoology degree. Two years at Otago (including a destroyed cruciate ligament, thanks to rugby), one year at Waikato University and I was ready to explore further a field in search of adventure. I then travelled to the newly democratic South Africa in the hope of studying the charismatic wildlife of Africa, a dream for every budding biologist. At University of Pretoria I lapped up the new culture and vibrancy of South Africa with vigor.
My break into shark research cam during my second year, when wandering the corridors of the university I came across a research advertisement looking for an application to study great white sharks for a year. More specifically to investigate the whether the growing White Shark Cage Diving Industry was making white sharks increasingly dangerous to humans.
Over the next few years I threw myself into the research, and became fixated on sharks and their plight throughout the world. What initially started as an adventure morphed into a total passion to help survive the horrors of overfishing. Through my exposure to the white shark, it changed from the oceans fiercest inhabitant to an incredibly majestic and vulnerable species whose real life personal is the antitheses of what is portrayed in Jaws. Being part of driven research teams, we made some major breakthroughs. In 2004 I was part of the team that tracked Nicole (a 3.6m white shark) from South Africa to Australia and back, the 20,000 kilometer journey was the longest ever recorded track of a Great White Shark. We published this finding in Science Journal (a massive deal for us scientists) and the discovery was used to help great whites get listed on CITES. In 2006 I documented, for the first time, Great Whites breach hunting on seals at night time, a previously unknown behavior that made many people rethink our understanding of the white shark predatory behavior.
As a ‘white shark’ scientists I also found myself in the midst of the media frenzy that surrounds everything the great white does. I often found myself hosting film crews and journalists to sea to tell them about my research and allow them to film or photograph sharks and the research in action. The constant allue of the great white drew many fantastic people that I worked with and learnt from. People like Peter Benchley, Dr. Brady Barr, Dave Salmoni, Andre Hartman, and Michael Rutzen illustrated to me the power that visual media has to inform the wider public, outside the limited field of scientists. Making friends and colleagues in the wildlife documentary industry has opened up huge opportunities for me to explore, travel and learn about the marine world. Today I live in Mossel Bay with my partner Fiona Ayerst and our young son (Shark) Finn. I am contracted as a shark expert and marine explorer to National Geographic Channel. Something that I am totally stoked with because National Geographic is the coolest organization in the world, and a brand I am proud to represent.
