I swam where Jaws was filmed to show that humans are the real danger to sharks

Endurance athlete Lewis Pugh says three things were on his mind as he completed a record 12-day swim around Martha’s Vineyard. They were: the frigidity of the water, the strength of the wind, and the fear that the dark shadows he sensed beneath him were the very sharks he was trying to protect.

“You’re swimming along, you see beautiful sand, and suddenly there’s sea grass which is dark and black,” Pugh tells The i Paper. “You go from the sand to suddenly all these shadows underneath you. And so in your mind, you see sharks.”

The island off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is best-known as a secluded family vacation spot favoured by US presidents from John F Kennedy to Barack Obama, but it’s also where Steven Spielberg filmed Jaws.

This summer marks 50 years since the film helped create mass hysteria around the danger of sharks, which do visit the area’s waters each year. So Pugh, 55, took on the 60-mile challenge with one specific goal: to highlight the dangerous threat now facing sharks around the world.

Around 274,000 sharks are killed globally each day, according to the World Wide Fund, which amounts to around 100 million a year, with many species under threat of extinction. While some are intentionally targeted for fins, meat and oil, many are killed collaterally in the fishing nets of large fleets or even for sport, Pugh says.

And any significant decline in their population carries dire consequences; sharks are considered a keystone species that plays a critical role in maintaining the oceans’ ecosystems, directly affecting biodiversity, food chains and vital habitats such as coral reefs.

Pugh says there is no other word for it than “ecocide”, adding: “It’s complete madness.”

As a UN Patron of the Oceans, Pugh has worked tirelessly to highlight the plight of the globe’s fragile oceanic ecosystems. And the athlete is no stranger to using a cold-water challenge to amplify his work, plunging himself into icy waters from the Arctic to the Antarctic in nothing more than a pair of Speedos, a swimming cap and goggles.

In 2010, Pugh, who holds British and South African citizenship, completed the first swim across the North Pole and says he has been testing himself in cold waters for more than 40 years.

For his latest challenge he swam around 6.2 miles a day (in a water temperature of 8°C) to circumnavigate Martha’s Vineyard. His accompanying team included a boat, a camera crew and a kayaker with a “shark shield” device that creates a low-intensity electric field in the water to deter sharks without harming them.

The team was buffeted by powerful winds nearly every day, which, despite Pugh’s experience, still created conditions that at times were too tough to endure.

“There were two days where I got in the water and I could only do one mile. And then had to get out,” Pugh says.

Endurance swimming is no easy feat, and Pugh has to train for the swims both physically and mentally. First he builds up muscle, then he prepares his mind.

“The last thing is, you really have to get your mind right,” he says. “Cold water swimming is not for the faint-hearted.”

The team did not encounter any sharks during the challenge, but Pugh says that when he does see a predator like a great white shark or a polar bear in the ocean, it brings him joy.

“One of the most important pieces of jigsaw puzzle to protect our oceans is to protect the predator,” he says. “When I see the great white shark, or I see a polar bear in the ocean, it brings so much joy” because it shows a “healthy ocean”.

His opinion of great whites is a world away from the one created by Spielberg in Jaws, which follows Roy Scheider’s memorable turn as police chief Martin Brody. Following the death of a young woman attacked by a great white near the packed beaches of Amity Island, Brody leads a chaotic operation to find the shark and kill it.

He is joined by Quint, a grizzled and hard-bitten shark hunter played by late British actor Robert Shaw, who is hired to catch the predator to help protect the fictional town but who himself perishes.

In 2022, Spielberg told BBC’s Desert Island Discs he “deeply regrets” any role the Oscar-winning film played in spreading fear about the sharks and making them a prize for trophy hunters.

Author Peter Benchley, on whose book the movie is based, also voiced concern that sharks had been given an unfair reputation and himself became a champion of marine conservation before his death in 2006.

Pugh’s work to change people’s perception of sharks while trying to raise awareness of the dangers facing the oceans’ ecosystems includes outreach to governments around the world.

He credits some with being more open to his message than others. French president Emanuel Macron is one leader who has been supportive – and next month the athlete will be speaking at a UN conference in Nice to further his cause.

Pugh also highlights efforts by the British government, which has been among just a handful that has introduced new legislation to protect the environment, referring to the law signed in February to punish water companies that pollute rivers, lakes or seas.

“Environmental issues are slipping down the agenda because there are so many other important issues,” says Pugh.

“My role is to say we have to have a healthy ocean. We do not have a healthy planet without a healthy ocean,” he says, adding that he will “keep pushing it up there, pushing it up the agenda”.