Endurance athlete marks 'Jaws' anniversary with swim to change shark narrative

A British-South African athlete aims to become the first person to swim around Martha’s Vineyard, a popular tourist destination south of Cape Cod in the United States.

In temperatures of just 8 degrees Celsius, the 100-kilometre swim around the island will coincide with the start of the white shark migration season.

"Fifty years ago, there was a blockbuster film 'Jaws' and it was about sharks attacking humans. And for 50 years, we have been attacking sharks,” he said.

He said the film helped shape public perception of the apex marine animals as evil predators and the aim of the swim is to change the narrative for a new generation.

“Sharks are actually essential for the health of our oceans and we need to be protecting them. About a hundred million sharks are killed every single year," he said.

The endurance swimmer offered a land-based example to explain why sharks are so important.

“Imagine in Africa if you killed all the lions, and then you'll find that all the zebras start multiplying, and the gazelles, and the wildebeest. And they start eating the grass and bush and all of the vegetation, and very soon you have an ecological collapse,” he said.

Pugh said the exact same thing happens when you take out all the sharks saying that very soon you have “a watery desert".

His attempt to round Martha’s Vineyard gets underway on Thursday.

Pugh will be swimming three to four hours a day in the brutally cold surf where Jaws was filmed, wearing just trunks, a cap, and goggles.

The 55-year-old will spend the rest of the day on land educating people about sharks. The swim is expected to take about 12 days.

Pugh was the first person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean of the world and has taken on extreme conditions everywhere from Mount Everest to the Arctic.