Reporter Monica Humphries goes diving with the sharks in the middle of Denver. She heads to the Downtown Aquarium for this incredible experience.
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00:00 That's Match, about a 10-foot-long sand tiger shark.
00:03 Over there, there's about a 14-foot sawfish.
00:06 And that's me, swimming right next
00:08 to all these aquatic animals.
00:10 And I did it all while scuba diving
00:11 in downtown Denver, of all places.
00:13 Living in Denver, I'm constantly on adventures.
00:16 One weekend, I might be hiking and backpacking
00:18 up a mountain, and a few months later,
00:20 I'll be snowboarding down it.
00:21 But I never thought I'd be diving
00:23 in the middle of the city
00:24 with five different species of sharks.
00:27 This is Everyday Adventurer.
00:29 (upbeat music)
00:31 Oh, we're super excited to have you here.
00:39 We love all of our sharks.
00:40 We're so passionate about them and their conservation.
00:44 So we have about five different shark species
00:46 in this aquarium here.
00:48 We have one of my favorites, our sandbar shark here.
00:52 They're really unique because they have
00:53 those really large fins on their bodies.
00:56 Their dorsal fin is super tall.
00:58 Their pectoral fins, they use kind of like
01:00 airplane wings to steer.
01:02 We also have one of our three zebra sharks here.
01:05 Our zebra sharks are really special to us
01:07 at the downtown aquarium here.
01:09 They're a part of the species survival plan.
01:11 So we're using an in-house breeding program,
01:13 so we don't need to harvest the wild.
01:15 One of our favorite ladies here at the downtown aquarium,
01:18 she's coming to say hi.
01:20 This is Madge.
01:21 She is our largest sand tiger shark.
01:24 These guys are absolutely incredible.
01:26 They have those long, pointy noses
01:28 with the open mouth and the teeth.
01:30 They're fearsome.
01:31 People love coming to see those guys.
01:33 Sharks, just like all fish, they breathe oxygen
01:38 that's in the water.
01:39 So their mouths are open because they're pushing
01:41 in that water to run over their gills,
01:44 and it's called ram ventilation.
01:46 So they just always need to keep swimming very slowly
01:49 so they can breathe.
01:50 You know, a lot of people, they think of sharks
01:53 as like the black eyes, you know, scary.
01:56 But, you know, when you spend time with these sharks,
01:59 you get to see their personalities.
02:00 You get to see their eyes moving around.
02:02 They're curious.
02:03 They're excited that you're there.
02:05 You're something new, something different.
02:07 I call them the puppies of the ocean.
02:09 They're excited to interact with something.
02:11 They're incredibly intelligent, incredibly beautiful,
02:14 incredibly peaceful.
02:15 It's gonna be life-changing to go in there with them.
02:18 This is Shipwreck.
02:23 It's our largest exhibit.
02:25 And what we're about to do is go into
02:29 a 350,000 gallon exhibit.
02:32 We're going to start over here on this platform.
02:34 I'll have your kit already in the water.
02:37 We'll get you suited up, geared up,
02:39 and then we'll get going.
02:41 I've been diving in some pretty cool places
02:45 from Cozumel to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia,
02:48 but I've never been diving with sharks.
02:50 So we'll see how this goes.
02:52 Definitely feeling excited.
02:54 Definitely feeling a little nervous,
02:56 but ready to get in the water.
02:58 You don't normally get this opportunity
03:06 to look at sharks so up close
03:08 in their natural swimming patterns
03:12 and somewhere where they're very comfortable.
03:14 They're not afraid of people being in the water with them.
03:18 So, I mean, really take a look at the details,
03:22 like their denticles, their skin,
03:24 how they move their tails,
03:26 how their fins pivot to kind of give them
03:29 that hydrodynamic quality.
03:32 You can kind of see how they interact with each other.
03:34 I think those are things that people don't really get to see.
03:38 Again, they have a bad reputation, unfortunately,
03:42 but they're some of the most amazing creatures out there
03:46 and they're so important to the health of the whole ocean.
03:49 (upbeat music)
03:52 That was incredible.
04:04 That was so fun.
04:05 I was like expecting to be close to sharks,
04:09 but I was so close to sharks.
04:12 - So these are those teeth that you found down at the bottom.
04:16 - Oh my gosh.
04:17 - Incredible.
04:18 - You can see these ones are a little bit more fresh.
04:21 - And how often are sharks losing their teeth?
04:24 - Every day.
04:24 - Every day.
04:25 Oh, wow. Okay.
04:26 - Yeah, they constant, they grow teeth
04:27 throughout their lifetime and they have rows of teeth.
04:29 So the teeth just kind of keep coming out.
04:33 - Awesome.
04:34 I've traveled all over the world
04:38 and I've gone diving in some pretty cool places,
04:41 but this was my first experience with sharks
04:43 and pretty surreal considering it was just 12 minutes
04:45 from my home in Denver.
04:47 What a memorable everyday adventure.
04:49 (upbeat music)
04:52 (water bubbling)
04:54 (upbeat music)
04:57 (bubbling)