Vineyard Haven, MA – Lewis Pugh follows the implicit rules in his career as one of the world’s most audacious endurance swimmers. Don’t talk about sharks. But he plans to break it this week with a swim around Martha’s vineyard, where “the jaw” was filmed 50 years ago.
Southern England Africa is the first to complete long-distance swimming in every sea in the world, with extreme circumstances everywhere from Mount Everest to the Arctic.
“In this swim, it’s very different. We’re just talking about sharks all the time,” jokes, not wearing a wetsuit as usual.
To swim around Martha’s vineyard in 47 degree water, he wears just trunks, hats and goggles.
Pugh, 55, is taking on the challenge as he wants to change public opinion around current at-risk animals. He said the blockbuster film has been maligned, “as a villain, as a cold-blooded murderer.” He seeks more protection for the shark.
On Thursday, starting at the lighthouse at Edgartown Harbour, he swims for brutally cold surfing for three to four hours, marking his progress and awakening the rest of his life in a vineyard that educates the public about sharks. He then goes into the water and does it again – and again whether it takes him to complete an estimated 12 days, or a 62-mile (100km) swimming.
He begins his journey shortly after New England aquarium confirmed his first white shark sighting of the season earlier this week off the Nantucket coast.
“I’m going to test me not only physically but mentally,” he said. “I’m going to talk about sharks, sharks, sharks every day. And then, eventually, I have to get on the water and go swimming afterwards. I think you can imagine what I’m thinking.”
A world without predators
Pugh said swimming was one of the most difficult things he’d undertaken. This says a lot between people swimming near glaciers and volcanoes, and hippos, crocodiles and polar bears. No one ever swam around Martha’s vineyards.
But Pew, who often swims to raise awareness of environmental causes – and this year he was named the United Nations Patron of the Marines, swimming is riskless and no dramatic measures are needed to convey the message. Approximately 274,000 sharks are killed all over the world every day.
“It’s a film about sharks attacking humans, and for 50 years we’ve been attacking sharks,” he said of “Jaws.” “It’s completely unsustainable. It’s insane. We need to respect them.”
He emphasizes that swimming is not something non-experts should try. He uses a “shark shield” device, accompanied by boat and kayak safety personnel, which uses electric fields to stop sharks without causing any harm.
Pugh remembers feeling terrified like he was watching 16-year-old “Jaws” for the first time. Decades of research and research, adoration and respect replaced his fears as they recognized the role they played in maintaining the increasingly vulnerable ecosystem of the planet.
“I’m making a world without sharks or predators even more frightening,” he said.
“Jaw” effect on sharks
“Jaws” is credited for creating Hollywood’s blockbuster culture when it was released in the summer of 1975, making it the best gross film to that time, and has won three Academy Awards. This will affect the number of people who have seen the ocean over the next decades.
Director Steven Spielberg and writer Peter Benchley have expressed regret over the film’s impact on viewers’ perceptions of sharks. Both have contributed to animal conservation efforts and have seen population depletion due to factors such as overfishing and climate change.
The Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel release programming on sharks every year to educate the public about predators.
Gregskomal, a marine fisheries biologist at Martha’s Vineyard Fisheries within the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Division, said many people told him they weren’t swimming in the ocean yet because of the fear caused by the film.
“I tend to hear the phrase “I haven’t gone into the water since my ‘jaw’ came out,” he said.
But Skomal, who published a book that challenges the film’s inaccuracy, said that “The Jaw” also encourages many people, including him, to study marine biology, leading to increased research, acceptance and respect for living things.
If a “jaw” was made today, he doesn’t think it has the same effect. But in the 1970s, “It was perfect in that we generally produce this level of fear, as we are not educated about sharks. Scientists didn’t know much about them.”
Skomal said the biggest threat to the current shark population decline was commercial fishing, which exploded in the late 1970s, and is driven by the high demand for fin and meat used in food dishes today, and the use of skin to make leather, oil and cartilage for cosmetics.
“I think we really left this feeling, or the old adage that ‘the only good shark is a dead shark’,” he said. “We’re definitely transforming from fear into charm, or perhaps a combination of both.”
