Duunnn dunnn... duuuunnnn duun... duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun—
This familiar tune is known to many as the "Jaws" theme: a shark infested jingle that will forever spark fear in the minds of people at the beach, in the ocean, or — if they’re like me — in the pool. Throughout the years, sharks have developed an infamous reputation, but how did sharks gain such a negative persona without scientific evidence to back it up?
Before I transferred to Middle Tennessee State University to pursue my passion for theatre, I was a student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh studying zoology. At the time, my main focus was on sharks, and my end goal was to expand upon what I had assumed would be a well-developed research platform. In my second semester of freshman year, I began researching sources on shark behavior, and to my astonishment I learned that there were only three papers written about shark behavior in my university’s library database. In reading those articles, I learned that most of the conclusions to those papers were studded with the phrases “it is still unknown” or “no research available".
With little to no research on shark behavior in scientific journals, how can society sum them up as man-eating predators? It’s simple. Almost all of the research about sharks isn’t drawn from their demeanor, but from shark attacks. Media platforms like movies, TV shows, and the news have created a sort of cloak, shrouding these animals in a negative light. Movies like, "Jaws," "The Shallows," and "The Reef" have instilled fear in their viewers — viewers who describe these animals as dangerous, menacing, ruthless, frightening, and frenzied.
William Winram, a free diver and shark researcher, uses different words to describe these predators, such as shy, large, curious, alert, and cautious. Winram has been diving with sharks for over 15 years. In his experience he has never been “attacked” by any shark. He even states, “[Great white sharks] are always so difficult to work with because they are so shy.”
Education about sharks is severely lacking in our society. Most school curriculums barely touch on marine wildlife at all, and even then, the majority of that time is spent on small or microscopic ocean organisms. Due to this lack of knowledge, 90 percent of large species of sharks have been killed through poaching without protest. Upwards of 273 million sharks per year are killed by humans. They are taken out of the ocean, piled onto the deck of a ship, and carted back to shore to be counted, where their fins are cut off and sent to be dried and sold to make soup. As if this wasn't brutal enough, it wasn't until 2010 that a law was passed making it illegal to simply throw the de-finned sharks back in the ocean to suffocate.
With the amount of neglect and ruthlessness these animals face from humans, it would seem that people are the true predator and sharks the victim. Shark conservation is pushed aside by the public because they fear them, but these beasts maintain the balance of the ocean’s ecosystem. Without them ocean diversity would diminish, and the number of injured and sick fish would increase, spreading disease like wildfire.
So how can we as students create lasting change in a society that is so dead-set on using fear and mass hysteria to generate revenue? One way you can get involved is to educate yourself on actual shark behavior, not what you've seen in movies or on TV, ridding the world of a negative social construct that the media has built. Speak out against poaching. Find a conservation team, such as WildAid's SharkSavers, and help their efforts by sharing their mission on social media or donating time and money.
Sharks are just as curious as kittens, and we do not cut off their limbs and make soup...yet.
