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40 Years of JAWS: Hope for Protecting Sharks and Our Seas

It's hard to believe that 40 years ago this week JAWS premeired in theatres. With it the summer blockbuster was born and also the beginning of a new era of ocean awareness. There are many communities that will be showing JAWS throughout the summer and generations of families will gather to enjoy it.  It's staying power is a tribute to director Steven Speilberg's masterful job of bringing Peter's fictional novel to life.

While JAWS scared some people, it mesmerized others. So much so that they would go on to study the ocean and commit their lifes work to being real life Matt Hooper's in the field of ichthyology and other marine sciences.  Following the release of JAWS, Peter and I traveled and dived in nearly all of the world's oceans where we witnessed dramatic changes to our ocean’s wildlife and habitats on expeditions that included work on documentary films, articles, and television shows for National Geographic, ABC’s American Sportsman, The New England Aquarium, and many others. 

Today, I sit of the Board of WildAid, a great organization solely dedicated to stopping the traficking of and demand for llegal wildlife, including shark fin, rhino horn, ivory and tiger. WildAid has sounded the alarm on the devastating impacts of shark finning to shark populations. Their highly successful public awareness campaign to reduce consumption of shark fin soup in China, Hong Kong and across Asia has helped change attitudes about sharks about why we need them swimming in our seas and not in our soup.  The results of these efforts have helped reduce demand for shark fin by more than 50 percent.  

We have more work to do, but progress like this makes me hopeful that the positive impact of JAWS will live on for decades - bringing more people into our blue community to protect our oceans at every level.