Death metal used by Australian divers to attract great white sharks

An Australian tour operator has been filmed attracting great white sharks to his boat by blasting death metal through underwater speakers.

A Discovery Channel crew filming for the Shark Week show Bride of Jaws watched as the huge sharks were seduced by the sound of American hardcore band Darkest Hour.

Tour operator, Matt Walller, who owns Adventure Bay Charters in South Australia's Neptune Bay, was inspired by dive operators on Guadalupe Island, off the Baja Coast in Mexico, who monitored shark behaviour after playing music underwater.

"Sharks don't have ears, they don't have long hair, and they don't head bang past the cage doing the air guitar," he told Australian Geographic.

During the documentary, Waller is videoed playing death metal through a military grade speaker which he says "appeals to two key senses in the shark.

"It appeals to both the internal ears that they have and the ability to pick up low frequency vibrations which they pick up through their lateral lines," he said.

"This could just be our secret weapon."

Great white sharks averages at around 15 ft in length, but some have been recorded as large as 20 ft long weighing up to 2250 kg.

They live in temperate waters all over the world and are currently on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list.

After submerging a speaker into the sea the crew films as two sharks, one 12ft and another over 14ft, swim right up to the cage nudging the metal bars with their heads.

According to the Discovery Channel sharks can effectively 'hear' by picking up vibrations from receptors on their bodies.

The low-frequency vibrations gives them an acute sense of where the sound is coming from and allows them to hone in on their prey, with metal music apparently sounding like struggling fish.

The new method of luring the great whites could also be more environmentally friendly by reducing the amount of fish parts, bones and blood, currently used to attract sharks for tourists.

It is also thought that by reducing the amount of dead fish they give to sharks less reason to come close to the shore looking for food, hopefully leading to less shark attacks.