By What do you think would be more dangerous, being an FBI agent or a videographer who free dives with sharks?
Both certainly have their risks.
When the FBI rejected a young Andy Casagrande’s bid to be an agent, he embarked on a career to revolutionize how the world views sharks.
Mission accomplished.
For more than 20 years, Casagrande has been one of the foremost leaders in filming sharks, most notably for Discovery Channel’s iconic yearly event — Shark Week.
Casagrande is an Emmy Award-winning cinematographer, producer, television host, and wildlife filmmaker who has more than 100 films and documentaries to his credit, airing on stations like National Geographic, BBC, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel and many more.
I recently spoke with Casagrande, and the story of how he got to where he is, is remarkable.
Andy Casagrande has roots in Florida
Casagrande was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1977, and his family moved to Pittsburgh when he was 3.
At age 7, he began visiting his grandparents in Naples, Florida. It was here where his love for the water began.
“I would come down every summer and go fishing at the Naples pier, go snorkeling and, you know, hunting for treasures, looking for sharks and just really enjoying the Gulf of Mexico,” Casagrande said. “So basically, I didn’t grow up here, but every summer I spent here along the coast and exploring the Gulf of Mexico.”
As Casagrande got older, he started to hone in on what he wanted to do with his life.
His first choice was to be a member of the FBI.
“I think I saw too many Hollywood movies with Keanu Reeves or whatever,” he joked.
With a 4.0 GPA and all the measurables to be an agent, he applied for an internship. However, he made one small mistake.
“I met all the criteria except there was one item that said you had to get a reference letter from the Dean of your school. And during the time frame, the Dean wasn’t available. He was on vacation,” Casagrande recalled. “So I got the second-in-command, who wrote a letter explaining the Dean was not available. They denied me the internship because I failed to follow the protocol.”
The FBI expected him to track down the Dean, regardless of his vacation status.
Oh well, it turned out to be for the best.
Marine biology wasn’t for him, either
Casagrande’s first year of college was spent at Florida Tech in Melbourne in 1996-97, where he was studying to be a marine biologist.
His dream was quickly shattered as he looked at graduate students and realized they were in lab coats and pushing papers rather than out in the ocean.
“I thought, wow, I’m smart, but I’m not interested in this kind of academic career pursuit,” he said.
He switched his major multiple times, including marine biology, journalism and photo journalism before eventually getting a degree in psychology with a minor in biology.
He got a job out of school at a software company as a tech support engineer, but his heart was still with sharks.
He earned his dive certification in Monterey Bay, California, quit his job and went to Cape Town, South Africa, to volunteer for research while diving with sharks. He chose Cape Town because at the time it had a large number of great white sharks and a lot of research being done.
His work gave him access to film crews from the BBC, National Geographic and Discovery.
He impressed a producer and director during a three-week shoot and they offered him a staff job at National Geographic.
The rest, as they say, is history.
A decorated career
Casagrande has been a part of hundreds of shows, coming face to face with some of the ocean’s most dangerous predators like tiger sharks, bull sharks, great hammerheads, and of course, great white sharks.
However, you don’t just jump in with sharks. You ease into it, as Casagrande explained.
“I started my out-of-the-cage interactions with the great whites in South Africa way back in 2005,” he said. “It was baby steps. You know, we would drop the cage in the bottom.
“Maybe it’s 25, 30 feet and we would use the cage almost like a soccer goal, where the back of the cage would protect us, as in, you don’t really need to turn around, because as most people know, they’re ambush predators. They love to approach from behind. They don’t like to be seen. If you’re looking at the shark, it’s looking at you.”
He’s also been in situations where there’s nothing between him and the sharks except the ocean and his camera.
“When you’re underwater and you’re swimming with one, the other thing is you usually try to stay on the bottom. I’ve done some open water, deep water stuff in Guadalupe where you look down and there is no bottom,” he said. “It’s 4,000 feet deep or whatever, so they can come from any angle there.
“In South Africa and New Zealand and Australia, I usually like to try to stay on the reef on the bottom. That removes the whole element of ambush from below and then you’re not in a power position, but you’re in a safer position.”
Casagrande lives where his love was born
Casagrande has a great “how I met my wife” story.
“I met my wife in Tanzania, in the Serengeti, on a lion film,” said Casagrande, who’s also had shoots with polar bears and king cobras, among other land animals. “One thing led to another, and we fell in love.”
They moved to Naples to be closer to his family. His wife is from Sweden.
Casagrande said 97 percent of his work has been done outside the U.S., but that’s changing.
Florida is surrounded by different shark species, so he’s turning his attention to the Sunshine State.
“It’s quite an incredible place and I even started my own shark research project right off the coast here in Naples,” he said. “I’ve got seven ultrasonic listening stations strategically placed throughout the Gulf of Mexico from up to 30 miles offshore to the inshore areas, shipwrecks, reef structure, Navy towers, and we’re picking up amazing action.
“We’re getting thousands and thousands of detections, different species from hammerheads to great whites, tigers, bull sharks, sawfish, nurse sharks, all types of lemon sharks. These are pretty much all the major players down here. I realized there was no research going on in my backyard offshore here in Naples, so it’s been quite an amazing experience to start the project.”
Casagrande will be featured in multiple shows throughout the 2024 Shark Week.
You’ll see him in shows about feeding frenzies, sharks breaching (called “Air Jaws”), and many more.
The work he is doing is not only good for humanity, but also sharkmanity.
“The more we learn about how to avoid attacks, how to directly share the ocean safely, how to potentially anticipate attacks, and using AI in different technology, we’ll make the ocean safer,” he said. “We’re this superhuman species, but we can’t even figure out how to keep giant sea monsters from eating us.”
Walters can be reached at twalters@gannett.com or on X/Twitter @twaltersinforms
