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February 2005
Feature Story
by Jean-Michel Cousteau

"Sharks 3D" and "Sharks at Risk" will encourage
understanding of "the lions and tigers of the ocean"

The beauty of the gray reef shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) is captured on film on the Rangiroa Atoll, French Polynesia.  Photo credit: From SHARKS 3D, an IMAX theatre film presented by Jean-Michel Cousteau

The ocean’s supreme hunter cleaves through the sea in dauntless pursuit of his prey. At the top of the food chain, he fears no other species. Using cunning and relentless force, he tracks his quarry, which can only feebly resist. He has one mission and one mission only: to kill.

This predator is not, as most would immediately think, the great white or any other shark. In fact, sharks are the prey. The true predator is Man. Humans have become the butchers of increasingly threatened populations of sharks around the world. These majestic and ancient animals are the “lions and tigers of the ocean,” and much like their terrestrial counterparts, they are being decimated and driven to extinction in a tragically wanton and wasteful manner.

Every year, humans slaughter 100 million to 200 million sharks, often simply for their fins to make shark fin soup, a delicacy primarily throughout Asia. Sometimes weighing in excess of 300 pounds, sharks are dragged aboard fishing vessels, sheared of their fins, and then thrown back bleeding into the ocean to die. This horrific practice defies reason and should make the world angry at such gruesome acts and the depletion of a critical thread in the fabric of life in the ocean world.

Gavin McKinney, Director of Photography for Sharks 3D, films in a canyon surrounded by gray reef sharks. Ocean Futures Society is involved in documentary films that dispel the myths and inaccuracies about sharks.  Photo credit: From SHARKS 3D, an IMAX theatre film presented by Jean-Michel Cousteau

Why do so few people care about this carnage? It’s clearly a matter of human perception. Sharks are inaccurately portrayed as vicious, blood-thirsty, and man-eating killers. From the original 1975 movie "Jaws" and all its sequels to 2004’s "Open Water," the film industry and the media "feeding frenzy" it has created have been fanatical accomplices in this ongoing crime against nature.

Sharks are, unfortunately for them, not cuddly creatures. They aren’t koala bears, orangutans or tiger cubs. We don't mourn their loss; instead we frequently applaud their demise. We don’t understand them and have been infected by mistaken myths, while a deadly-efficient industry has been allowed to methodically exterminate sharks for mere portions of their bodies.

That is why we are presenting "Sharks 3D" with 3D Entertainment Ltd., currently in IMAX theaters around the world, and “Sharks At Risk,” a television special that is part of Ocean Futures Society’s PBS series debuting in 2006. Our goal is to dispel the myths and correct the inaccuracies that make sharks the object of human hatred. Our message is clear. Sharks have far more to fear from us than we do of them. And, unless we curb the killing of these creatures, we will irrevocably lose one of our planet’s most magnificent species.  continued

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