Vineyard Haven, Mass. – Lewis Pugh has followed a tacit rule during his career as one of the most daring resistance swimmers in the world: do not talk about sharks. But he plans to break that this week in a swimming around Martha’s Vineyard, where ” Jaws” He was filmed 50 years ago.
The British-Surfrican was the first person to complete a long distance swimming in all the oceans of the world, and has taken extreme conditions everywhere, from Mount Everest to the Arctic.
“In this bathroom, it is very different: we are only talking about sharks all the time,” said Pugh, who, as always, will not wear a neoprene suit.
For your swimming Vineyard de Martha In 47 degree water (8 degrees Celsius) will use only trunks, a lid and glasses.
Pugh, 55, is undertaking the challenge because he wants to change public perception around the animals now at risk, which they were defamed by the successful film as “villains, as cold blood murderers.” Install more protection for sharks.
On Thursday, starting in the lighthouse of Edgartown Harbor, he will swim for three or four hours in the brutally cold Surf, will mark his progress and spend the rest of his watches of vigil in the vineyard educating the public on the sharks. Then, he will get into the water and do it again, and again, for about 12 days, or for a long time that he takes to complete the swim of 62 miles (100 kilometers).
The trip begins just after the New England aquarium confirmed the first white shark sighting of the season, earlier this week off the coast of Nantucket.
“He will try me not only physically, but also mentally,” he said, while looking for wind conditions on the output line. “I mean, every day, I’m going to talk about sharks, sharks, sharks, sharks. Then, ultimately, I have to get into the water after and swim. I suppose you can imagine what I will be thinking about.”
Pugh said that swimming will be among the most difficult he has undertaken, which says a lot for someone who has swam near glaciers and volcanoes, and between hippos, crocodiles and polar bears. No one has swam around Martha’s Vineyard island before.
But Pugh, who often swims to raise awareness about environmental causes, and this year the United Nations pattern of the oceans was called, he said that there is no swimming without risk and that drastic measures are needed to transmit his message: around 274,000 sharks are killed worldwide each day, a rate of 100 million each year, according to the American association for the progress of science.
“It was a movie about sharks attacking humans and for 50 years, we have been attacking sharks,” he said about “Jaws.” “It’s completely unsustainable. It’s crazy. We need to respect them.”
He emphasizes that swimming is not something that non -professionals should try. It is accompanied by safety personnel in a boat and kayak and uses a “shark shield” device that deter the sharks using an electric field without damaging them.
Pugh remembers having felt fear of 16 years watching “Jaws” for the first time. During decades of study and research, astonishment and respect have replaced their fear, since they realized the role they play to maintain the increasingly fragile ecosystems on earth.
“I am more terrified by a world without sharks, or without predators,” he said.
“Jaws” is accredited for creating the successful culture of Hollywood when it was launched in the summer of 1975, becoming the highest grossing film until that moment and winning three academy awards. They would impact how many saw the ocean in the coming decades.
Both director Steven Spielberg and author Peter Benchley have expressed their regret for the impact of the film on the perception of shark viewers. Since then, both have contributed to the conservation efforts for animals, which have seen exhausted populations due to factors such as overfishing and climate change.
Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel every year Shark programming To educate the public about the predator.
Greg Skomal, a biologist at Martha’s Marina Vineyard Fisheries within the Massachusetts Marine Fishing Division, said many people tell him that they will still not swim in the ocean due to the terror caused by the film.
“I tend to listen to the expression that ‘I have not gone to the water since’ Jaws’,” he said.
But Skomal, who published a book that challenges the inaccuracies of the film, said “Jaws” also inspired many people, including him, to study marine biology, which leads to greater research, acceptance and respect for creatures.
If “jaws” were made today, do not think it has the same effect. But in the 1970s, “it was perfect in terms of generating this level of fear of an audience that had no education about sharks, because we had no education. Scientists did not know much about sharks.”
Skomal said that the greatest threat that contributes to the decrease in the shark population is now commercial fishing, which exploded in the late 1970s and today is driven by a great demand for fins and meat used in food dishes, as well as the use of the skin to make leather, oil and cartilage for cosmetics.
“I think we have really moved away from this feeling, or from the old adage that ‘the only good shark is a dead shark,” he said. “We are definitely transforming ourselves with fear of fascination, or perhaps a combination of both.”
