The Current - How Jaws ruined the reputation of sharks

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

When Jaws came out 50 years ago, the movie instilled an epic fear of sharks to a whole generation of people, then some more — a fear that still continues to this day. But those who know the animals well say that sharks are not out to get humans. Our experts explain why sharks are misunderstood and why it matters to shift our perspective on these animals.

A lot of news podcasts give you information, the basic facts of a story. What's different about your world tonight is we actually take you there. Paul Hunter, CBC News, Washington. Margaret Evans, CBC News, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Ottawa, Prince Albert, Yacollah, Susan Ormiston, CBC News in Admiralty Bay, Antarctica. Correspondence around the world, on the ground and at the source where news is happening. So don't just know, go. Your World Tonight from CBC News. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Gallow theme. That is the theme from the movie Jaws and perhaps

you have heard of the Jaws effect. The 1975 release of Steven Spielberg's summer blockbuster instilled an intense fear of sharks in people all over the world. Fears that are still being felt some 50 years later. Sometimes that sharkie looks right into you, right into your eyes. You know the thing about a sharkie is he's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at you, he doesn't seem to be living until he bites you. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's dial it down a notch. Sharks are far from the monstrous death-eating machine seen in that film. In fact, a new wave of shark documentaries are attempting to move viewers away from that narrative. They show that sharks are not out to get humans, but rather they're deeply misunderstood and they're vital to our ocean ecosystems.

Mike Heidhaus is a marine biologist at Florida International University who has been studying sharks for more than two decades. Mike's behind the new series, Investigation Shark Attack. And Canadian oceanographer Greg Trouse has worked on the new documentary, Great White North Invasion. It airs tonight as part of Discovery's channel annual Shark Week. It's a follow-up to last year's documentary, Great White North. They're both with us now. Good morning.

Good morning. Mike, let me begin with you. It's summer. People are in the water, some in lakes, some in oceans at the beach. What do you think most people still get wrong about sharks? Well, I think there are a few things. One is that these sharks are mindless killing machines that are always out looking to bite people.

And the fact of the matter is sharks are actually really good at avoiding people and you know with more than 500 different species of sharks out there, most of them are a lot more afraid of us than we are of them. Greg, what about for you? What's the one misconception people have about sharks? That's a great question, Pia. I just wanna start before diving into that, kind of consistent with every time I'm getting in the ocean, just with a statement of respect and gratitude, where that respect, of course, is for the great white sharks which are absolutely

magnificent animals that I've had the privilege of learning about through the production and really transforming my relationship with from that previous Jaws type theme. I mean, I grew up as a kid in the 80s afraid of sharks and really like I honestly have not watched the show Jaws Me neither, not since I was a kid. I'm terrified of it. I had to go there, right, but through the work that I've been doing on Great White North It's really transformed that relationship shifting it from that fear base to more of a respect and a need to understand the inherent risks and Of course, I'm also like really really, really have a lot of gratitude for

the sharks and their role in the ecosystem. The bait that we use in our research as well, and the networks, both Telltale Productions and Discovery, because they're really enabling a lot of research that helps us spread awareness about the increasing population in Nova Scotia and the associated risks. And so Mike, your show looks into shark attacks across North America. How did you approach these investigations? What are you setting out to understand about what motivates a shark?

Well, you know, the thing that's for me really interesting is I've spent more than two decades trying to understand how sharks operate in ecosystems and, frankly, didn't have much interest in talking about shark-human interactions at all. But I got approached with this idea of instead of thinking about these incidents from the human perspective to try to explain to the public through kind of a forensic investigation of the science behind the sharks. And so to have this opportunity to make this deep dive into kind of why the sharks are

there, what they're doing with a team of great scientists from around the world, you know, was really intriguing. And so you can never get in the head of a shark and ask why did it do exactly what it did. But what you can do is take all this amazing technology and decades of research that's been done to understand why sharks are in certain areas, what they might have been doing, and why you might end up with the series of events that ends up in one of these negative interactions that, you know, we have to keep in mind, although they can be

really devastating to the people involved, they're incredibly, incredibly rare, especially relative to the other risks that are out there in the ocean. So we have to keep it in perspective. And so, Mike, each case would be different in terms of a human-shark interaction, but are there sort of through lines that you found in your investigations? Well, you know, there are some amazing through lines, and some of them were just so intriguing. And a number of these incidents are probably when sharks were either startled or scared and weren't

about looking for food, which is what we always think about. And so Dr. Chris Lowe from Cal State Long Beach has been, he and his colleagues have been studying these white sharks in California and flying drones and they're seeing that there are tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of interactions a year where sharks are close enough to people to bite them, but they ignore people and some of the incidents may have been sharks were actually snoozing or sleeping and almost got run into. And so we see some of these things, but if people are concerned at the beach, there are certain pieces like, don't go swimming if you see lots of bait in the water where sharks

might be feeding, especially if the water is murky and they might make a mistake and accidentally bite a hand or a foot. And you know, maybe avoid dawn and dusk. So there are some through lines, but you know, driving to the beach is almost always more dangerous than getting in the water when it comes to sharks. Greg, you know, Mike works out of a Florida university and if we're going down south, I might think as a parent that maybe I should say something to my kids about sharks. I don't, but like maybe I, but your research is in Nova Scotia on great white sharks. I don't even think about that when I go out east.

What's happening in the waters off Nova Scotia? Yeah, and that was absolutely the case for me about five years ago before getting involved in this research out of Lunenberg. What happened here is there's been a shift in really the like the fishing practices have changed so there's more conservation around sharks, so the population is increasing, as well as the water temperatures down south are warming, such that it's becoming an ideal environment in Nova Scotia, as well as tons of food. And just kind of building upon what Mike was saying about behaviors, my role on the boat, I run live view cameras as well as an imaging sonar that goes off the back of the boat and

allows us to see what's happening out to about 50 meters. And the sharks predominantly are very curious and cautious. Like they're not coming in and hitting baits the way that it was depicted on Jaws and things like that. They're really, really intelligent animals that spend quite a bit of time kind of like sussing things out and figuring out what's being offered before making a move. How many Great Whites did you see while doing your research, Greg? We've seen close to 60. 60 different individuals all identified based on different patterns on them from images.

And so your documentary is called Great White North Invasion. Is that what it feels like for people who work on the waters in Nova Scotia, off Nova Scotia? Yeah, I think it definitely, I mean, it speaks to an increasing population, for sure. Kind of synonymous to incursion, right? I mean, I don't feel an invasion in like a military sense or attacks or anything like that. It's more about a population increase and understanding that risk.

And for me, both invasion or incursion, there's a duality to that, right? The shark population is increasing as well as our level of effort going out and really understanding what's going on with the sharks and associated ecosystem. And so, Mike, as Greg said there, the sharks are on the move, you know, fueled by different fishing practices, conservation, the climate crisis. How concerned should people be about a rise in sharks off the East Coast of Canada? Is this just something we should embrace? Well, to me, it's something that we should embrace because there are a couple things

going on. One is that population rebound, but we're probably still nowhere near the numbers generally we used to have. And Megan Winn, who's also on the investigation shark attack show, she and her colleagues have been seeing this big increase in white shark numbers off of Cape Cod. But there used to be a lot of sharks there and there should be. And probably as they were getting into Nova Scotia, they maybe weren't quite as abundant,

but they were probably there and we just weren't paying as much attention. So sharks are like people, they kind of have their temperature ranges that they prefer. So as water temperature is warm, they're going to move around to stay in those kind of optimal temperatures or to follow their food that are chasing different temperatures. And so the oceans are changing, but we have to remember, as we start to interact a little bit more with sharks, we're still probably nowhere near what those populations used to be. And when I was doing my PhD at Simon Fraser in British

Columbia, I had to go all the way to Western Australia to find oceans that looked like they used to off, say, waters like Florida, where there were enough sharks there to see what an intact ecosystem used to look like. Mike, it is the 50th anniversary of the release of Jaws. That's a lot of staying power for a movie, frankly. And I think I mentioned like I saw that as a kid, I haven't watched it since it still

freaks me out. But I'm wondering what kind of lasting effects you think movies, there's Jaws, there's other ones have had on the health of the real life shark population? Yeah, well, I have to thank Jaws for helping my swimming career because I was terrified of the deep end of the pool when I was a kid after seeing it when I wasn't supposed to. And unfortunately, early on, it probably did a fair amount of damage. I mean, we saw the number of shark kill tournaments go up and, you know, people were thinking the only good shark is a dead shark. And it took a long time to turn that

around. But the staying power is, look, we're talking about Jaws 50 years later, we've got all kinds of shark documentaries every year, because people are just fascinated by these animals. And I think that we've seen a pivot where it did inspire some people to become marine biologists and it stayed in the public consciousness. And I think even if you look at the Hollywood movies today with sharks, they tend to filter in a bit of conservation message or that they are misunderstood. We got a long way to go, but I think that we are generally trending positive. And I think today when you talk about JAWS, it is almost always with that,

and now we need to conserve them, and they are important in ecosystems rather than, oh my gosh, they're scary and they're after us. Although that idea of a rogue shark still persists in the public perception that there might be individuals out there that are targeting and chasing people, which is absolutely there's no evidence for.

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out of movies like Jaws and I'm guessing Sharknado, although I've never seen those, that series. Yeah, I haven't, I haven't dove into those either. I mean, our work is really about understanding the population change in Nova Scotia, the dynamics, like the male, female, the different ages they are, and understanding risk to inform water users. I mean, personally, in addition to being an oceanographer, I'm a surfer. I surf within a few hundred meters of the spot that we're fishing white sharks, and I'm also a father of three kids that are 13, 10, and 8 that I take out doing water activities.

And so it's shifted our behaviors as we learn, like where the different hot spots are and then understanding how it changes seasonally as well. Because that water temperature that they like is sort of July-ish, like the sharks are really starting to show up now through October and really trying to understand the migratory patterns when the numbers are high at our local spots and when they drop off. So it's really both pushing that knowledge as well as the technology forward

for being able to monitor the sharks and share that information in near real time so people can make informed decisions about how they do the activities that they love. Mike, part of your job is to make sure people understand the importance of sharks. And you're an oceanographer. What role do sharks play in the ocean ecosystem?

Yeah, so what we're seeing is that especially these big sharks, like tiger sharks and white sharks that are the ones we think about as being dangerous, can kind of help stabilize ecosystems. So if you take those tiger sharks, they change where the sea cows and sea turtles feed. So it protects sea grasses from being overgrazed. And that sea grass, it captures carbon.

It is food for the ecosystem and it provides shelter for the little shellfish and fish. They grow up to be things that we wanna catch. And so the sharks can actually kind of protect the base of ecosystems. And we don't want to lose these big species where especially the big individuals of those species are most at risk, but probably most important. But then as we look around the world, we're seeing that sharks play important roles in transporting nutrients from one spot to another to kind of fertilize ecosystems and maybe important

food for other species for the smaller sharks. So they play lots of roles and we don't want to get rid of them. But the thing that's a challenge with sharks is that unlike a lot of the fish we think about, they grow really slowly. They take many years to reach maturity and they only have a few pups at a time. So it's really easy to overfish them. So they're important, but also at risk. But I think the exciting thing is that you can find ways for people and sharks to use the oceans. And I think, you know, California is a great example of that where, you know, Chris Lowe has been working with the local lifeguards,

understanding the sharks, and figuring out how you can coexist. And I think those are the things that are being done in Nova Scotia right now that are super exciting and good for the future. And Mike, you said fishing is one of the threats to sharks. We know many types of sharks are now endangered. What are the other big threats to their survival in 2025? Well, I mean, it's fishing, fishing, fishing, and fishing.

And then after that, you might get into some of the loss of nursery habitats, where a lot of small sharks grew up near mangroves and seagrass beds. And so coastal destruction can be a problem there. beds. And so, coastal destruction can be a problem there. And climate change, yeah, they're going to maybe be winners and losers in that. So, from a shark perspective, so it's kind of a mixed bag, but it's definitely an added challenge. But fishing really over swamps every threat, other threat to sharks right now. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask each of you what it is like to encounter a shark. Most of us aren't going to do that in our lives. You both get into the water with them.

So Greg, what's it like? Thankfully, I've never seen one while I'm in the water. I think it probably will happen someday and it'll check me out and we'll both go our separate ways. But seeing them from the boat has just been absolutely eye-opening. I mean, it shifted that narrative for me, right? From them being something to be feared to something that I'm just absolutely in awe of and just respect and have so much gratitude for the opportunities that I've had to observe them.

S1 05.05 And Mike, what about for you? Have you gotten up close and personal? S1 05.05 I have gotten up close and personal. And I mean, I spent most of my early career from the boat and had that same feeling of just kind of awe and just inspiration at seeing them. But then getting in the water with them, I will admit at first was just absolutely terrifying. But luckily, I was with outstanding people with a lot of experience. And I think that's where you really start to see how slow and meticulous and that clip you played at the beginning of kind of the dead eye is just not the case. You can really see them looking at you and almost see the brain whirling. So I think you always have a lot of respect and have to be very careful when you're in the water, especially with big species. But it's awe-inspiring would be the words I would use. And I think as we see more work being done, we're seeing that their behaviour can be a lot more

nuanced than we had ever thought. S1 05.00 Yeah, I know people like both of you don't like when we play that Jaws music, because it reinforces that narrative, right? Like that has been lingering for 50 years now. Greg, you said like it's really changed my relationship in getting to know sharks and documenting them and so on and so forth. I imagine that change in you has gone beyond

just between you and sharks. Like how has it changed how you think about animals in the wild and your approach to them? Oh, I mean, I've always had a huge respect for animals in the wild as somebody that does environmental science and oceanography. So it hasn't really shifted overall. Yeah, I mean, I've had encounters with grizzly bears in the mountains and, you know, white

sharks in the ocean. I mean, it's really giving them their space, you know, not really pushing in onto them and being able to sit back and watch how they, yeah, watch how they behave. And that's the thing that has just blown my mind, especially with the sonar that we operate off of the back of the boat that just really allows us to see them moving in, circling, the amount of passes that they do. They really, really wait before they allow us to see their presence. Mike, is there a life lesson you've learned from sharks?

I think the life lesson is that things are a lot more complicated than we ever think about. And I think that that's one of the things for me that's been really exciting about getting to know these animals more is to realize how much there is still to learn. And we're just scraping the surface and that there are a lot more complex interactions in ecosystems, which you know, you could make parallels to our own interactions. But I think that that's been one of the things for me in working with them that's been really intriguing. We started our conversation with Jaws and talking about how the work that you're both doing is trying to alleviate those misunderstandings.

So let us round out our conversation talking, just to help people are still like, yeah, sounds good guys, I'm still terrified of these things. Mike, realistically, how significant a threat would a shark be for someone swimming at a beach going into the ocean? Unless you were at one of these spots where you've got white sharks

or another species aggregating to feed, it is very, very low. Or unless you're on a 200 yard, or sorry, 200 meter stretch of beach in Florida, where there's a perfect surf break and a juvenile shark nursery. So other than that, it's really not that much of a risk at all. Although I always say, whenever you go to the beach,

talk to the lifeguards and the locals because they know the conditions because you have to have a ton of respect for the ocean, not just sharks when you go in it. And if you do that, you can have a wonderful time in the ocean. And Greg, there's a 50th anniversary edition of Jaws being released.

Do you worry a whole new generation could go backwards in their thinking around sharks? I certainly hope not. I think there's enough other material out, the things that I'm involved in as well as Mike, Ocean Ramsey and Shark Whisperer as well. I think that it's definitely shifting. And just to follow up on the risk of a bite or attack or something like that, the main thing to remember, at least in Nova Scotia and other places is don't swim with seals. Right? Yeah. Fair. That's fair. Don't swim with shark food is a generally good bit of advice on where you are.

And that's the case where we like the spot where we surf, there's a bunch of seals and it's too hot right now. My friend Walter saw a predation yesterday. So we're like, we're done there for the season. Yeah. Thank you both for helping us understand sharks better in the realities that we deal with and appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us.

Mike Heidhaus is a marine biologist at Florida International University. He is behind the new series, Investigation Shark Attack. And Greg Trouse is a Canadian oceanographer who worked on the Great White North Invasion documentary. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

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