16. The release of Jaws gives sharks a bad name.
Nothing in recent times has shaped the common understanding of sharks quite like the movie Jaws. Released in the summer of 1975, it convinced millions that it wasn’t safe to go into the water. And, while it made a fortune for the movie studio bosses and entertained massive audiences around the world, according to experts, it led to great white sharks getting an unfair – and inaccurate – reputation as bloodthirsty man eaters.
The movie, which was based on a novel by Peter Benchley, was partly inspired by the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks. Like those real-life attacks, the movie featured a great white shark. However, for artistic purposes, a number of changes were made. Above all, the Spielberg blockbuster featured a shark that was far bigger than any real-life beast. What’s more, the fictional Jaws was even shown to be motivated by revenge. Plus, rather than biting its victims and leaving them to bleed to death, as is the case in real life, this giant great white ate them whole.
According to marine scientists, Jaws was a major turning point in human-shark relations. The movie led to a massive rise in sharks being hunted for sport. Some studies found that shark numbers fell by as much as 60 per cent in the waters off the east coast of the United States in the years following the movie’s release. What’s more, any sympathy people might have felt for the animals quickly disappeared, dealing a huge blow for global conservation efforts. The damage would take years to repair. Only relatively recently, in fact, have the wider public come to understand that sharks only rarely attack humans, and that fatal attacks are extremely rare indeed.