60 Minutes - Pope Leo's Church, Risk on the Road, What Happened to the Great White Sharks?

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Nearly one year after the election of Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV, Norah O’Donnell speaks with three of the most influential American cardinals in their first joint interview about how Pope Leo’s church has emerged as a voice of moral opposition to the war with Iran and against the crackdown on immigration in the U.S. O’Donnell interviews Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago; Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of Washington, D.C.; and Cardinal Joseph Tobin, Archbishop of Newark, NJ, about the effect Pope Leo is having on the Catholic Church. She also travels to Italy to visit Castel Gandolfo, the 400-year-old papal summer retreat. Continuing the work of his predecessor, Pope Francis, Pope Leo is opening the property up to the world to create opportunities for migrants and the less fortunate. 60 MINUTES investigates a scheme putting us at risk on our roadways - the rise of dangerous commercial trucking fleets called chameleon carriers. Known for flouting federal regulations and racking up safety violations, these often foreign owned and operated networks are four times more likely to be involved in severe crashes. Bill Whitaker reports on one such scheme - Super Ego - a network of commercial trucking and leasing companies that is currently under federal investigation and named in a class action lawsuit. The coastal waters around Cape Town, South Africa had long been a global destination for seeing great white sharks. That was until about ten years ago, when these feared predators began washing up on beaches with their livers missing. Correspondent Anderson Cooper goes to South Africa to investigate a whodunnit that’s fueled a bitter feud among scientists and conservationists who can’t agree on who, or what, is the real culprit. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Don't wait. Visit your local GMC dealer today and make it yours. Pope Leo the 14th is known as deliberate and soft-spoken, but the American Pope has become increasingly outspoken against certain policies of the American president. How far will Pope Leo go? We were surprised by the candor of church leaders who know him. What do you say to people in the pews who say,

I don't want to hear politics from my priest? Thousands of trucking companies are racking up thousands of safety violations for poor maintenance and excessive driving hours, all while evading federal enforcement. They'd have me go out and do anything to get the money, no matter what it is. Tonight, the results of our eight-month investigation into a scheme that may be putting all of us at risk on the road. The ocean off Cape Town South Africa used to be teeming with great white sharks. Each morning, with a little luck, you could catch sight of them flying out of the water. Whoa!

But then they began to disappear. Tonight, a story that has all the hallmarks of a true crime series, with plenty of twists and a surprise suspect. I mean, it is like something out of CSI. It's like you're the detective. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Scott Pelly. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Sharon Alphonse.

I'm John Worthheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Anderson Cooper. Those stories, and in our last minute, the CEO of Google helps us search for answers about a new American revolution. Tonight on 60 Minutes. When President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran this past week, it came after a chorus of world leaders called for an end to the war. One of those voices belonged to Leo the 14th, the first ever U.S.-born Pope in the history of the Catholic Church. The 70-year-old Pope was born Robert Prevost and grew up in Chicago.

For many years, he was known simply as Father Bob. Leo is measured, deliberate, and soft-spoken. But the American Pope has become increasingly outspoken against certain policies of the American president. So we asked three influential American cardinals who know him well why Pope Leo's Church has emerged as a voice of moral opposition to the war in Iran and the crackdown on immigration. Peace be with you. Those were the first words that Pope Leo uttered

as the new leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide. His selection was a surprise, celebrated by many of the 53 million that make Catholicism the largest Christian denomination in the United States. States. What do you think having an American Pope has done for the Catholic Church here in the U.S.? I think it's put Chicago on the map. Finally. We're proud. We're proud that we produce the Pope. Chicago can say that. The Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blaise Supich, as well as Cardinals Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C.,

and Joseph Tobin of Newark, New York, New Jersey. agreed to their first ever joint interview. Their kinder surprised us about the new Pope and what they're hearing in the pews. We're the three American Cardinals that are actively serving dioceses right now. So we listen to a lot of people. It's part of the job description.

And I think we're aware of the anxieties of people about the threats to peace at all different levels. Would you like to see this first American Pope be more outspoken on issues that he disagrees with? He's the pastor of the world. He's not a pundant. So the distinction is he's not going to pronounce on everything, but he's going to pronounce on what's important. War is back in vogue. He started in January with the speech criticizing U.S. military action in Venezuela. After that, the Vatican's embankment. in the U.S. was called to the Pentagon for a meeting, which two church officials described as unpleasant and contentious. Both the Pentagon in the Vatican has said since, in multiple

statements, that it was routine and provided an opportunity for an exchange of ideas. In March, we traveled to Italy and managed to ask Pope Leo a question about the war in Iran. Father, can I ask you what your hopes are from the Middle East? I praying for peace. I hope that ceasefire would be the most effective way to work together, to find peace for all parties, to respect all parties, and to come to a solution, which is too many years in, you know, creating problems for everyone. Work for peace.

Since our visit, the Pope's tone has sharpened. This past week, he issued a rare condemnation. of President Trump's threat to destroy Iranian civilization. The Pope called it, quote, truly unacceptable. He also took the unusual step of issuing a call to action. Contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen, to ask them, tell them to work for peace and to reject war always. The Holy Father usually avoids calling out President Trump by name

or any member of his administration. But in a Palm Sunday homily, he appeared to reference the religious language defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who is Christian but not Catholic, often uses to frame the war. Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. Pope Leo warned that Jesus, quote, does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war. Is this a just war? No. Under Catholic teaching, this is not a just war. Catholic faith teaches us there are certain prerequisites for a just war.

You can't go for a variety of different aims. You have to have a focus aim which is to restore justice and restore peace. That's it. Iran has been the chief exporter of terror. Is there no scenario in which preventing that can be a just war? It's an abominable regime, and it should be removed. But this is a war of choice that we went to, and I think it's embedded in a wider moment in the United States that's worrying, which is this. We're seeing before us the possibility of war after war after war.

President Trump has argued that military action against Iran was justified in order to destroy its nuclear and ballistic. missile programs, among other reasons. Cardinal Supich not only takes issue with the war, but also what he calls the gamification of how the White House has portrayed it on social media. We're dehumanizing the victims of war by turning the suffering of people and the killing of children and our own soldiers into entertainment. You called it sickening. It is, sickening. To splice together movie cuts with actual bombing and targeting of people for the purposes of entertainment is sickening. This is not who we are. We're better than this. We spoke with the Cardinals in the nation's capital. It was a wide-ranging conversation in which

they told us Pope Leo inspired them to weigh in on political issues, including the administration's mass deportation efforts. This past January, Cardinal Tobin, called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, a lawless organization. Cardinal, those are strong words to call ICE a lawless organization. Why did you do that? I didn't say that they were people without law. But when people act in this way, when they have to hide their identities to terrify people, when they can actually violate other guarantees of our Constitution and Bill of Rights,

Well, I think somebody's got to call that out, and I'm not the only one. Colonel McRae, we are speaking in a church here in Washington, D.C. that serves a largely immigrant population. The pastor asked us not to share or publicize this parish name or location. What's he worried about? He's worried for his people. They live under fear, and thus our mass count, within the Spanish masses in our archdiocese went down 30% from the year before.

30%. That's a lot. And it's all fear. Before he became Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Robert McElroy served as the Bishop of San Diego, one of the busiest stretches of the southern border for illegal crossings. I feel it got to a point where it was getting out of control. Under Biden? Under Biden, yes. You believe in strong borders. Yeah.

So what's wrong then with the current policy? This is a roundup of people throughout the country. People who have been living good, strong lives, been here a long time, raised their children here, men of their children born here, and our citizens. That's what our objection is. But this was discussed during the campaign. It was widely discussed. And yet President Trump won the Catholic vote over Kamala

Harris Handley, 55 to 43 percent. He promised to secure the border. He talked about deportation, and a majority of Catholics voted for the policy. I would like to know what Catholics feel about this indiscriminate mass deportation. I think that it's very clear the American people are saying we really didn't vote for this. What do you say to people in the pews who say, I don't want to hear politics from my priest? I say, fine. I want to preach the gospel. God wants us to promote peace in the world because his desire is that we be one human family.

What we're seeing as pastors is an enormous, profound level of human suffering. And that's what motivates us. We found a sign of what motivates Leo and how his church will care for migrants and the less fortunate in a sacred space 15 miles southeast of Rome. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Castel Gandalfo was the villa of a Roman emperor.

For the last 400 years, it has been the Pope's summer home. Leo's predecessor, Pope Francis, enlisted Father Mani Durantes, a priest from Chicago and an immigrant to the U.S. himself to help open it up to the world. I think Pope Leo wants to make the dream of Pope Francis a reality. After we explained the whole vision and talked with him, he said to us, full force ahead, Father Mani. This is the spiritual heart of Borgo-Laudato Sea and this entire space. That vision is an innovative new project centered around migrants and locals in need,

participating in the Vatican's first job training center. They're teaching sustainable farming, gardening and cooking at the same estate where Pope Leo comes to rest every week. How many migrants are you talking about that may be part of this job training program? Between migrants and people and vulnerability, our goal is to be able to at least train about 1,000 people, you know, per year. That doesn't sound like a big number, but ultimately it's a model of how if every church did something like this, every diocese, we have 6,000 of them, you know, that's a lot of people we could train in a year. My name is Ali, I'm the Yamin. I'm from Bangladesh. My name is Nirmin from Syria.

met the first graduating class of chefs in training that included refugees and migrants from around the world. One was a young man from West Africa, who survived the dangerous journey by sea to the Italian island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean, where tens of thousands of migrants have drowned. Pope Leo will spend July 4th in Lampedusa, Italy, a site where tens of thousands of migrants land on their way to Europe every year. It's America's 250th birthday. Do you think the Holy Father is sending a message,

Cardinal, with that visit? He's sending a message that his top priority right now is to be with those who are downcast and marginalized. Coincidence that he's going there on July 4th? I know at least one member of my archdiocese that would be happy, and she's green, and she's on a little island just that belongs to New Jersey, and it's technically part of the Archdiocese of Newark.

And she's holding up a torch, and she's reading from a scroll, and it says, welcome. So far in 2026, the Catholic Church in the U.S. has welcomed the largest number of converts in recent years. In Cardinal Tobin's Archdiocese, there's an all-time high of new people. joining the church. Cardinal Tomin, do you think that surge in interest and attendance has something to do with Pope Leo? Yes, I do. I've had the privilege of working closely with four popes, very different people in a lot of ways.

But each one in some way was the right one for that moment in time. I believe that Pope Leo is the right man at this time. There are my gloves. gloves. Come on heat. Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at voila.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in store. Many promotions are available both in store and online, though some may vary. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that more dangerous.

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Tonight, the results of an eight-month investigation into a dangerous scheme many Americans have never heard of, a scheme that may be putting all of us at risk on the road. Our investigation took us to truck stops in Florida and sources in Europe to examine what are called chameleon carriers, commercial trucking fleets often foreign-owned and operated, that shed one identity for another after racking up flagrant safety violations and flouting federal regulations. Our reporting focused on super-ego holding, a network of commercial trucking and leasing companies based in Serbia and the U.S.

It's currently under federal investigation and named in a class action lawsuit. Regulators and former employees call it one of the most notorious chameleon schemes, a ticking time bomb on our nation's roadways. Camellion carriers are basically a network of companies, and they constantly reincarnate, and the idea is we are revenue-focused. We are going to start this trucking company. We are going to run it into the ground, just make as much money as we possibly can.

Rob Carpenter has been a trucker for 25 years. He now is a trucking safety consultant and has been tracking chameleon companies which have surged since the pandemic. Camelian carriers, as their name suggests, are commercial trucking operations that skirt federal regulations and escape bad safety records

by changing company names to evade detection. And when you move on to the next, you're really doing that to try to abandon the history that you've created with that other trucking company because you've run so poorly in the past year, right? So then you just adopt a new identity and you move on to a new carrier.

Just dissolve that company and just like a new name on the truck and move on. That's right. You can see how easy it is in this undercover video shot by another trucker. Same drivers, same trucks, same bad records, in this case, hundreds of violators. erased with the switch of a carrier name and Department of Transportation number,

the federal ID used to track a carrier's safety history. You've got no violations, you've got no crashes. Things that people are going to look at and scrutinize on whether they're going to let you haul their freight or not don't exist. You're just a clean carrier to them. Networks, often owned and operated from Eastern Europe, India, and Central Asia, set up chameleon carriers in the U.S. with different names and owners, who then register with the Department of Transportation,

secure minimal insurance. And within 21 days, you have a trucking company. That's all it takes. That's all it takes. There's no requirement to own a trucking company that you be an American. You can start it from anywhere in the world. $1,000, pay online,

say you are who you say you are, and you've got a trucking company. Do you have any idea how many of them there are? You've got 700,000 trucking companies. Let's just say the general estimate is 10 to 20% are operating somewhere in that spectrum of chameleon carrier. Thousands of trucking companies. That's mind-blowing.

Yeah. Thousands of trucking companies racking up thousands of safety violations, poor maintenance, excessive driving hours, drug and alcohol use, all while evading federal enforcement. How dangerous is this? We're having crashes all the time, so you've got 260 million other Americans on the highway sharing it with 700,000 trucking companies.

You have a moral ethical responsibility to share the road safely with those people. But when you've got 10 to 20% that are not doing that, that's an issue. An issue that contributed to the more than 5,300 truck-related deaths in 2024. According to data gathered by fusible, a risk assessment firm, chameleon carriers are four times more likely to be involved in a crash like this. The culprit in this case, a tractor trailer tied to a net. network called Super Ego Holding. Its driver was going 72 miles an hour when it plowed into this school bus, critically injuring two children. According to DOT data, chameleon carriers connected to superego

have logged almost 15,000 safety violations and 500 accidents in the last two years. Today, there are only 350 investigators at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA, overseeing all 700,000 trucking companies on our roads. Those numbers just seem out of whack. We are actively trying to find ways that we can do investigations more efficiently, more effectively. Derek Barge took over as administrator of FMCSA in October. This past year, regular. Crackd down on foreign commercial truck drivers and fraudulent commercial driving schools and have vowed to take on

Chameleon Carriers. Do you have the personnel and the resources you need? We have additional 40 investigators that we're trying to hire today. We have a new registration system that we will be rolling out this year. The system we have currently is like 40 years old. I mean, you've got these rogue companies. They rack up tons of safety violations. their federally regulated industry. How is that possible? We have a front door problem,

meaning we need to stop this before they actually get into the system. Are you familiar with the chameleon carrier company Super Ego? Are they on your radar? They're a part of an ongoing investigation. We have prioritized companies who, through our data gathering, that are our top 10 companies that we need to be investigating. We reached out to Super Ego.

Company lawyers told us it's a leasing company, not a trucking firm, and that it's not responsible for the actions of affiliated carriers and drivers. But according to our investigation and court documents, that's not the whole story. Under the Super Ego umbrella that stretches from Serbia to the U.S. is a vast network of separate but coordinated companies that provide brokers who book deliveries, dispatchers, and leases for tractors and trailers. Subsidiaries operate the trucks and higher drivers,

like Daniel Sanchez under lease-to-own contracts. I've seen how much they don't care about you. They literally don't care about any other driver on the road at all. Daniel Sanchez had been driving commercial rigs for eight years when he was recruited by Super Ego in 2025. They'd have me go out and do anything to get the money, no matter what the risk. They don't care if I got a violation or went to jail, whatever, for any reason, the next day they'd have another driver in that truck and keep on going.

Can't be safe for the driver. Can't be safe for us on the road. Anybody. Anybody. Super ego-branded trucks started hauling freight across America seven years ago. It was founded by Serbian entrepreneur Alexander Meemich and has grown into a sprawling enterprise tied to more than two dozen U.S.-based carriers, with hubs in Elmerst, Illinois, and Jacksonville, Florida, and customers as large as Amazon, Walmart, Costco, and the United States Postal Service. Super Ego Holding uses flashy recruitment campaigns...

Get the best deal with Super Ego Holding. To lure drivers, including Daniel Sanchez. They promise you the world. They say you can make $8,000 to $10,000, $12,000 a week. So did Super Ego live up to any of those problems? Not at all. 60 Minutes spoke with seven drivers who told us Serbia-based managers routinely skimmed hundreds to thousands of dollars off their pay in excessive fees for their lease, insurance, and repairs.

The class action lawsuit calls it a scheme to defraud drivers. I was coming home with negative amounts on my check. Negative money. Negative, yeah, it was in the red. I was doing around six to 800 miles a day with that time. And you come home? With zero. Drivers also told us the company would shortchange them by altering delivery contracts or rate cons,

which confirm how much a broker has agreed to pay to move freight. A percentage of that goes to the driver. Court documents show this rate con sheet on the left is the original. This fraudulent one on the right shows a cut of $700, resulting in reduced compensation for the trucker. A practice captured in this call between a dispatcher and a dispatcher. another driver. Can you please send me the other document that the broker sent you? Yeah, I can send you, but why? He told me that he was sending out the rate con for $1,500. And then five minutes later, you call me and telling me I'm getting $300. Do you see what it

looks like from my point of view? And remember that shell game of erasing carrier names and DOT numbers to hide violations, Sanchez says he was told to do that too. How would you physically change the number and the name? They had email you or send you some kind of documentation with a picture of the new name and DOT number. It had me printed out, buy some duct tape, come out, put on the truck. With duct tape? Duck tape, yeah.

Change the name and the number. Yeah, because the new truck at that point. Drivers also told us they were being pressured to drive more hours with less sleep. After they'd already logged 11 hours behind the wheel, the legal limit, managers back in Serbia would illegally reset federally mandated time clocks, as seen in this animation, to give drivers a fresh set of hours, as heard in this call. Delivering 2 p.m. in 24 hours? Yeah, yeah.

That's going to be awful difficult. Yeah, I know, I know, but we can fix your clock. By the push of a button, I guess, somehow, somewhere, they have control of the app where they can just reset your time and just make it go away. You've driven 11 hours. You're required to have the downtime, and they change the device to make it seem as though you have not finished your 11 hours?

Yeah. There's been a time where I drove. I was driving for 18 hours. I told him, I said, I'm done. I'm going to sleep and parking. The text message said, they don't care about that. They're not paying for you to do anything, but use the restroom and drive.

We met this whistleblower, a former employee of a super ego-affiliated company based in Serbia, in an undisclosed European city and altered his appearance for his protection. They are only asking about making money from the driver and they don't take care about safety standards. He confirmed company dispatchers and managers

were told to overwork and extort American drivers like Sanchez at every turn. They train you to do this? Yeah. They explain me that it's normal, a normal thing to do. What have drivers been most upset about? They don't have money to pay bills, they don't have money to eat, they don't have money to pay rent. The dispatchers, do they have any concern for the drivers, any compassion?

They don't have emotions, the job. It's just a job. You squeeze as much money out of this driver as you can. Yeah. It's better to our owner make money than the job. than them. He told us, taking money from drivers became a competition. Lists like this were posted inside his Belgrade office. The more they took, the bigger their bonuses.

During this pay period, the top dispatcher cut nearly $24,000, or 32% from drivers' pay. Any idea how much of the company's profit is earned that way? Some week one million, some week two millions. Per week? Yes. This is a super ego truck right here. Due to a compliance dispute, Daniel Sanchez lost his job in January,

along with his truck and the $35,000 he'd put toward owning it. For me personally, it's crushing because this is my dream. I wanted to own my own own truck. I thought this company was going to give me to where I'm trying to be. They just don't care. You're not a human being for them. You're just a number, basically, for sure that. Super ego holding denies any wrongdoing,

but more than 800 truckers are suing it and affiliated companies for fraud and breach of contract. More of our CBS News investigation into chameleon carriers coming up on Sunday morning. The coastal waters around Cape Town, South Africa, have long teamed with great white sharks. But about 10 years ago, carcasses of these feared predators began washing up on beaches with their livers missing.

Now it's hard to find any great whites. Tonight, a story that has all the hallmarks of a whodunit, one that's fueled a bitter feud among scientists and conservationists who can't agree on who or what is the real culprit. They do agree on one thing. The great white sharks that once cruised these waters are gone. For as long as anyone can remember, the ocean off Cape Town was the best place. in the world to see Great Whites. There were plenty of smaller sharks for them to hunt

and tens of thousands of seals, which lived on a small stretch of rock nearby, called Seal Island. Early each morning, with a little luck, you could catch sight of these majestic predators flying out of the water. Until a little more than a decade ago, Chris Fallows, a photographer and naturalist,

used to see 250 to 300 different great white sharks a year. The images he took back then are amongst the most breathtaking of the natural world. It's a sight you never forget, you know, I still kind of get that tingly feeling to see the most spectacular shark on earth now flying out the water. It was truly incredible to see. We saw that ourselves in 2010, when we reported on the Great Whites here, and the tens of thousands of visitors who came each year for a close encounter in cages. That was really something.

We were taken diving without a cage in water that had been chummed with blood to attract sharks. Immediately, a 15-foot Great White swam straight toward us. Sharks are curious creatures, and they circled us constantly. It was extraordinary to be so close to such a massive predator. That's incredible. It's unbelievable. Wow. You need it?

And I'm so happy to back up. But just a few years after that dive, sightings of sharks here began to dwindle, and the tourists stopped coming. If you went out and did that today, you would see nothing. Why is that? Because the numbers have simply plummeted. Tragically, we have all but lost the Great White Shark.

The disappearance of Great Whites from here mystified scientists. Alison Koch, a marine biologist with South African National Parks, began searching for clues. In 2015, divers sent her these photos of smaller shark carcasses on the sea floor with mysterious incisions in them. It looked so surgical from the photographs that I first assumed it must have been done by somebody with a knife. A fisherman or something? Yes. And it wasn't until the next time it happened that I managed to retrieve some of the carcasses and study them. and I found tooth marks on the pectoral fins of some of the dead sharks.

Those tooth marks suggested the culprits couldn't be human. So Kock and her colleagues went diving for more evidence and encountered an unlikely suspect, orcas, killer whales. We just retrieved one of the carcasses, and my research partner says, Orca! And here comes two orcas, under the boat. in our study area.

It was light bulb. They were feeding right in that area where we just found the carcass. Now what we have is that orcas are a real possibility for being the culprit for these carcasses. Two years later, Great Whites

began washing ashore with their livers missing. What's so tasty about a shark liver? It's the most calorie-dense organ out of the whole body, and it takes up almost a third of the shark's body. So they're not trying to eat the entire shark?

They're just targeting the liver. One two, three. Kock and her colleagues performed necropsies and confirmed orcas were indeed the culprits. They've been in these waters for years, but no one had ever seen one kill a great white here, though they are known to hunt them off California and around Australia. For South Africa, this was completely novel,

because for a long time you go, but white sharks are the apex predators. And this is, I think, why people struggle to sort of believe that this was happening. I mean, it is like something out of CSI. It's like you're the detective. And I feel like a detective, but for a long time, we didn't have all of the pieces of the puzzle. David Hurwitz helped put the puzzle together. He's a whale watching tour operator and was the first person to see two very distinctive male orcas

hunting and killing sharks. He named them Port and Starboard. What was distinctive about them is that both of their dorsal fins were collapsed, which is very unusual. Like collapsed over like that. The one that collapsed to the left, the other one to the right, and being a nautical man, immediately it came to my mind, let's call them Port and Starboard, and that caught on from there. They've become world famous or infamous. Infamous because unlike most Orcas, which hunt in groups,

Ports, Port and Starboard were hunting sharks for their livers as a pair. They're hunting on their own in ways people here have never seen before. I mean, are these like serial killers? They are definitely not serial killers. They're eating the livers. It's like Hannibal Lecture, eating liver with fava beans. I am sanfatuated by Port Starport. You'll never get me to say a bad word against them.

Scientists now believe Port and Starbird might even be teaching other orcas how to hunt down sharks. In 2022, this drone footage captured five orcas working together, stunning and then killing a great white. Here's an orca with this big white shark upside down, biting into the area where the liver is. More recently, single orcas have been seen hunting sharks in South Africa and elsewhere. This National Geographic documentary shows an orca striking a Great White like a torpedo, stunning it, then taking it in its mouth. They're learning. They're learning all the time. I think it's hard for people to kind of understand how smart these animals are.

Koch maintains the presence of these smart hunters, has chased the once dominant Great White's further along the coast, and insists that overall the population of Great Whites in South African waters is stable. The presence of just two orcas, that would drive away hundreds of them? The predator eats the prey, and that has an impact on some of the numbers.

But one of the biggest things with predation is the fear of predation, or the risk of predation, and what we call the landscape of fear. But gazelle don't disappear because a lion is killing some gazelle. They've evolved alongside of their predator. White sharks have not.

White sharks have been the top dog. This was a novel predator for them. They were not used to being predated on burrow and other species. Orcas have been killing white shark for thousands of years. Enrico Gianari is an Italian marine biologist who's been researching great whites in South Africa for 20 years. He doesn't agree with Alison Koch that the population is stable.

The question is not the orcas are pushing white shark away. Same thing happened in California. thing happened in Australia. The question here in Sedevriga, why they're not coming back? In California, orcas have killed great white sharks, but then the great whites came back. Up to six, nine months the white shark left, but they always come back.

Janari and photographer Chris Fallows both agree the numbers of Great Whites plummeted a few years before Port and Starboard began their killing spree. By the time the Great White Sharks had completely disappeared from Sioux Island, we had never once seen port and starboard at Sioux Island. You don't buy this argument that it's these two orcas that have made all the Great Whites here disappear.

I don't buy it one bit. How can you blame somebody that wasn't even on the crime scene? Fallows and Gianari argue humans are ultimately to blame. They've been documenting the impact of commercial fishing boats on smaller shark species that are a staple of the Great Whites diet. The boats lay miles of long lines with thousands of hooks attached on the ocean floor. The sharks they catch are exported to Australia used for cheap fish and chips. Shark long lining is undoubtedly robbing the Great White sharks of food.

It's the primary prey source for the Great Whites when they're not feeding on seals. When you remove the prey, you have a significant impact on the predator. An even bigger impact on Great Whites, Fallows and Janari say, are shark nets and baited hooks attached to buoys, which the South African authorities have used to protect swimmers along the coast since the 1950s. Nets and hooks kill more than 20 great whites a year, along with whatever else gets caught by them. The device are designed to kill and lower the population number. The concept is one less shark, one less chance of an encounter with a human. Genari would like to see South Africa embrace a variety of alternatives to protect swimmers

like underwater magnetic fields which interfere with the sense sharks use for hunting, or increasing the use of smaller mesh nets which create a barrier without entangling marine life. The problem that inside Africa we're only using lethal methods and that is outdated and unsustainable. If you believe that it's these two orcas which have driven away the grey-white population, there's not much humans can do about that. What your argument is, there's actually a lot humans can do with long-line fishing and getting rid of these shark nets. That is something humans can impact.

Absolutely. Let's stop bickering about something we can't control, and let's start focusing on the things that we can control. And if we don't start addressing those factors that we can control, I don't believe there's any hope. In 1991, South Africa was the first country in the world to protect the great white shark. But Enrico Gianari believes those efforts have failed, and now fears it may be the first country to lose them. If we lose the white shark in South Africa, we lose a battle for all nature.

If we can protect even the most charismatic, most protected species on paper in South Africa, What chance the little guys, the other sharks or the other animals have against unsustainable use? Nothing. There's a lot of people watching who may not have a lot of sympathy with great white sharks. Why should somebody care? I think somebody should care in the same way as we never used to have sympathy with whales. You know, we were wiping these animals out to the point of extinction. Great whites are no different.

So even if we don't like the look of the animal, they're incredibly important. for us going forward. With no Great Whites to document, Fallows has shifted his focus to photographing humpback whales. Unbelievable! Since a moratorium on commercial whaling was enacted in the 1980s,

humpbacks have made a remarkable comeback. Does that have anything to do with the Great Whites leaving? No. What it's got 100% to do with is enlightened governments, passionate individuals, showcasing the whales for what they were, were incredibly sentient creatures, having an important role to play in our ocean. Therefore, they became protected, and now their numbers are being allowed to expand naturally. To you, that's an example that conservation efforts can work.

Undoubtedly, it can work. I believe, you know, if we take away pressures on animals, if there are enough of them, they will still rebound. It's called balance. A balanced ocean is a healthy ocean. A healthy ocean is a healthy environment for us. Explore wildlife photographer Chris Fallow's archive. I was very lucky to be in the right position at the right time. At 60 Minutes Overtime.com. The last minute of 60 minutes. The 250th anniversary of American independence coincides with a new revolution, artificial intelligence.

A leader is Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and Alphabet. For 250 years, America. America has led the world in inventing technologies that improve people's lives. AI is the most profound technology yet. And once again, America must take the lead and develop it boldly and responsibly so every American benefits. We already see glimmers of how AI can help, be it researchers working to discover life-saving cures, teachers customizing lesson plans to help students learn, or firefighters, tracking wildfires with greater precision.

Many examples are more personal. My dad is a retired engineer in his 80s. I'll never forget the awe on his face during his first ride in a safe, self-driving car on the streets of San Francisco. It was magical. Of course, with any technology, there are challenges to work through

from investing in workforce training and putting the right regulations in place. Still, I'm optimistic, not because I believe in technology, but because I believe in people and the sheer power of American ingenuity. I'm Anderson Cooper. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.

There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYCs on the media. Want to understand the reason and the meanings of the narratives that led us hear, and maybe how to head them off at the pass?

That's on the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts.