Body of Acclaimed ‘Sharkwater’ Director Found Off Florida Coast

The Key Largo Fire Department has found the body of acclaimed director and conservationist Rob Stewart.

Stewart went missing on Tuesday around 5 PM while doing a deep dive off the south Florida coast during the filming of Sharkwater: Extinction. According to the Florida Keys News, two Coast Guard helicopters, agency airplanes and several boats were used to find Stewart. His family had also raised $180,000 to aid in the search. The Coast Guard called off the search earlier today shortly before Stewart's body was found.

The director and a small team were diving the shipwreck Queen of Nassau which is in 225 feet of water. The 37-year-old apparently surfaced at the end of the dive and gave an OK signal to the dive boat but disappeared while the boat was helping another diver.

Stewart's body was reportedly found about 300 feet from his last known position and at a depth of 220 feet.

The Sharkwater website posted a memorial to the director shortly after news broke of his death. "Rob has been found, peacefully in the ocean," it reads. "There are no words. We are so deeply grateful to everyone who helped search, and happy that Rob passed while doing what he loved."

Paul Watson, of Sea Shepherd fame, told the Globe and Mail that he believed it was the use of a rebreather which may have caused the disappearance. Rebreathers recycle the carbon dioxide of the diver's breath which allows them to be underwater with no bubbles—so they won't scare the sharks. Watson said the problem with these devices is the carbon dioxide, which can cause the user to suddenly pass out.

"As the boat crew pulled the one diver from the water, they turned to retrieve Rob but he was no longer in sight - he had surfaced, so the boat crew thought that he passed out as well, and floated off," he wrote in a social media post.

Stewart, best known for his film Sharkwater, is a longtime activist and conservationist who spent a good deal of his life in the water. According to the biography on his website, Stewart, who was born and raised in Toronto, started doing underwater photography at 13 and worked as a diving instructor at 18.

Sharkwater followed Stewart on a journey to document and expose the hunting of sharks for shark-fin soup. Upon its release the film was met with acclaim and won numerous awards. His latest film was a follow up to Sharkwater but focused on why so many dead sharks are unaccounted for.

"As many as 150 million sharks are killed every year and scientists can only account for 70 million of them," Stewart said in the project's IndieGoGo video. "There are 80 million sharks a year that are being killed and no one knows why or where they're going but we've figured this out. If we bring this to the public, things will change."

In a statement, the Stewart family say they are working to honour Robert's memory and have asked for "private time to grieve."

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Lead photo by Veruschka Matchett via Shark Water production gallery.