Newsflash: Not the return of 'Jaws'

Posted by suzannah | Monday, July 14, 2008 at 1:34pm
da da. da da. da da da da da da da da DA DAAA! [Jaws theme]

Oh, sharks. When will you stop being terrifying?

Late last week, police charged a man with disorderly conduct for saying he spotted two great whites off the beach of Martha's Vineyard - the selfsame spot where movie-monster Jaws hunted humans in 1974.

Too bad the man's sighting was fabricated, and cleared the beaches for no reason. While the Jaws mythos is still going strong, your chance of being killed by a shark is one in 264 million.

Categories: Marine Life | Keywords: da da, da da da da da da da DA DAAAA!, jaws, martha's vineyard, scary stuff, shark myths, sharks

More on sharks

On July 14th, 2008 Anonymous said:

harbor and gray seals often frequent nearby sandbars and local fisherman have spotted great whites off the island's west coast.

I don't think the sharks are going to go after men, but lest we forget what happens when man becomes too comfortable around wild animals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Treadwell

I think the point is not

On July 14th, 2008 suzannah said:

I think the point is not that great whites can't live off the Eastern seaboard, but that it's irresponsible to claim to spot great white sharks just to start a panic.

Timothy Treadwell was a special case, that's for sure, a very unusual guy. But Rob Stewart spent many hours filming sharks for his movie Sharkwater and was never threatened by them. They're not naturally drawn to humans as prey.

Suzannah is Oceana's publications editor.