Colossus by Carmen R

Colossus

By Carmen R.

By far one of the most aggressive and stealthiest of the Great White Sharks ever sighted at Seal Island. However after Jeff Kurr, the man behind the camera of Discovery Channel’s ‘AIR JAWS’ franchise, had risked his life to capture a breathtaking image of Colossus breaching in the ‘Ring Of Death’, this spectacular Great White Shark suddenly disappeared.

Colossus was first discovered in 2011, when the team was filming for ‘AIR JAWS APOCALYPSE’ and they decided to create an episode directed on him. He was distinguished for the parasites also known as ‘shark lice’ and as each shark has a unique dorsal fin -which is like our fingerprints- it was found that Colossus has a deformed dorsal fin, almost like a large of his dorsal fin had a kink removed. At 4,000 pound and estimated at 14ft-15ft, Colossus was not easy to find, however at almost every experiment or equipment they launched to catch a glimpse of Colossus, he managed to show up, before he disappeared in 2013.

Because Colossus was a newcomer, he is therefore believed to have watched and learned from the other Great Whites which patrol and breach in Seal Island’s 15c degree waters 5.7kms off the northern beaches of False Bay, near Cape Town, South Africa. The dense population of the seals at certain times of the year, attract the seal’s main predator, the Great White Shark and ‘Ring Of Death’ surrounds the island as this is where attacks on seals most often occur.

The team who dared to track this deadly predator includes shark biologists Chris Fallows and Alison Towner, as well as Jeff Kurr, a director and producer of shark documentaries. This team of experts used a variety of methods in finding Colossus with the uses of a ‘WASP’, a ‘Parthenope’, a ‘Robo Seal’ and a ‘Seal Sled’. The ‘WASP’, an abbreviation for Water Amour Shark Protection, is a shark cage capable of holding one diver, with the design of 6-foot tall that was cut from 16.4 feet of aluminum alloy tube and includes a transparent window that surrounds the aluminum armor to create the illusion that the diver is floating unprotected.  WASP allowed the filmmakers to observe an unusual white shark behavior in New Zealand, which was described by Jeff Kurr:

"What we didn't know is that the sharks would actually treat WASP like sort of a bowling pin, trying to knock it over," recalled Jeff. "There was an 18-foot shark down there with Chris [Fallows] that actually knocked him flat, and the other sharks all kind of came and joined in for the fun."

Another tool they used during the search of Colossus, was ‘Parthenope’, a 14-foot female shark decoy which can be ridden on and adjusted for swimming on the surface, in order to lure Colossus (though he failed to show up) from the ocean’s depths to the surface, created by local shark expert, Dickie Chivell. ‘Robo Seal’  is a robotic structure shaped as its name suggests a seal. ‘Robo Seal’ was used to record the 29 gs, similar to the impact of a car crash and when Colossus breached for it, the destruction he caused was described as absolutely obliterated. Lastly ‘Seal Sled’ was deployed with a decoy seal towed 15ft behind it enabling the team to capture Colossus breach from all angles, with an incredible background.