Mike Rutzen

Michael Rutzen (born October 11, 1970) is a South African conservationist, film maker, cage diving operator. He has spent more time free diving with great white sharks without a cage than any other person and is one of the few people in the world that can understand and respond to shark behaviour and body language.

Rutzen started his career as a fisherman before joining the shark diving industry in 1994 establishing the pioneering techniques that are now the backbone of the industry. In 2000 he founded a successful shark cage diving business, Shark Diving Unlimited. Driven to better understand white shark’s behaviour he found that observing them from a vessel was limiting so in 1998, he began free diving with white sharks.

Rutzen gained international fame by appearing in a number of award winning documentaries which promote appreciation and conservation of sharks to the general public. These films and a number of TV appearances led to him being known as the "Sharkman". He is highly sought as a shark guide by still photographers, film crews, celebrities and royalty and has hosted a number of very high profile guests on shark observation and diving trips including Brad Pitt,Matt Damon,Leonardo DiCaprio,Halle Berry, King Abdullah II Of Jordan,Blake Lively, Sheik Nahayan Mabarak al Nahayan,Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, One Republic and Prince Harry.

Since beginning his career as conservationist, Rutzen has provided field support to the Department of Environmental Affairs of South Africa, when they require his shark expertise. Some projects include deployment of satellite and acoustic tags on white sharks and he is also a member of the Whale Disentanglement Network for the Department of Environmental Affairs. Since 2009 he has acted as field supervisor for population dynamics studies and DNA sampling programs being undertaken for the PhD study of Dr. Sara Andreotti (Stellenbosch University), which he also sponsored and co authored a number of white shark behavioural papers.

...
Wikipedia