Discovery’s 2024 Shark Week slate is an exciting blend of new documentary programming and returning favorites like Alien Sharks: Ghosts of Japan. With each iteration, Alien Sharks continues to introduce viewers to some of the weirdest and most unique sharks on the planet, and heading to Japan has allowed the series to go bigger than ever. Japan is home to a huge variety of shark species, and Alien Sharks: Ghosts of Japan showcases many as it focuses on the hunt for one in particular—the Japanese angelshark.

Wildlife biologist Forrest Galante returns to host Alien Sharks: Ghost of Japan, leading the search for the elusive fish by strapping on SCUBA gear and exploring Japanese waters himself. Of course, he had help, enlisting local fishers and scientist Christine de Silva to aid in his quest. While searching for the angelshark, Galante and his team found themselves in the middle of multiple unforgettable moments like a shark birth and what could be a first-ever behavior observation of a rare species.

Speaking with Screen Rant tied to the release of this latest entry in the field of shark documentaries, Forrest Galante reflected on the process of making Alien Sharks: Ghost of Japan. He detailed the surprisingly long time it took to make the special and explained why Japan was a dream location as a biologist. The adventurer also revealed his favorite moments from making the special and dished on his plans for watching the premiere.

Forrest Galante Talks Going To His “Bucket List” Destination Of Japan

Screen Rant: I loved that this was set in Japan, and we got to see all the unique species there, and how beautiful Mt. Fuji and Suruga Bay are. I know you’re all over the world all the time, but how was this experience for you?

Forrest Galante: Japan has been high up on my bucket list for years and years. I was absolutely thrilled to go there, and not for the regular reasons of sushi, tech travel and all the things that come with Japan, but for the fact that Japan has the highest level of sharp endemism in the world, meaning species that occur there and nowhere else on the planet.

This trip was actually six years in the planning. We’ve been working on this with people in Japan for six years. [For] most Shark Weeks, it’s like [you] come up with the idea in August, sell it in September, shoot it in January, and deliver it in June. This has been a six-year program for us.

Discovery’s going to hate that I’m telling you this, but we started a joke at the beginning of the show. We said, “Every time we manage to sneak Mount Fuji into the show, everybody’s got to take a shot when we do the premiere party.” I’ve been working with the same group of guys for 10 years—my wife calls it “the traveling fraternity”—but every time I looked at them, they were trying to frame Mount Fuji with their cameras, knowing how the premiere party is going to go. So, there was a lot of Mount Fuji, that’s for sure.

Fishers & Other Hunters Can Be Crucial In Locating Endangered Species

It was interesting to see that you were collaborating with fishers to find this shark who has been overfished. How often in your line of work do you end up working with people who may not share your goals?

Forrest Galante: Yeah, well, you have to. The reality is that the best scientists globally for any species [that is] critically endangered or on the edge of extinction are observational scientists. [they’re] people that interact with, look for, and oftentimes target to kill the animal in question.

I can go talk to the world’s leading angelshark expert in some office in Tokyo or San Francisco or whatever, and the reality is that that person is going to have a fraction of the experience and knowledge of the species as the person that targets them to kill them every single day because [that person is] in the field looking for them.

What’s maybe misrepresented is, we don’t have a different goal. At the end of the day we have the same goal, which is for that species to persist, [though] for different reasons. His is so that they can target them and kill them and eat them. Mine is so that I can see them thrive in the ecosystem and be healthy. Regardless, we actually have the same goal, myself and the fisherman, which is to see that species and continue to exist.

While I don’t agree with longline fishing or trawling, or overharvest, or any of that, collaborating with those people who actually know where the animals are, target them, and work to capture them is the only way that I’m going to succeed. There is no way that I can go in there and be like, “I’ll figure this out without talking to people who have spent their life targeting them.”

Galante Details How Data From Shows Like This Goes On To Help Conservation

Let’s say you find a species that you’re looking for. What is the next step in terms of making sure that it thrives?

Forrest Galante: That always depends on the situation. I used to, in my early days, try and get massively involved with the ongoing conservation of the species that we target and find. It’s not realistic or possible to really do that sitting in my office in Santa Barbara, California while the species is in Japan and I have no control over it. So, what we do—and this obviously didn’t make the show—is take the data and hand it over to local in-country scientists and conservationists who are much more capable than I am.

I’m really just like your mercenary. It’s like, “Come in, find the thing, do what you need with it,” and then I hand that information off to in-country scientists, specialists, and conservationists who then go, “Okay, how do we work to make legislative change? How do we work to protect an area? How do we work to conserve this species? What are the fishing practices that need to change?”

So, I don’t have much of a role in the ongoing conservation, to be honest. But without that catalyst of finding it, documenting it, and collecting data from it, conservation can never begin. It sounds arrogant and silly, but I just come in as that hide-and-seek champion and go, “Let me find your critter for you,” and then hand it off.

On Stumbling Into A Shark Orgy & Other Favorite Moments

Do you have a favorite moment from the filming of this?

Forrest Galante: It maybe didn’t come across on camera as spectacular as it was, but being in that orgy of houndsharks. They were all just all over, they’re rubbing, they’re mating, and they’re nipping me on the head… we did the ‘70s porn music in there in there to try and sell it and make it more fun, but that moment was so awe-inspiring. I was just surrounded by sharks. They were rubbing against me, there were red stingrays getting involved—it was crazy what was going on there. There’s so much in the show that maybe that doesn’t stand out to your average person, but that was really spectacular.

The other thing was the shark birth. The sharks were giving birth, literally, in my hands. If you had asked me to list a million things I would do with sharks in my life, I wouldn’t have listed “Become a shark midwife.” That never would have made the list. I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it. It wasn’t until after the fact that it hit me how special and unique that moment was, but when it did, I was like, “Holy crap. We just birthed a bunch of sharks.” That was pretty mind-blowing in hindsight.

Galante Teases The Future Of Alien Sharks

Is there anywhere you know you want to take Alien Sharks next?

Forrest Galante: Always. There are always plans. My specialty is not the big tiger sharks and big great white sharks that leap out of the water that everybody else does. Mine is trying to bring exposure and media to the underrepresented, incredibly cool, and unique species. In order to do that, I have to go to places with super high levels of diversity and endemism. California, where I live, is one of them. Australia is another one—South Australia has an incredible variety of sharks that are massively underrepresented in the media. And the list goes on. I won’t give away too many, but I’ve got many, many plans for the future of this franchise.

About Alien Sharks: Ghosts Of Japan

Japan’s waters are home to the largest diversity of shark species on the planet, most of which take otherworldly forms. Wildlife biologist Forrest Galante, along with deep-sea marine scientist Christina de Silva and deep-water surveyors, track down and study these alien sharks in their mission to uncover whether the critically endangered Angel Shark remains in Japan’s waters. Along the way, Forrest will uncover 17 different and unique species and witness the births of little-known Velvet Dogfish sharks.

Check back for our other Shark Week 2024 interviews:

• Tom Hird for 6000lb. Shark
• Paul de Gelder for Great White Serial Killer: Sea of Blood and Sydney Harbor Shark Invasion