Andy Casagrande

Casagrande says humans are clearly not on sharks' menu because otherwise attacks would be a daily occurrence.

“clearly we're not on the menu because if we were and sharks realized that humans were a viable prey item, there would be attacks every single day”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 2:58:34

Casagrande says no one has documented great whites mating and that fin-mounted remote cameras are the likeliest way to capture it.

“no one has ever documented great whites getting it on”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 2:41:58

Casagrande argues sharks matter because they balance ocean ecosystems that supply most of the oxygen humans breathe.

“Sharks, they're balancing the oceans, right? And without the oceans being healthy, we have less air to breathe”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 1:12:53

Casagrande says sharks' fearsome reputation vastly exceeds their actual lethality, killing fewer than ten people a year.

“it's like they have the best marketing team on the planet they kill less than single digits every year yet they're the biggest baddest motherfuckers monsters ever to have lived”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 1:06:52

Casagrande reports detecting two great whites tagged a thousand miles and two years apart arriving at the same offshore Naples tower on the same night within an hour of each other.

“both of these great white sharks showed up at the exact same day on the exact same night within an hour of each other at 10 o'clock at night on this offshore like rig system, this Navy tower”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 43:32

Casagrande proposes using AI and environmental variables to predict the probability of negative shark encounters at particular beaches.

“if we could learn, like, what makes a place more dangerous than another place, even use AI to predict, like, shark attack – what's the word? Predict like negative shark encounter probability”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 39:24

Casagrande criticizes Stanford-affiliated great white PhD researchers who had never observed the species underwater and argues credentials are not required for meaningful contribution.

“you are a PhD great white shark expert and you've never seen the animal that you're a PhD in underwater, like in its own environment”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 2:32:01

Casagrande says the greatest danger in his work is human error and panic rather than the animals themselves.

“it's just like stupid human error that gets people killed”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 2:18:10

Casagrande says he never intended to become a filmmaker and that his career resulted from a childhood fascination with sharks.

“I mean, it all actually happened completely by accident. I never planned to become a filmmaker at all. It was a childhood fascination with sharks”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 1:40

Casagrande says Shark Week is declining and that YouTube is the future of wildlife media.

“even now, like Shark Week starting to like kind of die down. So I think YouTube is the future, bro”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 3:12:00

Casagrande argues Shark Week was long perceived as sensationalizing sharks for ratings, but its volume of programming was unmatched for a wildlife filmmaker.

“Shark Week was always kind of seen as like, Jaws and claws, hyping things up for ratings, scaring the hell out of people, blood and guts so that people would watch”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 9:44

Casagrande describes a theory that orcas locate great whites by hearing their acoustic research tags, meaning tagging may aid predation.

“there is now a theory that orcas are potentially targeting sharks that are tagged because they can track them down easier”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 2:53:06

Casagrande says orcas are culturally specialized, with New Zealand populations eating sharks and rays while Californian ones hunt seals and whales.

“she taught me that orcas are very cultural and that the ones in New Zealand, they focus on eating sharks and stingrays, but they won't eat seals”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 1:28:55

Casagrande says fishermen angered by his criticism of shark tournaments have threatened to kill his family.

“I've had multiple fishermen say, hey, I know where you live”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 1:53:42

Casagrande contends NOAA's long-running sandbar shark research quota functions as a federally subsidized shark fin trade.

“I strongly believe it's like... subsidized federal shark fin trade”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 1:54:23

Casagrande argues tiger sharks hunt with deliberate unpredictability so prey such as turtles cannot habituate to their schedule.

“So instead of showing up at the same time and being predictable, tigers are using this pattern of complete unpredictability”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 1:16:05

Casagrande says GoPro staff wanted the footage of a tiger shark closing its jaws around his wife's head deleted for fear of losing future freedom.

“they said, we have to delete this. If our bosses, if Nick Woodman, if anyone ever sees this footage, they'll never let us do anything fun ever again”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 55:05

Casagrande recounts that an Austrian diver at Tiger Beach was fatally attacked after a current shift forced a long swim back to the boat with baited tigers in tow.

“one of these tigers... grabbed the girl by the arm... and... it started... trying to ragdoll her”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 1:14:38

Casagrande says he prefers baiting sharks for photography to killing them, and that live sharks are more economically valuable than dead ones.

“I would much rather people bait sharks and take their picture than bait sharks and chop their heads off and sell their fins”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 1:05:25

Casagrande recounts privately warning Michael Phelps that the beach Discovery chose for his swim was the site of two fatal consumptive great white attacks.

“I got to tell you, where they want you to swim is the last place you want to swim”

Danny Jones Podcast: #430 - "Eaten Alive" Shark Week Filmmaker on Footage They Can Never Release | Andy Casagrande (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 36:51