Shark Week’s Joe Romeiro on his lifelong fascination with the ocean’s predators

Shark expert and TV presenter Joe Romeiro at the opening of Discovery Channel Shark Week, at the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National

Growing up in the United States as part of a Portuguese immigrant family in Massachusetts, there were a number of coping mechanisms might have adopted as he tried to find a place for himself in a strange, new country.

He could have studied hard, kept his head down and set his sights on a mundane but stable career in corporate middle management somewhere. Instead, he developed what might at the time have seemed to be a worrying fascination with sharks, dropped out of college and resolved to make studying the creatures his calling in life – and the world is probably a better place for that.

Now he is one of the regular hosts of The Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week, which returns to Discovery Channel in the Middle East on Sunday, August 28.

"Jaws was first film I ever saw," Romeiro says. "When I was a kid I couldn't speak English, so wildlife shows were my thing. That's what originally introduced me to the shark.

"I was terrified. I lived about 40 minutes from Martha's Vineyard, where Jaws was filmed, so I just thought that's where Jaws lived – but it fascinated me as well. Nietzsche said something along the lines of: 'Understanding comes through confrontation' – and I always went with that."

It is unexpected to hear Nietzschean philosophy mentioned in the same breath as underwater adventures and Steven Spielberg movies, but Romeiro is clearly fascinated by sharks.

He has been a Shark Week presenter for four years and worked behind the camera on the annual event for a couple of years before that.

“They’re such iconic animals,” he says. “They have so many traits we’d like to find in ourselves. They’re beautiful, strong, powerful, mysterious – all that stuff we wish we were ourselves. We admire it. They’re maybe the most iconic animals on the ­planet.

“There are more than 500 different species of shark and I bet if I showed a photo of any one of them to any person on the street, they could identify it as a shark.”

Romeiro is one of the world’s most recognisable shark experts, but his path to that lofty position was far from traditional.

“I dropped out of college to be an artist,” he says. “I set up my own studio, it did OK, and I could afford my first camera. From there I just went out and dived and filmed.

“When I was a kid I used to pretend my couch was a boat and I’d jump off into my stuffed turtles and sharks. Now I’m 40 years old and I’m doing that for real, from a real boat.

“I always thought this would be adventurous and fun, but I never really thought it would be my job – nobody trains you for it. I guess because of my childhood love of sharks I had, I just kept it going.”

The Discovery Channel's Shark Week is in its 29th year, and remains one of the network's most popular attractions, and Romeiro promises that this year's event will not let viewers down.

As a particular highlight, he singles out Tiger Beach, a show that he says will screen "experiments that have never been done with sharks before. That you wouldn't imagine could be done".

For all the excitement – or perhaps because of it – one can’t help wondering whether, now that he is 40, Romeiro might consider giving up the close encounters with the razor-sharp teeth of one of Earth’s most deadly ­predators?

“I’ve never been bitten,” he says. “I’m very careful around sharks. Just avoid the pointy end at the front is my advice. I have photos of me pulling teeth out of a hammerhead I know. It takes a lot of trust and it’s the animal that allows you to do that – you don’t just go up and do it. I’ve got sharks that I’ve known for more than a decade.”

Romeiro admits, however, that however well you think you know these animals, there is always a risk.

“I’ve had scary situations – but I would say every one has been my fault, not the animal’s,” he says. “If I push a camera in a shark’s face and it bites the camera and holds onto it, then there have been situations where I’ve had to swim after them and get it back. I do that.

“One time I thought it was gone, she just swam away until I couldn’t see her anymore. Eventually we swam after her and just found the camera sitting in the sand. That’s the hairiest situation – it’s always people who cause it.”

Shark Week begins on Sunday, August 28 on Discovery Channel, which is available on OSN channel 500. Visit www.osn.com for more details and the full schedule