Great white sharks, which have been the focus of much of his doctoral and professional work over the past decade, are Marks’s passion. He deplores the popular tendency, promulgated by the media, to portray great whites in the stereotypical image of the movie Jaws. Marks says such negative “hype” is unnecessary and unjustified. Quite unlike the “mindless” solitary killers living only to ambush and devour, the common representation of great whites, Marks says the animals, in fact, are “extremely social” demonstrating behaviors that “are far more complicated” than other fish.

Marks is especially intrigued by the notion of cognition in great whites, the idea that the so-called “apex predator” at the very top of the food web is capable of rational thought. His premise is that great whites have at least the same level of sentience as a pet dog. It is a position that aligns him clearly outside of mainstream scientific thought. Part of the reason, Marks claims, is the inherent inability to demonstrate intelligence.

Most scientists, Marks says, “follow the path of what they’re comfortable demonstrating.” Compared to them, Marks calls himself “almost a black sheep.” He is not overly concerned, however, by exclusion from the scientific rank and file.

“I don’t have to demonstrate that these animals are self-aware,” he states, noting that his many years of free diving with great whites in their natural setting allow him to know without doubt that they are both cognitive and highly social.

Regarding intelligence, Marks relates additional empirical evidence, telling of an experience with a shark that was being lured by bait to approach a cage that housed a cameraman. The bait was continually dragged across the face of the cage and pulled away from the shark at the last moment so that it would circle and return. After two or three unsuccessful tries, the shark became frustrated and disappeared. The bait handler continued to drag the bait horizontally through the water. Suddenly, from deep below the cage and unseen, the shark streaked upwards and hit the bait vertically, successfully ripping it from the unsuspecting handler’s control.

Marks says the great white used a power of thought that has to be considered a form of reasoning. In effect, he says, the shark solved a puzzle by choosing to attack the bait from a completely different vantage, one that allowed it to present the smallest possible silhouette.

It also saddens him that he spent six months on location making the film, a time that could have been spent with his beloved wife who died this past winter in an airplane crash.

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