Mike Rutzen

How did Michael career start

• At the age of 20, he visited the fishing village of Gansbaai in the Western Cape, he liked it so
much that he decided to stay and make a life there as a commercial fisherman.
• In 1993 the shark cage diving industry he was established in Gansbaai and Mike was the second
local skipper to be employed for his specialised seafaring expertise in the region.
• He spent a lot of time interacting with Great White Sharks from the boat and observing their
behaviour during this time.
• Rutzen developed a huge
appreciation for these majestic
predators. 
• He decided he would like to learn
more about the species, so in 1998
he began free diving with the
sharks.
• In 2000 he established his own
highly successful shark cage
diving company, Shark Diving
Unlimited.
• While in the water with the sharks,
Rutzen was extremely cautious and
used his knowledge of animal
behaviour to understand the shark’s
movements and to interact with
them.
• From this expertise he was able to
communicate with the sharks by
making his body smaller or larger to
attract or deter the animal.
An Interview with
Michael Rutzen

• Michael, how did your Shark

Interest start?
• My shark interest started very funny.
Actually I was a fisherman, and
when the Shark industry started, we
were very scared of the animals. It
was fortunate for me that the
Industry needed people with sea
knowledge to skipper the boats. I got
to work with the sharks, and started
to get to know them.
You said that you were a fisherman before,
did sharks interest you then?
• Before when I was a fisherman, my interest lay in catching them. As a fisherman, our living
depended on hunting for money, and unfortunately we had to catch them. But these were small
sharks not White Sharks. I always loved to be on the ocean and at that time it was the only work
available and it was the only work I was qualified for.
 How were your first feelings when you
started in the cage diving industry?
• I was really afraid of the sharks. I did not even know what a White shark looked like. I knew them
as "Tommy Sharks", and when I saw the first ones, I realized that White sharks are the Tommy
Sharks that we saw nearly every day. 
What is your most memorable moment
in life?
• My first-day free diving. I'll never forget that. I was very stupid and did a lot of things wrong, and
the shark fast showed me. I'll never forget it. That was an achievement.
Conclusion
• Michael Rutzen is a white shark behaviour specialist with more than 20 years of experience at sea. He is one of the four
inventors of Sharksafe and the mind behind the utilization of a visual barrier resembling kelp to deter large predatory
sharks. Mike is internationally renowned for his documentaries where he dives out of the cage with white sharks for
conservation purposes.
Thank you for your
attention.