Discovery's 'Shark Week 2026' is here, featuring Montauk-based shark expert Craig O'Connell

From 1946 to 1970, the U.S. government dropped thousands of cement-encased barrels of low-level radioactive waste into the Hudson Canyon, some 100 nautical miles south of Long Island. Nothing too terrible, but terrible enough. A 1980 report by the Environmental Protection Agency determined that such wastes "may be hazardous, depending on their concentration and their proximity to man or other organisms."

On the eve of Discovery's "Shark Week," here then is the chilling hypothetical: What if one of those other "organisms" was a shark? And could this shark, if exposed, grow an extra set of eyes? Perhaps glow neon green in the dark?

Even balloon to gigantic proportions, then drift north to where all the food is (Montauk, naturally, or points west)?

What if this shark was — gasp — radioactive?

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. "Shark Week" — that glorious if occasionally hyperbolic landmark programming event (July 26-Aug. 1) that turns up on our screens every year just as sharks turn up on our shores — has already gotten there before us. In the 9 p.m. July 31 episode, "Sharkzilla Takes New York," marine biologist Craig O'Connell heads out to the canyon to find a shark or sharks that have mauled a passing whale or two, and the occasional bluefin tuna.

In pursuit of one of these megasharks, a Discovery news release (not at all hyperbolically!) observes that O'Connell "is left with the chilling theory that the predator may be radioactive." (Nothing like an extra set of eyes, or neon green; sorry, but this isn't "Sharknado" after all.)

O'Connell — who has appeared in more than 40 "Shark Week" programs over the years, and runs Montauk's O'Seas Conservation Foundation, with his pediatrician wife, Dr. Nicole O'Connell — does not find a mutant shark. But his "Sharkzilla" is still a rip-roaring hour full of charging makos, lots of teeth, and the occasional near miss. It also features a handful of nifty "MacGyver" hacks that O'Connell and his students have devised to lure these beautiful creatures from the depths, like a chumming device called "blubber blaster" and a papier-mache "dead dolphin" by the name of Hudson.

Newsday spoke recently with O'Connell — who also has an Aug. 1 episode on thresher sharks off Malapascua Island in the Philippines — about his most recent adventure:

Craig, you and I have talked for years — you are, after all, Long Island's esteemed 'Shark Doctor' — but I'm betting readers wonder what you do when you're not doing 'Shark Week.'

We have a shark camp program going on right now, and one student asked, 'what do you do when you don't do shark camp"' and the reality is, these guys [sharks] require all your focus [and] I'm always thinking of my next project that may protect sharks in a new way. One of the coolest things about this job is that it allows you to be creative, and because of that, we just invented a new fishing hook that might be much safer for sharks, and protect wildlife. It's estimated that one out of three sharks have hooks, or multiple hooks, in their mouth. This hook involves a lot of chemistry and we've been testing it in Montauk for three years, but it deteriorates rapidly without compromising the strength of the hook.

Let's talk 'Sharkzilla': Are those barrels leaking? Is there evidence wildlife is affected?

We exposed a problem there [but] I really didn't think it would affect the sharks that we'd see. What we did encounter off the coast [of Long Island] was mind-blowing, and the episode could not have gone any better. [However] I think people would be surprised just how blue the water is just off the coast; people think of it as murky, with few sharks, but that couldn't be further from the truth. If you venture off the coast it looks like the Bahamas, and you can see 200 feet down in some places.

'Mutant sharks' has a nice, B-movie horror ring to it, but is there any evidence in support of this?

When you introduce something into the environment, sometimes the consequences are hard to predict. Could it have created giant sharks? People will have to watch and find out [laughs]. But it's possible. There are consequences for all our actions, and unfortunately when you pollute, those consequences will likely be detrimental. Did we have evidence [of leaking]? I've heard of multiple reports that some barrels were empty or not full [so] it's likely there was some leaking radioactive material. The ocean has this amazing capacity to make things deteriorate quickly.

How did you know this giant shark might be a mako?

I've heard reports of gigantic makos off the coast and never had the opportunity to go find them. I get a lot of my information from fishermen because they're out there every single day. One told me we were at the canyon in the middle of the night and saw the largest shark we've ever seen — fast, jagged teeth, a beautiful blue hue to it — and I said that's gotta be a mako.

I read somewhere that makos have never really killed a human, but in this episode you certainly seem a little freaked out at times. Any chance this one could have caused serious damage?

I would love to say I wasn't in danger, but the reason there haven't been any fatalities is because these are pelagic [deep ocean] and don't often come into contact with people. But I can honestly say that this shark viewed us not as a potential meal but maybe as a competitor for the bait, and it did routinely try to bite us. It was one of the most intense dives I've ever had. I've never been so focused, and they've never been so focused — this shark exhibited the most threatening posture, its head would move up and down, and the jaws would open and swim right at us with its mouth wide open. All you'd see were teeth. We were a hundred miles from shore and if something goes wrong, someone is in big trouble. The mako is an opportunistic predator, and if it's coming in for prey, it's a very dangerous animal, especially the big ones.

I loved those little 'MacGyver' touches to get the sharks to the surface — the 'blubber blaster!' That fake dead dolphin guy named Hudson!

Hudson! Discovery asked me to build a fake dolphin, and as you know, I do my camp and love to get the kids involved in my work — if they build something that appears on 'Shark Week,' that'd be inspiring to them. So we built this and it was one of the hardest things I'd ever done! Patching it with the wrong material, and when it would rain, it would leak down my driveway, and we'd have to rebuild it the next day. It took two weeks and when it was done, we thought, this is the most ridiculous thing we've ever built. But when we did a trial run dive, and looked up from below, it looked like a dead dolphin. ... You gotta be creative.

You're a great champion of makos; how endangered are they?

They're not doing well in the northwest Atlantic. There's a complete moratorium on fishing them in our waters, and we cannot capture them. We can keep trying to help these populations rebound, but it will take a very long time, so the fact that we found sites [near Long Island] where babies exist means there's hope. That's what's neat about this show: The sharks we were seeing were big females, and they work their way in toward shore where they have their pups, and feed on the abundant prey. So the fact that they're protected is a very good thing.

A shark attack at Jones Beach nearly upstaged Taylor Swift's July 3 wedding in the news cycle. What kind of shark was it? Brown, sand tiger, dusky?

I don't know, and don't know if pictures were released, but it's that time of year — July Fourth, everyone's in the water, and the sharks are moving. We have to be shark-smart in our area — two bull sharks in New Jersey were just tagged, and they moved into New York waters, so we have to be wary: Don't go swimming by yourself, don't wear shiny jewelry, don't swim at dawn or dusk.

A couple of years ago, you told me shark numbers were growing here because bunker, or menhaden, fish populations close to shore were. Is that still the case?

It's a little bit of everything. Clearer waters. More bunkers than in previous decades. We've protected sharks in certain ways, and are seeing more of them. Slight increase in water temperature, and more subtropical species in our area. So people go in the water, and — because of certain other variables — we might see some shark/people interactions. But again, I say this every year: Sharks are superimportant for the environment, and if we are looking at shark mitigation, we need to look at non-lethal measures that protect sharks and people.