Page 16 - Port Douglas Magazine 45

global science.

FROM PORT DOUGLAS IT BEGAN WITH TAIL-ROPING SHARKS, not from the deck
of a commercial fishing vessel, but underwater and bare-
handed. In the 1990s, off the coast of Port Douglas, a young
marine biologist named Richard Fitzpatrick was tagging sharks
TO PLANET EARTH: without hooks, aiming to cause minimal stress or harm to the
animal.
He was aboard the Undersea Explorer, a research and
ecotourism vessel helmed by the late John Rumney, a
Richard Fitzpatrick, renowned conservationist and pioneer of sustainable tourism
on the Great Barrier Reef. In those early days at Osprey Reef,
Filming Sharks and Protecting Oceans one of the Coral Sea’s most pristine dive sites, Fitzpatrick’s
passion for marine science soon merged with a growing talent:
capturing the underwater world on camera. entrepreneur Bevan Slattery. Both organisations are based at
the James Cook University Cairns facility, where Fitzpatrick
Fast-forward three decades, and Fitzpatrick is now one of the also works as an Adjunct Research Fellow. He has filmed
world’s most respected underwater cinematographers. An over 150 major documentaries for leading networks including
WORDS by Maura Mancini Emmy Award winner, he is the co-founder of both Biopixel and National Geographic, the BBC, Discovery Channel, Netflix, and
the Biopixel Ocean Foundation, together with Queensland IT Disney.