Dirk Schmidt developed a passion for sharks from the early age of 10, by the age of 16 he had compiled his own shark dossier of over 500 pages on apex shark behavior and biology.
Dirk wrote and published 4 nature books including “Surfing the cape of Storms” in 2008, “Great Whites of False Bay” in 2009 – a world first on breaching White sharks, “The Penguins of Boulders” in 2010 – a book on the endangered African Penguin, and late 2011, “WHITE SHARKS – magnificent, mysterious, and misunderstood” published by Jonathan Ball Publishers, which includes some of his award winning photographic images, and which has been reviewed on one of South Africa’s premier nature television channel SABC2’s 50/50.
Currently Dirk is working on a 2nd edition of “WHITE SHARKS – magnificent, mysterious, and misunderstood” to include some of his latest findings and current research on predatory White shark behavior, as well as White shark areas of the USA, Mexico and Australia and marine conservation issues in particular sharks and rays. Both “Surfing the Cape of Storms” and “The Penguins of Boulders” are expected to be re-published as 2nd editions due to popular demand.
Dirk’s first public foray into television was in 2011, for the Discovery Channel – Shark week program, “How sharks hunt – an anatomy of an attack”(aired August 2011) where he consulted as a on-camera expert concerning White shark attack and predatory behavior working with the program hosts, Dave Canterbury and Cody Lundin.
Dirk has held numerous speaking engagements and his work is recognized having contributed significantly to understanding White shark behavior within the scientific and shark community, developing new insights and understandings in shark behavior and attack profiling by many of his peers.
Dirk is a qualified Dive master with over 1,100 dives to his credit. He is also the CEO and founding member of an international consulting company and has earned a Ph.D in Business Management. In 1988, and wrote an acclaimed world-first book on “Credit notes and dysfunctional management”.
As senior partner his position allows him to pursue his passion of writing, photography and marine conservation leading to a number of his books being published.
Besides the above mentioned books, Dirk has also self-published numerous of his own titles on travel, Africa, photography and surfing, and many of his images have been used in various magazines, including the South African National Defense Force quarterly publications (content, front and back covers), House and Home cover , Surfing magazines such as Zig-Zag, local and international newspapers.
