What made Jaws such an effective thriller? Natural Histories is a new series about our relationships with the natural world. There is no denying though that Jaws touched something deep in our psyche. As the streamlined shape of the shark rocketed upwards to grab yet another victim, so our fear of sharks surfaced. It is no surprise that we love to feel frightened by creatures like sharks and peer out between fingers over our eyes at movies like Jaws.
We are "prone to weave stories and fables and chatter endlessly about them, because fascination creates preparedness, and preparedness, survival - in a deeply tribal way, we love our monsters".
In reality, some large shark species certainly do attack humans - about 10 people a year are killed, usually by great white, bull and tiger sharks. Rarely though are the victims actually eaten - often they die from trauma.
There are two common reasons cited for attacks. Firstly, sharks mistake swimmers for their usual prey such as seals, especially if they thrash about in water and wear shiny objects that resemble fish skin.
Secondly, sharks take an exploratory bite to see if we are suitable food and when they discover we are puny fare, we are spat out. Some researchers take issue with this however - a shark's vision is too good and its sense of smell too sophisticated to confuse us with a seal, argue RA Martin, Neil Hammerschlag, and Ralph Collier from the ReefQuest Center for Shark Research.
These are supreme ocean predators and are highly unlikely to make clumsy and possibly costly mistakes. Sharks also have senses not available to most other animals. Pressure-sensitive pores scattered over their head and down the body mean they detect the slightest changes in pressure, enabling them to discern the smallest of movements even when other senses are restricted - such as their sight in murky water.
Sharks also possess sophisticated electroreceptors which help them hone in on the tiny electrical fields present around all living things, even creatures buried in sand. The U. By the s, wariness of sharks started to makes its way into civilian culture. Shark scares would rattle the public and lead to a burst of media attention. Then, in the s, the image of the killer shark was cemented in the popular consciousness with the release of Jaws , first as a bestselling book, then a year later as a film.
Privacy Policy Contact Us You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message. But the intense fear his story generated has led to real-world consequences. At least one positive side effect of Jaws is the surge of scientific interest it inspired. Sharks, once mysterious, are now heavily studied. Join our new membership program on Patreon today. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students.
By: Jess Romeo. August 14, August 9, It has to be done by something else. The third phase is the feeling that if we shuffle it under the rug, maybe it will disappear. The fourth phase is realizing that none of those things are working and that we probably need to go kill some sharks.
The phases they went through in New Jersey were the same. These days, there is more of a level view of sharks. Back then, this was brand-new and terror-driven. What were some of the theories? It must be a sea turtle. Someone suggested it was a school of turtles that was coming in and biting things. A killer whale was suggested as well. The theories abounded and were allowed to get out unchecked into the media simply because there was not a forceful scientific authority that really knew what was going on to step right in and try to level the conversation.
He knew something about sharks. Then, there was the director of the New York Aquarium, Charles Haskins Townsend, who was a good ichthyologist as well.
He knew his sharks and dealt with them in an aquarium. Robert Cushman Murphy, another American Museum of Natural History guy, was working with sharks in Long Island and knew something about what sharks were there and when.
They very accurately portrayed the suite of species that were found in the area. They knew some of the timing of when the species appeared. So, they went through the checklist the same way I did, frankly, with a bunch of media calling me about the recent Cape Cod attack. I said, look, here are basically the four species you are likely to see in this area. These two species are basically offshore species, and they only occasionally will wander into near-shore waters. You can probably eliminate those two.
This one here is a ground shark that lives on the bottom and is not known to attack humans. We can probably eliminate that one. That means that your most logical one is this species. They were doing that same kind of thing. One of them suggested that the white shark was the most likely candidate based on his knowledge of the sharks of the area and the habits of the shark.
Very poor. Back in those days, sharks were basically unknown. There was little known about what was going on in terms of their movement patterns and their ecology. There were a lot of preconceptions out there that were quite erroneous, particularly in the public sector where the only source of information was anecdotal stories, newspapers and books, which usually portrayed the sharks in a negative way.
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