VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. — A British-South African endurance athlete is closing in on the finish line of his 62-mile (100-kilometer) multi-day swim around Martha’s Vineyard on Monday, aiming to become the first becoming the first person to swim all the way around the island.
Lewis Pugh began swimming multiple hours a day in the 47-degree (8-degree Celsius) water on May 15 to raise awareness about the plight of sharks as the film “Jaws” nears its 50th birthday. He wants to change public perceptions and encourage protections for the at-risk animals — which he said the film maligned as “villains, as cold-blooded killers.”
“It was a film about sharks attacking humans and for 50 years, we have been attacking sharks,” he said before plunging into the ocean near the Edgartown Lighthouse. “It’s completely unsustainable. It’s madness. We need to respect them.”
Pugh, 55, said this would be among his most difficult endurance swims, which says a lot for someone who has swum near glaciers and volcanoes, and among hippos, crocodiles and polar bears. Pugh was the first athlete to swim across the North Pole and complete a long-distance swim in every one of the world’s oceans.
But Pugh, who often swims to raise awareness for environmental causes — he’s been named a United Nations Patron of the Oceans — said no swim is without risk, and that drastic measures are needed to get his message across: Around 274,000 sharks are killed globally each day — a rate of nearly 100 million every year, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“Jaws,” which was filmed in Edgartown, renamed Amity Island for the movie, created Hollywood’s blockbuster culture when it was released in summer 1975, setting new box office records and earning three Academy Awards. The movie would shape views of the ocean for decades to come.
Both director Steven Spielberg and author Peter Benchley expressed regret that viewers of the film became so afraid of sharks, and both later contributed to conservation efforts as their populations declined, largely due to commercial fishing.
Day after day, Pugh has entered the island’s frigid waters wearing just trunks, a cap and goggles, enduring foul weather as a nor’easter dumped 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain on parts of New England and flooded streets on Martha’s Vineyard.
Pugh’s endeavor also coincides with the New England Aquarium’s first confirmed sighting this season of a white shark, off the nearby island of Nantucket. Just in case, he’s accompanied by safety personnel in a boat and a kayak, whose paddler is using a “Shark Shield” device to create a low-intensity electric field in the water to deter sharks without harming them.
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See an AP photo gallery from around Martha’s Vineyard and the start of Pugh’s swim here.