Explorer: Science of Evil airs Tuesday, May 6 at 10p

The mood is very heavy on board the ship this evening.

The expedition has been going exceptionally well. The scientific team has been having great success locating schools of sharks and diving down to place tracking tags on them. This has buoyed their hopes of capturing a hammerhead and outfitting it with a satellite tracking tag to track its journey around the ocean. But now, those hopes seem to be sinking fast.

From my experience, our anchor spot at Wolf Island is one of the most electrifying dive spots anywhere. Sharks are everywhere. But what these scientists propose to do looks to be extremely difficult. They want to bring a hammerhead on board the boat while keeping it alive to attach the sat tag.

Photo: Thomas Lucas

To practice their technique, the crew sent a team of fishermen out to hook another type of shark… a Galapagos shark… and tow it back to the ship. The idea was to pull the shark onto a sling, then use a crane to lift it onto the deck. Seawater would be pumped across the shark’s gills to keep it breathing.

They hooked the shark, but it fought back every step of the way, thrashing and kicking. Finally, after a long and agonizing struggle, they got the shark onto the deck… then installed the tag and let it go.

Given how difficult this was, the risks in capturing a hammerhead now seem a whole lot higher. For one thing, they are “ram ventilators,” they must always swim forward to keep water moving over their gills. When they are restricted, as when caught on long lines by fishermen, they easily die.

If a hammerhead were to die, word would likely get out. Hammerheads have become a symbol of conservation and tourism in the Galapagos, which explains why a National Park representative on the boat now is very angry about how long it took to tag the Galapagos shark. The purpose here is to find ways to protect sharks from severe fishing pressures, so killing one, even for science, is just not an option.

For now the team has decided to go ahead with the plan, but the lead scientist, Dr. Peter Klimley, is vowing to shut down the experiment the minute he thinks a hammerhead is in danger. And now something else has come up. The fishermen themselves are saying they are not even sure they can get a hammerhead on the line.

The entire team is now really torn between the desire to complete the experiment… and the fear of losing a shark in the process. It could really go either way.

Explorer: Death of the Iceman premieres Tuesday, April 1at 10p

The hour was approaching to meet the most famous man in the Italian Alps, and I was getting a little nervous. On the drive into the city of Bolzano, you can’t miss the ten story high billboard of their hero plastered on the side of a building. Even Brad Pitt had a picture of the mystery man tattooed into his arm. The ‘Iceman’ is a cult hero, a pop idol, and a scientific marvel- this guy’s been dead for over 5,000 years. What is it about mummies that we just can’t get enough of?

People come here from all over the world to catch a fleeting glimpse of the Iceman in the flesh. His remains were found in 1991, when a few hikers came across his head and shoulders sticking out of a glacier on a mountain summit. They had stumbled upon the oldest mummy ever found. Even more remarkable, his mummification was a total fluke. Unlike the Egyptian mummies, whose organs were removed and bodies embalmed, the Iceman was shot in the back with an arrow and left to rot. But somehow, he didn’t. Apparently scavenging animals never got a chance to gobble him up. Soon after he was killed, a snowstorm must have blown in and covered him. Over the years, he was packed in glacial ice.

We were there to make a film about the theories behind his mysterious death. But today I had one gnawing question I couldn’t get out of my mind. What does 5,000-year-old flesh feel like? I had a juvenile urge to touch his skin and wiggle his toes. As I entered the imposing marble museum, I resolved to resist the urge. In pictures, the man the locals fondly call ‘Otzi’ looks brittle, like he would disintegrate at the slightest touch. Accidentally breaking off one of his digits would not be easily excused.

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Despite the Border Patrol’s amazing arsenal of technology the task to close down a desert is still daunting. Sometimes it feels as if we are getting a rare opportunity to just hang out with a bunch of guys with really cool toys. But these toys are serious equipment for a very serious job.

Last night we stayed up with the night shift in the control room in Nogales, Arizona. The room is darkened and a handful of agents watch dozens of TV monitors filling an entire wall. Those screens are connected to hundreds of remote cameras that can turn to almost every inch of the Tucson sector – an area covering over 120 square miles south west of Tucson.

All night long Agent Sean watched as GPS coordinates popped up on screen. Each coordinate referenced a “hit” from an underground radar sensor. These are buried in secret locations just north of the US/Mexico border. They are so sensitive that even a coyote walking past can send an alert. Whenever a group of migrants, or worse, drug smugglers passes too close, the Border Patrol knows almost instantly.

The control room can track exactly where a group is crossing, but these locations may be deep into the wilderness – so they have a system of cameras that can be remotely controlled. When a sensor reports a hit, agents can turn the nearest camera to the spot to check exactly who might be crossing.

Our film crew marveled at the precision of cutting-edge infra-red cameras that can detect a person’s body heat from eight miles away. I found myself holding my breath all night as we watched the computer terminals for another hit. We were able to watch an entire chase and capture play out in black and white from eight miles away. We laughed with the agents when a huge “hit” turned out to be a herd of cows.

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