In ancient times, Pliny The Elder described the canis marinus (shark) in his Natural History as “just as afraid of man as man is of it”. In fact, even the name he uses to describe the animal has a much different meaning than the term ‘shark’ that is used today. Canis marinus translates to ‘dog of the sea’ and was the primary word used in Europe for sharks throughout the Middle Ages. Using the term ‘dog’ suggests this beast is common and familiar, it was not until the sixteenth century when new words emerged to describe sharks in European languages: in Spanish, tiburón; in French, requin; and in English, shark that the connotations of ‘dog’ were discarded, allowing sharks to be reimagined as terrible monsters of the deep.
So how did we go from associating sharks with this:
To this:
It was not until 1916 that sharks became known as 'man-eaters'
On July 1, 1916 Charles Vansant, a 25 year old vacationing with his family in
New Haven, went for a swim accompanied by his red Chesapeake Bay retriever. “As Charles swam toward shore, a
bystander on the beach noticed something odd. A dark fin appeared in the water
behind the young man… Someone on the beach cried across the waves, ‘Watch out! Watch
out!’… The great jaws rose from the water, a white protective membrane rolled
over the eyes, fifty triangular teeth closed with more than six tons of
pressure per square inch, and the man and fish splashed in the spreading pool
of blood”. Charles was pulled from the
water by a lifeguard, but at 6:45pm, he died
of shock and hemorrhaging.
On July 6th, 25 years old Charles Bruder, the bell captain of
the Essex and Sussex Hotel in Spring Lake, was attacked by the predator and lost large
portions of both his legs and died of severe
blood loss.
On July 12th, 11-year-old Lester Stilwell was attacked and
killed by the shark while swimming in Matawan Creek with some other boys. Lester was believed to have drowned by the townspeople despite the other boys’
tale of the man-eating villain. Stanly Fisher went diving to rescue Lester’s
body from the creek; as soon as Fisher located the body and dove to retrieve he
called out “He got me!” A disturbance in the water and a huge tail was all that
was seen of the stealthy killer as Fisher fought to escape.
Fisher managed to get to shore, but he had lost a large portion of his right thigh and died from massive blood loss and hemorrhagic shock. That same day, 12-year-old Joseph Dunn was also attacked while swimming in the
creek. Luckily, two men in motorboats saw the attack and rushed to the boys aid and
were able to pull the boy to safety. Joseph survived with amputation
of his left lower leg.
Two days after the fifth
attack, an 8.5-foot white shark was caught in Raritan Bay, about 4 miles from
the mouth of Matawan Creek. Dr. Frederick Lucas examined the beast’s stomach contents and found a shinbone
what appeared to be part of a human rib. No further attacks occurred and it was
widely assumed that this was the creature responsible for the recent attacks.
Pop-culture immortalizes the fear of the Jersey Shore Attacks when Jaws is released in 1975
The Jersey Shore Attacks inspired Peter
Benchley’s novel Jaws, which was
later made into a film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film uses several techniques to allow the audience to make parallels to
their own lives and experiences, which created the feeling that a shark could
attack anyone on any shoreline. Jaws deliberately provokes
emotion, but the audience suspends reality and completely immerses themselves into the story because they
have identified with the characters and are committed to their survival as if
it were themselves who were in peril. Humans are no longer running from saber tooth tigers, but the fight or flight
mechanism still exists. Jaws extracts that primal fear of
being hunted and eaten alive and people took the threat very seriously.
Why are people afraid of sharks?
Most people
describe the fear of the unknown, the fear of what is out of their control, and
the fear of being eaten alive. From fear, attitudes are developed. Attitudes are described as, “a
mental and neutral state of readiness organized through experience, exerting a
directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects
and situations with which it is related”. Attitudes cause a person to make opinions and conclusions without actually
taking into account factual information.
Attitudes
towards sharks are enhanced and reconfirmed by the media through frequent
images of shark attacks. The media reports stories that arouse emotions, particularly
of fear. Another technique the media uses is repetition. Lead stories are often
sensational and showed over and over, the more often people see something (such
as a news story) about a particular topic (such as shark attacks) the person
believes this is a common occurrence and that it is a threat.
In the summer of 2001, the media heavily reported three shark attacks along the
US coast and caused hysteria with no actual factual basis.
In fact, 2001 was an average year for shark attacks in the United States and
was below average by international standards. Even current television programs, such as Shark Week on the Discovery
Channel, reconfirm viewers’ preconceived ideas by devoting a large portion of
their programming to attacks and images of White Sharks jumping out of the
water as they attack prey or causing the animals to go into a feeding frenzy
rather than showing them in their natural state or educating the public about
the reality of these extraordinary beings.
~ST
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