July 14 was Shark Awareness Day. It’s probably not a day you have on your calendar, or a day you shoot a bunch of fireworks into the sky and get blackout drunk in a backyard, but it’s still a day. It’s an important one, at that. Sharks have been on the losing end of public judgment for decades now. According to National Geographic, somewhere around 100 million sharks are killed by humans every year. Most of them are pretty horrible deaths, too — they’re simply finned and thrown back in the sea so someone can eat a bowl of soup.
Back in the 1990s, the appetite for shark fin soup spiked drastically. Although less-so now, shark fin soup was thought of as a delicacy, like truffles or caviar. Add that hunger to the already-bad rep Jaws gave sharks, the fear they instill when an attack does happen, and you’ve got a recipe for a whole lot of sharks dying and no one who really cares all that much. Aside from a select few groups around the world, the collective sentiment around 100 million dead sharks every year seems to be, “meh.” But it’s slowly getting better.
“For a long time sharks were misunderstood and vilified,” writes SharkTrust.org. “But this outdated view is fading fast. Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen a huge positive shift in attitudes towards sharks. How we talk about sharks matters.”
Yeah, a shark attack is just about the worst way one could go out. But those attacks, if you’re listening to the science at least, are still exceedingly rare. According to the International Shark Attack File, you’re far more likely to die in a rip current than you are from a shark attack. From 2004 to 2013, 361 people died in a rip, while sharks killed eight people. If you live in the United States or Canada, you’re twice as likely to be killed by a bear than a shark. The odds of a shark attack, no matter how you spin it, are not good. But still, it’s a horrifying prospect, so I get it.
But sharks are out there, and they’re necessary. Without them, the ocean’s ecosystem — and by extension, ours — would be wildly out of whack. “As apex predators, sharks play an important role in the ecosystem by maintaining the species below them in the food chain and serving as an indicator for ocean health,” Oceana Europe explains. “They help remove the weak and the sick as well as keeping the balance with competitors helping to ensure species diversity.”
To celebrate sharks and Shark Awareness Day, Carlos Gauna, who goes by the handle The Malibu Artist on social media, posted the two-minute video you see above. The man frequently finds sharks off the California coastline via drone. This was shot over the 11th and 12th of July, and it’s a good look at how peaceful a great white can be. Instead of the usual shark-smashing-seal-thirty-feet-in-the-air clip, this one shows what sharks are really doing most of the time.
“Every clip here is taken well within the sight of humans,” Guana wrote. “While most humans in these clips have no idea they are there, the sharks certainly do. But they are elegant, peaceful, and curious creatures. Yes, they are predators, and yes they can be dangerous but they are picky eaters and they are frightened by humans.”
See more from The Malibu Artist on YouTube and head over to ReefGuardians.org to help protect these fish that are vital to our ecosystem.
