| Part 4 The Truth About Shark Behaviour |
| By the time I hit my teens, I’d read everything I could find about sharks — and I mean everything. Books, magazines, dodgy newspaper clippings, half-baked “facts,” and scientific stuff I barely understood at the time. If it mentioned sharks, I was all over it. And the more I read, the more obvious it became that most of what people thought about sharks wasn’t true at all. Especially after Jaws. That film did a number on the world. It’s amazing how quickly people went from shrugging at sharks to assuming every fin belonged to a bloodthirsty monster. Meanwhile, the sharks themselves just kept doing what they’ve always done: cruising around, looking for fish, conserving energy, and avoiding trouble. That’s the first thing people don’t realise — sharks are cautious. Seriously cautious. I’d watch them under the pier in Seaford, drifting around like shadows. They didn’t rocket in like the movies; they moved slowly, checking things out from a distance. Even the whaler sharks, which loved an easy feed when anglers tossed fish scraps into the water, were careful. They’re opportunists, not idiots. And the idea that sharks hunt humans? No. Absolutely not. If sharks wanted to eat us, nobody would be swimming anywhere. We’re not on their menu. We don’t taste right, we’re bony, and we’re basically an energy-wasting mistake to them. Most shark bites are a single sample — a “what’s this?” moment — and then the shark realises we’re the sandwich equivalent of biting into a bar of soap. If they truly wanted to attack people, they wouldn’t stop at one bite. And when you look at the actual numbers, the fear makes even less sense. Between 1791 and the release of Jaws in 1975 — nearly two centuries — Australia recorded just over 230 fatal shark attacks. That’s about one to two deaths a year on a coastline that’s bigger than most countries on Earth. More people drown, get stung by jellyfish, or slip over in their bathrooms. But sharks? They’re the ones we fear. And here’s the wild part: Even in 2025, I know people in the UK who still won’t swim in the sea because of Jaws. England! A place where your biggest risk in the water is hypothermia, not a great white. That’s how deeply that film wedged itself into people’s imaginations. And most sharks couldn’t harm humans even if they wanted to. The vast majority are small, shy, and more interested in crabs or fish than anything bigger. The ones I grew up with — gummies, Port Jacksons, banjos, nurse — couldn’t do much damage even if they tried. Even the larger species, like bronze whalers or tigers, aren’t out there hunting swimmers. They make mistakes sometimes, like any predator, but they’re not plotting holiday-season carnage. What people forget is that sharks are essential. They keep the ocean balanced. They prevent fish populations from exploding, clear out sick and weak animals, and quietly keep reefs and seagrass beds healthy. Take sharks away, and the ocean starts to break down, piece by piece. But in the 1970s, hardly anyone talked about ecosystems. People were terrified of the teeth, not curious about the animal behind them. The more I read and the more time I spent in the water, the more everything made sense. That nurse that scraped my leg wasn’t “attacking” me — it was simply passing by – probably curious. It didn’t care about me. It had better things to do. And once you understand that, the fear falls away pretty quickly. Understanding sharks didn’t just change how I saw them — it shaped how I viewed nature in general. You can’t fear what you understand, and once you stop fearing something, you start respecting it. And once you respect it, you care about what happens to it. That’s when I began to realise sharks weren’t the villains at all. If anything, they were the victims. And that’s exactly what the next part of this series is about. |
Earthly Comforts 