How Alligators and Sharks Survive the Deadly Swamps of the American South

The coastal swamps of southeastern USA are steeped in myth and legend. Here, in these ancient waters, nothing is quite as it seems. Up is down and day appears to be night. Strange roots reach for the sky and dangers lurk everywhere. This place is both beautiful and eerie at the same time. These bald cypress trees are draped in this Spanish moss and it kind of makes you feel like you're going back in time. Low-lying land dominates much of the east of the continent and this ever-changing world between land and sea, fresh water and salt water, is

exactly what I'm going to be exploring next. Here, in these southern swamps, the ability to withstand Earth's elemental forces, hurricanes and floods, salt water and fresh, and to slip between worlds is the key to survival. Louisiana's Atchafalaya swamp sits just to the west of North America's most important river, the Mississippi, absorbing its overflow whenever it floods. Water levels are constantly changing here, so plants and animals have to adapt to survive this strange world. And none does it better than these magnificent bald cypress trees.

Most of these trees are well over 400 years old, which is incredible, and they are absolute giants. Other trees and plants just simply wouldn't be able to survive here in these waterlogged conditions. They'd be deprived of oxygen in the soil and at the roots, and they would eventually die off. But, these bald cypress have a very special trick up their sleeve. These curious structures are called knees. For centuries, scientists had no idea what these knobby forms actually did. But, it turns out these knees act like complex snorkels, allowing the tree to reach air in this waterlogged world.

This is particularly useful in flooding, but it's not just flooding from the Mississippi that these trees have to worry about. In the Gulf of Mexico, storms and tides can drive salty seawater deep into the Atchafalaya. Salt is a killer for most trees, acting like a deadly poison, forcing water from its cells. But, for the bald cypress trees, they're able to excrete excess salt through their needle-like leaves, allowing them to flourish here. With this magic trick, bald cypress have found a way to survive in this topsy-turvy world. This is clearly a hostile place to live. I mean, many other species just simply can't survive here because of the conditions. Despite that, I met with a

wall of birdsong. I'm looking out to the horizon and it's just covered in cormorants and ospreys. Salt isn't just toxic to trees. It's deadly for animals, too. Ingest too much and quite quickly you can dehydrate and die. So, many residents of these coastal swamps have come up with clever ways to get rid of the unwanted poison. It can take a bit of effort. But for those that succeed, there's treasure waiting just beneath the surface. These swampy waters, rich in nutrients from decaying plants, are brimming with crustaceans and aquatic invertebrates.

The bizarre-looking roseate spoonbill eats so many shrimp that the pigment in their shells magically turns their feathers pink. It's an Alice in Wonderland world full of strange and surprising animals. At first glance, this looks like a worm trying to wiggle its way into the ground. But don't be fooled. It's the tongue of an alligator snapping turtle. Masters of disguise, snapping turtles have been stalking wetlands like this for over 19 million years. But they're not built for salt.

They evade it by moving inland whenever they sense its presence. Trickery and fast thinking is the key to life here. Closer to the coast, as the cypress swamps give way to the ocean, marshlands dominate. Woah. And what few roads there are become very hard going. I'm in the business of avoiding bumps, but and we get a lot of tidal waters over the road, a lot of washouts, and it's, you know. It's bumpy. It's a bit like a carnival ride. Mark Merchant has lived and worked in the web of wetlands that line the Gulf of Mexico all his life.

Drive down here fast, you'll lose half your teeth. And the kayak. And the kayak and everything in between. These low-lying marshes are even more prone to salt water intrusions than the Atchafalaya. So I'm joining Mark to learn how life adapts to this tough, ever-changing world between land and sea. This is the Oh, yeah. This is the exciting bit. I hate waiters. I hate them. Today, we're checking traps to get a closer look at one of the most beautiful and ingenious residents here. Um, if we can unclip these guys and separate these poles, that would be great.

Okay. Now, we're just going to kind of roll it up. Okay. There's one. There's two. All right. Two little males. kids. Two little males, it looks like. Look how beautiful. They're so tiny. These are small ones. These are very small little turtles. Wow, should we get up on land? Okay. Where we can work with this guy. Awesome. These are small ones. Let's go. Here we go. A male diamondback terrapin.

These are just incredible. Everything about their appearance is just beautiful. You've got that iconic carapace that gives them their name and this beautiful spotting as well all along their skin and they are feisty if you get too close. But, uh, one of the most amazing things about this species is, of course, they're perfectly adapted to be in salt water. They have this impermeable skin and these glands just on their eye ducts, they're able to excrete all that excess salt. It's just epic. Unlike their snapping turtle cousins, diamondbacks have found a way to survive in this extremely salty water and are the only terrapins that can. But, salt isn't the only challenge they face.

The brackish water, while high in nutrients from rotting plants, is also extremely high in bacteria. A small scratch for me would mean a hospital trip. But, the diamondbacks have an extraordinary ability to heal themselves. Look at Oh, look at this. Wow, okay. That's fascinating. Something took a bite out of this and it's almost completely healed up. You can see the foot is almost all gone. Bone is exposed. So, what could have done that, do you think? I mean, they go out in the gulf, could have been a shark. This could have We have big alligator gar here, could have been an alligator gar. But, no doubt that was a tremendous injury.

Mark hopes to unlock the secrets to their resilience by studying their DNA. But, it's not the only mystery he's trying to solve. There are other creatures in these waters with even greater powers of regeneration. Alligators. But, catching them is going to be a much bigger challenge. These super survivors have been thriving largely unchanged for over 70 million years. And uh it's a pretty overwhelming feeling being sat here knowing that they're that under the water at the surface just waiting. And I definitely feel like I'm being watched.

Yeah. Apprehensive, but we'll see how this goes. Patient and stealthy, alligators are the ultimate sit-and-wait ambush predators. Able to hold their breath for over 30 minutes, they move silently through the water, barely creating a ripple. But like many of the animals that live along this extraordinary coast, the alligators have evolved tricks to survive here. In these low-lying lands, they build their nests up high to avoid flooding. And from the moment they're born, these tiny gators have ways to guard against the deadly effects of salt water.

Unlike the terrapins, they can't get rid of excess salt through their eyes. But their thick skin and ear flaps that can close tight limits the amount of salt water that enters their bodies. As they get bigger, their sheer size adds to their resilience, allowing them to hunt in the productive brackish waters closer to the coast. Some of the largest adults have even been seen out in the open ocean. But it's the alligators' almost supernatural powers of regeneration that Mark is most interested in. As night falls, we start prepping for a fishing trip like no other. Why is it so much easier to go after alligators at night?

During the daytime, alligators see you coming, and when you come, they submerge. It's really difficult to catch them in the daytime. But at nighttime, they have this highly reflective layer in the back of their eye near the retina, and it reflects light, and it's an adaptation they have so they can feed at night. It magnifies the light that hits their retina. And it's really great for us because it also reflects our Q-beam and our light, so we can see them. It's like a beacon letting us know that they're there. He went up there. Up in that bullrush. I got him. Amazing. Woohoo. At 1 m long, the alligator is a juvenile.

Amazing. You went fishing. Likely less than a year old, he still packs a dangerous bite. See you later. Oh, no, no. So, Mark quickly ties his jaw shut so he can safely take a blood sample. So, I've been studying the immunology of the alligator. Would you want to hold that for me? Yeah, love to. Okay. Okay, I got a live needle here. And for many years and uh um I'm studying their immune systems because they you know, we catch alligators all the time that are uh that are without limbs because they're very aggressive toward members of their own species. And so uh and so they bite limbs off, but they live out in this marsh with all these potentially infectious uh bacteria and fungi and

things, and they heal almost completely without infection. Some young alligators are even able to regrow missing tissue. Even parts of their tails. And by analyzing their blood, Mark is slowly unlocking their secrets. And what have you found so far? Oh, we found a lot of things, a whole lot of things. One of the things we found, we isolated a couple little proteins from their white blood cells uh that have a lot of uh really potent antibacterial antifungal activities. So, you know, we think that could be

potentially uh of some importance for human and veterinary use down the road sometime. That's incredible. I'd like to just measure this guy be happy here. Okay. Yeah. Uh is that Okay, here we go. Measured and weighed, he's released back into the water to join the other innovative wildlife that survive along this hostile coast. The following morning, I travel east towards a town that's faced hostility on a scale that's hard to fathom. One of the things that strikes me as I drive along this coast is just how flat it is. I can literally see for miles in every direction.

Another thing that you can't help to notice is the hundreds of fishing communities like this one that are lined along the coast. And that's because the lives of the people here is very intertwined in the sea and swamps. The Gulf of Mexico is a warm, shallow sea, but surprisingly rich in life. More than 150 rivers drain into the Gulf, seeding it with nutrients. Life flourishes along its productive coastline, where plankton blooms attract huge numbers of crustaceans and fish. More than 10,000 bottlenose dolphins skillfully hunt the Gulf shoreline. With sediment flowing in from the rivers, visibility here is poor.

So, the dolphins rely on an extraordinary sixth sense to locate their prey. Their high-pitched clicks bounce off objects in the water, allowing them to sense the obscured world around them. They work together to herd fish against the shore, where they are easier to trap and eat. But, while this coast is rich in opportunities for both wildlife and humans, there are risks to living here. The Gulf Coast actually has another name, the Hurricane Coast, and for very good reason. Since the turn of the century, 18 hurricanes reaching Category 3 strength or higher have made landfall in the continental US, and all but one has smashed into the

Gulf Coast. Scientists believe the extremely warm waters of the Gulf fuel the hurricanes, causing them to rapidly intensify and strengthen. The most destructive hurricane to hit this coast On August 29th, 2005, it reached the mainland, bringing 220 km/h winds and a storm surge that raised the water level by nearly 9 m. In this low-lying land, the effects were devastating. The town of Waveland in Mississippi was one of the worst hit. In this small community of just 6,000 people, dozens were killed and thousands left homeless. So, the first few days in the run-up to it, what did that look like? Did you get any warning?

Well, the news wasn't as correct as it should have been. Okay. Katrina was moving very, very slow and they really didn't know where it was going. Mhm. So, no one really expected a whole lot. David Hubbard has lived in Waveland his entire life. His family have owned and run the local hardware store for over 70 years. He's lived through many hurricanes, but nothing quite like Katrina. We woke up at 6:30 in the morning and I remember looking out through the boarded window saying, "Wow, look at the rainwater. That's crazy." And then it dawned on us that it was not rainwater,

Gulf water. Pushed by a combination of hurricane force winds and high tides, the seawater from the Gulf of Mexico poured inland at record-breaking levels. Uh we had seven cars at the back of our house and they all started floating in the carport and the horns tooting and the windows going up and down. They were all shorting out and we were watching the trees snap and break. In those first few hours after the hurricane, what was the destruction like? What did that look like for you? It was like a bomb going off. Really? Okay. And just wiping everything away.

Okay. Nothing living. It was nothing green. No lawn, no trees, no leaves. Where the water hit the worst was in the low area on the other side of the tracks, which is like a levee. Most of the homes that were in that area were piled up against the railroad track. It was a mountain of It could have been 30 ft tall of just houses crunched all together. And I think it was like the domino effect. One hit the next, hit the next, and they all the water came in swells, so it just pushed everything back. So, just devastation. Horrible devastation. David was a lucky guy. He survived. He was able to continue to live his life here, but many couldn't. Many couldn't rebuild their homes. They had to sacrifice their livelihoods and leave forever. There was

real destruction here, and you know, walking through the town, you feel it. Houses have been rebuilt, but with future hurricanes in mind. Piled high on stilts, they are a constant reminder of the dangers of living along this extreme coast. With our changing climate, hurricanes are now more frequent, and they're more powerful. And I can't in the back of my head but to worry about the future for the people that have to fight for their livelihoods here up against the wrath of nature. But right along the Gulf Coast, help is at hand in the form of sand dunes.

These vast structures act as a defensive wall, soaking up huge amounts of energy from storms, and protecting the land behind them from flooding. But even here, nothing is as it seems. These huge dunes have been built and shaped by a very unusual engineer. A tiny creature literally moving mountains, and one I am desperate to meet. So I head east to Florida's Perdido Key. So will we see a lot of burrows around here? Yeah, you're going to see a lot of burrows, um but some of them are beach mouse burrows and some of them are ghost crab burrows, and it can be hard to tell if you see some tracks Okay.

Christie Yancey has been working amongst these dunes for more than a decade. We put this in the back. Put in the back and close it up. Okay. Keep the seeds there. Okay. That's enough. Yeah, yeah, it's great. She's an expert on one of the smallest and most elusive creatures on the planet. But to see this curious animal, we have to wait until the witching hour. 3:00 a.m. and strange shapes run through the dunes. This beach comes alive at night time as all these tracks that have appeared as obviously these mice have become a lot more active. Here we go, here we go.

Have a look at this. Look at that. You can see this like highway of tracks, and actually if you look really closely, you can even see nail marks where they've kind of been jumping from spot to spot. It just shows you that really night time is what it's all about for these beach mice. Found just in the Southeast states, beach mice are the only mice that have evolved to live by the ocean. Their distinctive light coloring blends in with the sand, protecting them from the gaze of hungry predators. The mice spend their days in the safety of burrows, only emerging at night to collect the seeds of wild grasses that line the dunes.

I can uh just about see the next flag. Ooh, I'm excited. Oh, looks like it's closed. No. Oh my gosh. Okay. So, there might be a mouse in there. What's the So, what's the plan? What's the do's and the don'ts? What happens now? So. Look, all the seeds have gone and everything. Oh, yeah? Yeah, something's been here eating. Yeah. Okay. So, we'll put our masks on and we'll check to see if there's a mouse in there.

Every beach mouse is precious. They're highly endangered, so Christie and her team wear masks when handling the mice to keep them from passing on any infections. Oh. Oh, this so beautiful. Okay, let's let's get him or her out. Oh my god. That is honestly the sweetest little mouse I think I've ever seen. To minimize stress, Christie works fast to weigh it. Make sure nothing else is in there. We can close that guy up. Okay. All right, it's right at right hitting at 30 g. Next, she attaches an ear tag so she can keep tabs on this individual over the coming months.

Okay, and she has a little tag. All done. She's ready for release. beautiful. And so that sand color is part of the habitat? So, it definitely helps blend in with the vegetation stuff here and the sand. She is stunning. I get it. Yeah? You ready? Here we go. Oh, she's staying slow. They're usually both pretty good. Oh, my gosh. And I want to keep an eye to see if we don't step on them when we start walking. She's cleaning herself. Wow. Sometimes you can follow them to a burrow. Most time you lose track of them. Oh, that was incredible.

Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. So, that's a real honor. That's a beach mouse. But I've got one big question. How is something so small so important to hurricane defense? Um well, they're they are the engineers of the dunes, so they help um spread seed by caching seeds uh from different plants around throughout the dunes. Some of them they come back and eat. Some of them they forget about, and they start growing the new plants. They keep building on each other, so we get a nice fortified dune system. Mhm. So, that presence actually helps with the structure of these dunes.

Yes. Yes, they do, and they burrow into the sand, too. That would help, you know, kind of aerate the sand as well. Yeah. I imagine that's quite important for somewhere, you know, that gets lots of storm activity and hurricanes here. Yes. Yeah, so we definitely need a wider um coastal dune ecosystem just for helping us with the coastal resiliency of these barrier islands. Yeah. These barrier islands are that first defense to the mainland. And so in a way, I guess they're like mini superheroes because they are here binding these structures, you know, creating these ecosystems environments that then will go on to protect, you know, cities here. That's an amazing link.

Right. So, if people understand that, then they can get behind protecting and caring about the beach mouse. Yeah. Do you think people realize the importance of having this species here? And not as much as I would like them to realize it. Um I think that's part of my job is trying to get the people to realize it. Sadly for the beach mouse, their crucial dune habitat is being built over at an alarming rate. Once upon a time, much of the southeast coast of the US was made up of swamps and mangroves and sand dunes. And together these acted as substantial natural defenses protecting a lot of the land from hurricanes. But as more and more people have

moved out to the coast, a lot of this natural defense has disappeared and instead is being replaced by endless condos and luxury coastal living like this. As I head further south, deep into Florida, the level of development along the coast only increases. Florida is now the third most popular state in all of the US and every year it sees a record-breaking influx of snowbirds. Not geese, but people that have come from colder climates like New York and Canada to escape the cold, head south to Florida for the winter sun. But at its southern tip, there's still a great wilderness. One that hasn't been

reconstructed for human inhabitants. A watery world where the line between land and sea, freshwater and salt, is at its most blurred. The Everglades. Spanning 8,000 square kilometers of land across central and southern Florida, the Everglades is one of the most biodiverse spots on the continent. Hosting over 40 different mammals, 360 species of birds, and countless amphibians, reptiles, and insects. This mangrove is just impenetrable. And this environment, these plants, they dominate the fringes of all of the Everglades. They're one of the only

plants that can really thrive in this highly salty water. And they've got a really clever trick up their sleeve. So, they actually end up sacrificing single leaves like this one, as you can see by their orange color. They'll put all that excess salt into those leaves and essentially let them go. And that really helps them not only thrive, but really dominate this landscape. But what I'm really here to see is what lives amongst these tangled roots. So far on my journey along the low-lying eastern shores, I've met freshwater animals that have found a way to adapt to saltwater, so they can take advantage of rich coastal areas. But here in the Everglades, I'm hoping to meet an animal that has done the opposite. An ocean predator that has

moved inland. Stalking the fresh water rivers of this wilderness, the bull shark. I find it fascinating that, you know, they're one of the very few sharks, the only sharks, right, that can go from fresh to saltwater so well? Yeah, I mean, they're they're incredible. And moving from saltwater to freshwater is really hard for a fish because your salt and water balance goes all out of whack. And most sharks solve the problem in saltwater by kind of the amount of solute in their blood about equal to the water around them. So, you don't have water moving in and out. Now, when you come into fresh water, you basically have water wanting to come in and you explode Right. don't do it right. So, the bull sharks

have adaptations to be able to get rid of all that excess water, retain the salts that they need in their body. But, you know, that comes at a cost. And that's one of the things that scientists all over the world are still working on. Or, what exactly are those costs? And why is it that bull sharks are able to do this in ways that other species aren't? Mike Heithaus and his team have been studying the Everglades' top predators for more than 20 years. Trying to figure out why a saltwater specialist would choose to move into such an alien world. This is a super dynamic system, and the salt levels vary a ton. They can vary from like one river system to the next, but they can also vary during the day as

the tide comes in and out, whether we have rain. So, during the dry season, you might have waters where we are now that are almost fully saltwater. Okay. in the wet season, it's fresh water. And so, that means an animal like a bull shark living in here has to navigate uh a lot of different salt levels, which can uh put a body through a lot of stress and take a lot of energy. To understand why the bull sharks use these hostile waters, Mike and his team have been catching them and attaching state-of-the-art acoustic trackers.

This is very exciting. Yep. It's all about to kick off. Yep. Um we waited about an hour, and uh literally we're approaching the first buoy now. And uh earlier we saw a little bit of movement, but no idea what to expect. I'm sure it'll all happen real quick and all at once. Oh, shark. Woo! Woohoo! We've got our first shark. That's so exciting. At just over a meter, this is a juvenile bull shark, likely less than 3 years old. The good thing is this shark is in really good shape. It's swimming really well. So, this is a great candidate to put a transmitter Yeah. and it's uh Absolutely beauty.

Yeah. Yeah, wow. this is a little boy. Oh, yeah, you can see the claspers. Yep. Mhm. So. Wow, okay. Very much immature. So. And you'll you'll tag this male now? Yeah, so what we're going to do is we'll take measurements. Uh we'll take a few samples of tissue because we can use that sample of tissue to see if it's feeding from marine food webs or fresh water ones. Okay. And then we're actually going to do a quick surgery and we're going to implant a transmitter that will be pinging for 6 to 10 years and we'll track it anywhere it goes in this estuary or even if it heads out and might hit some of the

monitoring stations all over uh the coast. So. Okay. Um we're going to get to learn a whole lot about this uh little shark as it grows up. How close to ready are you, Will? Okay. Ready whenever you guys are. With these tags that are surgically implanted just beneath the skin, the team have been able to plot the movements of 275 bull sharks living in the Everglades area. They found it's young bull sharks in particular that like the mangroves. They can spend the first three or four years of their lives living amongst the web of roots, which provide protection from bigger predators like adult sharks and alligators.

Nice. Only when they're big enough do they venture out into the ocean. Okay, ready? Yeah, ready. 3 2 1 Awesome, amazing. But incredibly, Mike's tagging work also answers another question that's been nagging me. What happens to wildlife when hurricanes hit? The coast is a bad place to be for an animal in a hurricane because you've got lots of things going on. We tend to think about the wind, but you also have a storm surge and so what often happens is the water gets sucked out and an animal may find itself high and dry and then this wall of water comes flying back in and that turbulence goes pretty deep underwater.

Yeah, there's nowhere to go away. That water's just getting tumbled and turned just like being in a washing machine. But then you've got another problem. After these hurricanes, you can have still water, lots of dead stuff decomposing and that can suck all of the oxygen out of the water and you can't breathe. And oxygen is not overrated if you're a bull shark. But in this upside down world where water can become a death trap even for marine species, bull sharks have found a way to survive. Mike has noticed a strange pattern in his tracking data. In the days leading up to hurricanes, most of his tagged bull sharks move out into the safety of deep offshore water, seemingly sensing the incoming danger.

How on earth are they able to detect when a hurricane is coming? Well, our best bet is that they're actually able to detect changes in the atmospheric pressure which is dropping super fast as a hurricane approaches. They may also detect changes in the water level because you've got storm surge or the water kind of getting pulled out of systems before the hurricanes come. And, you know, we don't know exactly how they do it, but we know most of them are pretty good at finding a way out of the danger zone. This ability to dodge danger is key to the success of sharks that live along the hurricane coast. And they're not alone.

It's thought that many species of birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles may share the bull shark's ability to sense the approach of hurricanes. But, while most instinctively flee the devastation, in this topsy-turvy world, Mike and colleagues have found one animal seems to seek it out. The tiger shark. The wake of a hurricane, there's a lot of death and destruction, which for a tiger shark, that's a buffet table once that hurricane passes. Tiger sharks are expert scavengers, so they take advantage, roaming hurricane-hit coasts looking for creatures that didn't escape in time.

Armed with one of the most sensitive noses in the ocean, they're able to home in on these easy meals with incredible precision. What we saw was that they actually don't get out of the way of the storm. I love that. Clever, opportunistic scavengers, a classic tiger shark. I'm in awe of the species that can be found here. This is an environment rich with predators dealing with harsh and extreme conditions, and an environment that's constantly changing. Change in salinity, you've got your tides coming

in and out, hurricanes. And as a result, you've got this kind of Mecca of the most well-adapted and the most impressive species out there. All finding a way to survive and thrive in this bizarre hinterland between land and sea. Leaving Mike and the Everglades behind, I travel east towards Miami, the gateway to the Atlantic Ocean. Welcome to Miami. This is chaos. There's people everywhere. Parties, music, buildings. I mean, this is worlds apart from what I've just come from. And it's kind of mad to think that all of this used to be mangrove swamps. And now it's, you know, the second

largest city in the US. It's developed. heavily populated. But out there, those waters are still exploding with life. And to find out why, I'm heading out to sea. The Atlantic is a very different ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Bigger, cooler, and richer in nutrients, it's an ocean of opportunities that's powered by an invisible force, the Gulf Stream. It's one of the fastest and most powerful currents on the planet, carrying warm water from the Gulf of Mexico up the eastern coast of North America and across the Atlantic at a rate of over 30 million cubic meters of water a second.

Like a river in the ocean, it acts as a highway for a vast army of migrating creatures. It's a surprising world that marine biologist Yannis Papastamatiou has been studying for over a decade. 3 km offshore, we drop into the ocean. And are immediately swept away on the powerful current. It doesn't take us long to meet our first ocean drifter, a spot-winged comb jelly. As if by magic, they use chemical reactions to produce a pulsating light to startle predators. Which is a useful trick along this predator superhighway. Above us at the surface, sargassum weed drifts past on the current.

A type of algae, its gas-filled bladders allow it to float in vast rafts, which can stretch over several kilometers. Its dense foliage provides refuge for all sorts of creatures, including crabs and even seahorses. All riding north on the mighty Gulf Stream in this mobile sargassum city. Perfectly camouflaged to blend in with its algas home, it crawls towards its victim using its fins as legs. The shrimp doesn't stand a chance.

And all this life attracts ocean wanderers and coastal hunters to the same tiny patch of ocean. A school of amberjacks dance around us, agitated. And it's a lot bigger than the ones I held in the Everglades. Inquisitive and bold, adult bull sharks are opportunistic predators. They eat everything from fish and birds to turtles and even other sharks. They tend to like coastal waters, but with so many creatures using the Gulf Stream to migrate north, they know this patch of ocean is rich in opportunities.

It's an amazing feeling to be so close to such a formidable predator. And to a follow their life cycle from their time sheltered in the Everglades to here in the big expanse of the Atlantic. In a few months time, this female will return to Florida's tidal creeks to give birth to the next generation of bull sharks. That was horrendous. Oh my gosh, there's a whole another world down there. That current down there was ripping. Is that normal being this close to shore? Yeah, I mean that's very standard for a dive at these sort of depths in the sort of 25-30 m range. And that's because we are so close to the Gulf Stream. And that's that's pretty unique. And you obviously due to the bathymetry,

um you can reach the Gulf Stream a very short distance from shore. And that's really one of the reasons why we get such strong currents out here. Makes diving challenging, makes it harder to work here, but it also leads to much more productive uh waters. And that's also why we're seeing so many big predators like these sharks on these reefs. It's been incredible exploring the low-lying lands of the east, but it doesn't come without its challenges. From the mixing of fresh and salt water to hurricanes to the huge number of people that live here to the vast predators that roam these waters. It's

undeniably a hostile place to live. And I've been bitten by mosquitoes, been up to my neck in mud, and been thrown around by the currents, but it's nothing compared to what the wildlife puts up with, and it still manages to flourish in a way that's really hard to wrap your head around. But, like much of this continent, these waters are undergoing rapid change. As people continue to flock down to Florida, loss of habitat will certainly rise. And with these waters getting hotter and hotter, hurricanes will only strengthen. The impacts of a changing climate is clearly being felt here, but as I continue on my journey further north, the challenges of warming seas only gets more difficult for the wildlife that lives there.