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Posted: |
Feb 1, 2017 - 7:54 AM
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By: |
ryanpaquet
(Member)
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Toronto filmmaker and conservationist Rob Stewart is missing after a Tuesday night dive off the coast of Florida.
The U.S. Coast Guard is on the scene Wednesday morning to search for Stewart, who vanished while diving near Islamorada in the Florida Keys, a chain of islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, located nearly 200 kilometres off the state's southern tip.
Stewart, best known for his 2006 documentary Sharkwater — an examination of global shark-hunting and its impact on the ocean ecosystem — was active in underwater filming.
Jeremy Weaver, senior chief of the U.S. Coast Guard, told CBC Toronto that additional teams are assembling to search for Stewart at sunrise. A helicopter from Miami, a boat and a team of divers are involved in the search.
Weaver said Stewart was with three other divers when he went missing, but the three are safe.
GFX Map: Islamorado, Florida
Not clear why Stewart disappeared
"They were diving on a wreck off of Islamorada," Weaver said.
Stewart "resurfaced at the end of the dive, and as the boat was turning around to pick him up, he went back under — and was not seen again."
It's not immediately clear what caused Stewart to go back underwater.
Weaver said weather conditions were good at the time of the dive early last night.
Stewart's films have won dozens of awards
Sharkwater premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has since won more than 40 awards at film festivals around the world.
¦Filmmaker Rob Stewart on his book Save the Humans
His second film, Revolution, was the highest-grossing Canadian documentary in 2013 and won 19 awards from global film festivals.
Stewart was born and raised in Toronto, and studied biology at Western University in London, Ont.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/rob-stewart-missing-1.3961210
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