Photo credit: Lewis Pugh Foundation
“Complete madness!”
I heard that phrase a lot when I first broached the idea of swimming around Martha’s Vineyard, off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the new great white shark capital of the world.
My response? Madness is what we're currently doing to sharks.
Sharks are a powerful signifier of just how out-of-balance our relationship with our ocean has become. And right now, sharks are in deep trouble.
Their fins are prized for soup; they end up as bycatch in industrial fisheries; and they remain the ultimate trophy for many sports fishermen. All of which leads to an average of 274,000 of them being killed, globally, every single day.
Stop and think about that number. Then multiply it by the number of days in a year: that adds up to 100 million sharks killed each year. Not just once, but year after year after year.
Those numbers are simply not sane – or sustainable.
Sharks are a vital and necessary part of any ocean ecosystem. They keep the ocean in healthy balance. They also take a long time to reproduce. Their decimation should be called what it is: an ecocide.
‘Scary monsters’
If we think of something as frightening, we want to avoid it or even get rid of it. If we think of it as vital to life, we want to support and protect it.
I timed my Shark Swim to coincide with the 50-year anniversary of the release of the global blockbuster Jaws. I wanted to swim around the island where much of the movie had been filmed, in order to highlight how sharks have been demonized and misrepresented in the public mind, and to shift from the Hollywood narrative to focus on the critical importance of sharks in the ocean.
I have a huge respect for sharks. But I’ll admit there were times during the swim that I wondered what I was doing out there. Not so much because of a potential encounter with a hungry 20-foot (6-meter) long predator, but because of the weather conditions.
The first day was balmy and clear. The next 10 days were positively brutal, and it only let up the day I completed the 60-mile (96-kilometer) swim around the island of Martha’s Vineyard.
Martha’s Vineyard is very exposed, because it lies off Cape Cod, in the Northwest Atlantic. It was unseasonably cold for mid-May, and water temperatures averaged around 55°F (13°C). To make matters worse, the coastline was being battered by a storm. When it rained, it poured. The sea was choppy. The wind howled and constantly changed direction. Most of the time the currents were not in our favor.
And then there were the mind games.
Seeing is believing
There is a cardinal rule in our expedition team: we just don’t talk about sharks. This swim was different. I was being interviewed about sharks every day, whenever I was out of the water. So of course I was thinking about them while I was swimming through their territory.
At times, conditions were so bad I couldn’t cover more than a mile in a swim session. I simply had to keep my head down and swim, stroke after stroke. I’d be looking down at the sandy sea floor, and then suddenly I’d pass over a patch of seagrass. It’s dark - almost black - and it moves, so each time I saw it, I’d get this thought: “Wait… is that what I think it is?” I’d keep swimming, but a bit later it would happen again. It was unsettling, it starts playing on your mind.
Naturally my team took precautions – I had a safety paddler at my side, and there was an electronic shark-deterrent device attached to his kayak. But in hunting mode, a great white shark can strike with a 35 miles per hour (50 kilometers per hour) surge; we might not even see it coming.
Photo credit: Lewis Pugh Foundation
So from both a physical and psychological point of view, this swim was about as tough as it gets.
Restoration
I was hoping not to have a personal encounter with a shark, but I knew they were around. On a few occasions I swam through colonies of seals. They pop their heads up out of the water like puppies, which always makes me smile. I’m also happy to see them because, after being hunted to near extinction, their return signals that balance can be restored.
Restoration is no easy task. It takes time, it takes serious will, and it takes serious investment.
Which is why it is so important that organizations like the Global Environment Facility, which supported my swim, whose focus on marine ecosystems is vital for shark survival, continue to take action on the ocean.
Over the past three decades, the GEF has invested $2 billion in ocean conservation and sustainable management across all the world’s oceans. These investments help protect biodiversity, expand marine protected areas, prevent pollution, and manage sustainable fisheries.
Like so many sea-side communities, Martha’s Vineyard relies on the ocean, not just for tourism – Jaws is still a big drawcard – but also for fishing, sport, and recreation. During my time there I saw how protecting important species like sharks and marine mammals improves ocean ecosystem health, and also helps industries like tourism to thrive.
The GEF also invests in youth and traditional Indigenous knowledge, encouraging a new generation of leaders to protect the ocean. My hope is that this generation will take up this new narrative about sharks, seeing them not as villains, but as heroes.
It is no exaggeration to say that the future of our ocean, and therefore also our planet, depends on these magnificent apex predators.
Lewis Pugh is an endurance swimmer and ocean advocate. He recently completed a 12 day swim around Martha’s Vineyard to highlight the urgent need to protect sharks and safeguard biodiversity in our oceans.
