The other ‘Jaws effect': A wave of shark science and conservation

Boston Globe

25-07-2025

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'Jaws,' the iconic 1975 thriller about a giant great white shark that terrorizes a small New England island town, still gets a lot of praise. It made director Steven Spielberg's career, left behind a two-note theme synonymous with dread, and effectively invented the summer blockbuster. The novel that inspired it, by Peter Benchley,
But 50 years on, the book and film have also been chum for critics. Shark-fishing tournaments
Yet that definition of the Jaws effect is at best incomplete. The novel and the film also led to a surge of shark science and conservation efforts that have begun to protect the animals from both ignorance and overfishing.
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Fear and fascination
That a movie about a killer shark catalyzed legions of scientists to study the animals suggests a strange truth about human psychology: things that scare us can also become objects of deep allure.
John Mandelman, a scientist at the New England Aquarium, is living proof. He had a 'Jaws'-themed cake at one early birthday and was 7 or 8 when he first saw the movie. 'I remember being scared by the scenes that were more grotesque,' he said. 'But I also remember being really mesmerized.'
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Mandelman's obsession wasn't just the shark; it was that the shark had transfixed every other character in the film, whether out of scientific fascination or atavistic fear. 'That really sucked me in.' He eventually realized that interest could become his career. He's now the chief scientist of the aquarium's Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life and calls 'Jaws' a 'gateway drug' for colleagues who also followed it into marine biology or ocean conservation. 'Sometimes people look at fear and fascination as distinct,' he said. 'I think in this case they're incredibly related.'
The movie, which airs regularly and birthed a series of less-beloved sequels, has stayed current enough to inspire Mandelman's younger colleagues, too. So have more recent depictions of sharks in popular culture, like Netflix documentaries, viral videos, and Discovery's annual 'Shark Week,'
Others have had similar experiences. 'After 'Jaws,' Peter received hundreds, really thousands of letters from people from around the world saying that they were terrified of the movie, but what it did was it really fascinated them,' said Wendy Benchley, Peter's widow (he died in 2006). 'Yeah, it scared people. But boy did it really keep sharks on people's minds, including scientists'.'
True, both novel and film took liberties. Real-life sharks don't single-mindedly and repeatedly choose to attack people. Peter Benchley later expressed regret for casting his novel's antagonist as a rogue man-eater. (He doesn't deserve all the blame; highly publicized attacks in the early 20th century
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Mandelman can overlook those inaccuracies because scientists now know much more about sharks than they did before 'Jaws.' Back then, the Navy
From understanding to conservation
For the public, however, knowing more about sharks didn't immediately mean trying to protect them. In 2000, Peter Benchley
Both Benchleys had long cared about the ocean. Peter encountered sharks while fishing with his dad off Nantucket; Wendy spent summers in seaside Stonington, Conn. After 'Jaws,' they witnessed garbage-filled seas and shark overfishing firsthand. 'It jumpstarted our interest to really work hard on ocean conservation,' Wendy said.
Half a century later, those efforts show signs of paying off. Federally protected since 1997, white shark populations
Threats remain, including overfishing and climate change, which is warming New England's waters, straining the sharks' habitats, and drawing them closer to land (
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Still, Wendy is hopeful that 'Jaws' will continue to inspire efforts to restore shark populations and learn more about them. 'I know it makes it harder for people to swim,' she said. 'But it's definitely making a healthier ocean.'
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