Sharks!!!
Ever since I was young I always had a fascination with Sharks. I can't quite say what it was that drew me to them, I suppose it was a kind of curiosity and wanting to understand the animal behind the legend. Although I had books (yes a child with books, I know it seems a thing of the past nowadays) on Bull Sharks and Tiger Sharks both very efficient hunters, the shark I wanted to learn about the most was the Great White Shark. The Great White has been villainised more than any other shark in the world, but why?
Well with documentaries brandishing such names as Blue Water White Death and Great White Death you can hardly blame people for adopting a prejudice towards the Great White. Not only do these factual programmes have suggestive titles but most of if not all of their content are a narrator explaining how it kills other animals and how "ferocious" they are etc.
Not to mention how the Great White is presented on the big screen, Hollywood is the biggest culprit of giving this shark it's terrifying reputation. Many say the rise of negativity towards sharks in general, originated on the day of June 20th 1975, when the film JAWS was released. Charles Q. Choi, a contributor to livescience.com states that "sharks numbers worldwide have been decimated due partly to the frightening and false ideas the film helped spread about them." Since JAWS there has been an abundance of films starring the big scary Great White shark as the villain, swimming around eating people up every ten minutes as gruesomely as possible.
I want to set the record straight and show people the side of Great Whites that very rarely make it to the public.
