Talking Truth About Sharks

As I spend more and more time learning about the aquarium, one of the things I notice is how important education is to conservation efforts. The first thing every visitor asks during feeding time at the Great Ocean Tank is "why don't the sharks bite the divers."

While I think that most people have a lingering sense that not all sharks are possessed of a Jaws-esque blood lust, that demonizing fear is still the cultural default. That default is inaccurate and it may have real consequences for conservation efforts.

Christopher Chin, a data analyst, diving expert and founder of the The Center for Oceanic Awareness, Research, and Education, makes an excellent point about a recent shark death in the Bahamas in this article on Deeper Blue:

This event was a terrible, but freak accident. Roughly 40 people die each year in parachuting accidents in the US alone. An equal number die in skiing accidents, again, just in the US. In 2007, there was only ONE shark related fatality... worldwide. Yet, we managed to kill more than 100 million of them.

This leaves me wondering, how can we continue to talk about sharks in a way that explores their predatory attributes without demonizing them as a species? The current meme of "sharks the wolves of the sea, but not very many kill people," doesn't seem to be working.