How Jaws Wreaked Havoc on Marine Conservation
Jaws was one of Hollywood's first viral summer blockbusters—a global, collective event from the moment it opened in theaters exactly 50 years ago this week. To mark the date on June 20, Steven Spielberg has filmed a new introduction to the movie, which will have a summer run in theaters.
Millions born long after the movie last disappeared from big screens still know the plot of the 1975 thriller: A terrifying great white shark attacks fun-loving beach-goers, sets off a panic, and is hunted down by a local sports fisherman. The iconic line 'don't go into the water,' seemed to live on in memory for years.
A half-century on, ocean advocates lament the impact the film had on the public's view of sharks. Among its fiercest critics is endurance swimmer and U.N. patron of the oceans, Lewis Pugh. Raised in Plymouth, U.K. and Cape Town, South Africa, Pugh gained fame for his long-distance swim across the icy Geographic North Pole in 2007 without a wetsuit. He has also swum the Antarctic sea, and over long distances in every ocean in the world—including last month in the waters around Martha's Vineyard where Jaws was filmed.
Speaking to TIME at the June U.N. Oceans Conference in Nice, Pugh says the world is still suffering the aftereffects of Jaws. Environmentalists say the film led to the wide destruction of shark populations, and that it instilled fear in many about swimming in the sea, markedly setting back the cause of ocean conservation for generations and inspiring a rise in shark trophy hunters.
For the past few years, Spielberg, now 78, has expressed remorse over Jaws —even though it sealed his major-league status as a director, while he was still in his 20s. 'I regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and film,' he told the BBC in 2022. 'I truly and to this day regret that.'
Far from Hollywood, on a dockside in Nice, while politicians holed up in the U.N. conference debating how to save the oceans, Pugh spoke about the film's impact, and how to rewrite the story of sharks.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TIME: The movie Jaws really portrayed sharks as villains.
Pugh: It turned them into monsters. And they are nothing of the sort. They are essential to a healthy ecosystem. They are like the lions of the savannah. Imagine taking out all the lions in Africa. Very soon the wildebeest, the zebra, the impala, everything would be overgrazed, and there would be no food. There would be an ecological collapse. It's the same with sharks.
How are you marking the 50 th anniversary of the movie?
I went to Martha's Vineyard, which is where it was filmed, and did the first unassisted swim [without a wetsuit or goggles] around the island. It was to me [about] introducing sharks to a new generation. I swam around Martha's Vineyard over 12 days. It's a big island, it's just over 100 kilometers, or about 60 miles.
I've been swimming for 40 years, and Martha's Vineyard turned out to be the toughest swim of my life. We suddenly went into a 10-day storm. Martha's Vineyard is incredibly exposed to the North Atlantic. It's out on Cape Cod. We had 10 days of really, really bad weather. Some days I went literally just one mile in the right direction.
It became very, very challenging to just keep calm and carry on. It would be calm, then I'd go over some sea grass which was black and whipping around.
Nature can be very, very tough.
Steven Spielberg seems to now regret Jaws.
He expressed regret on the British radio show 'Desert Island Discs.'
Has there ever been a movie that's been more detrimental to the environment? And also: It terrified swimmers and ocean-goers for a generation—actually more than a generation now. It had a very significant impact.
What's the story we need to tell instead?
We really do need to change that narrative about sharks. They are incredible animals. They've survived five mass extinctions. They are older than the dinosaurs. They are incredible, they are essential, and they are really threatened.
I always tell people these numbers:
First, 50: It's been 50 years, and we now need a new narrative for the next 50. The second one is 274,000: That's the number of sharks that are killed on average globally every day by commercial fishing.
How is that possible?
It's a number that is so deeply shocking. The other great threat to sharks other than commercial fishing is indifference. People believe sharks don't matter. They do matter. You take out all the sharks and you will have a watery desert.
The third number is: If you multiply 274,000 sharks killed a day, it's about 100 million a year. If that is not ecocide, I don't know what is.
Why are they being killed on such a giant scale?
[Many] kill sharks for their fins or for food, or they're killed while they are trying to catch something like tuna in nets.
What fish do you eat?
I don't eat fish. I don't any seafood. I eat a little bit of chicken. Look at what's happening to the fish populations around the world...
What if the fish are farmed?
I would want to know where the food is coming from that the fish are fed. There's this extraordinary situation where to farm salmon you need large amounts of anchovies and sardines to feed the salmon. In my view a lot of it is done very unsustainably.
The numbers are shocking: It takes 10 times the sardines in order to get one kilogram of salmon. [The industry says the ratio is closer to 1.7 kilos of wild-fish feed for a kilo of salmon] You are hoovering up the ocean in order to get a product which is higher up the value chain to sell to people in America or Europe.
It's a very personal choice what you eat. What I've learned is when you tell people what to eat, very, very quickly you divide people. But our oceans have been so overfished, and we're sitting here right now on a sea, the Mediterranean, which is one of the most overfished in the world.
Are you hopeful that leaders will work together to protect the oceans?
You've got to be very careful about hope. It can be an abdication of responsibility, a feeling that some other countries are overfishing, that some countries are damaging the environment, that someone is going to come up with some magical solution.
You have to earn hope, by taking action every single day. We've got to face reality head on. The stability we have had with our climate for the past 12,000 years has now ended. I see that because I'm in the ocean. I'm in the Antarctic frequently.
What do you think these politicians could be doing?
The leaders have got a very important responsibility. The decision whether to take action now, or not to take action, will impact every person on this planet, and the whole of the animal kingdom. It's a very big responsibility.
The big changes I'm seeing from 40 years in the ocean: The impact of the climate crisis. I swim a lot in the Arctic and the Antarctic and see the ice melting so quickly. Ice is essential for the health of the planet, keeping it in a temperature we can live in.
I swam the length of the English Channel for 49 days. I saw a few dolphins, one shark, sea birds, and nothing else. And I had my head in the water for 49 days! What I did see is lots and lots and lots of jellyfish. That is a sign of warming water.
The last thing I'm seeing is plastic pollution—everywhere, even places where humans have never been, like in Antarctica or high up in the Arctic. There's the conveyor belt of currents taking plastic from a beach in Florida, into the north Atlantic high up into the Arctic.
Is there a sense of urgency among governments?
No. If there was a sense of urgency they wouldn't speak about preserving 30% of the oceans by 2030, which is what all the nations have agreed. And in order for that to become international law 60 nations have to ratify it into law.
It's underwhelming. And it shows that they don't understand the scale and the speed of the crisis coming at us.
We've been focused on every single other crisis. The environment always gets kicked down the line. Nature won't wait until you have time to negotiate deals.
So why did the U.N. call the global oceans conference this month?
It's important. You have governments, you have NGOs, you have business, you have scientists, coming together. They need to knock their heads together and find solutions. The ocean impacts all of us. You can't be isolationist when it comes to oceans.
Is it important that the U.S. has taken itself out of the process?
It's extremely important. They have an enormous coastline. They have enormous influence in the world. As I say, you can't be isolationist when it comes to the environment, and believe you can look after your own waters and you'll be fine. No, it doesn't happen like that.
Americans have added so much over the years to the debate. It's better to be in the room and share your thoughts, than not being in the room.
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