The 1916 Shark Attacks (Free Essay Sample)

How did the shark attacks of 1916 change people's beliefs about sharks and how is our understanding of sharks different today? There are many opinions on this topic, but we're sticking to the facts. People believed in 1916 that sharks were gentle creatures, but what happened after changed their whole perspective. Since today we know a lot more about sharks, people have different opinions on them. 

During the summer of 1916, swimming in the ocean was a way to pass time and to cope with the mild heat. People knew there were sharks in the waters, but it didn’t concern them because a shark attack hadn't happened in a few years and they didn't come to the shore. However, everything changed after the course of only 12 days,  when a series of shark attacks along the New Jersey shore left four dead and one gravely injured. The first victim was 25-year-old Charles Vansant, who went out for a swim in Beach Haven, New Jersey. From what people saw they supposed something grabbed his leg and tore away a huge chunk of flesh and eventually bled out from the injury. At the time, there were tons of rumors of what man-eating creature did this. 

As said above, people didn't think a shark would be capable of this because there hasn't been one in a few years and they normally don't come to the shore and especially creeks. The people had a theory that a sea turtle did it, but that was only because the only sharks they knew about in those waters were harmless. They had to accept the fact that it was indeed a shark. Just five days after the first attack, 45 miles north of Beach Haven in Spring Lake, a shark struck another victim. At this point, fear began to spread along the New Jersey shore. Newspapers started running headlines about the shark attacks and making people fear more and this gave sharks a bad reputation. 

Today, people have different opinions of whether or not sharks are good. Ever since the attacks in New Jersey, people have been frightened by the ocean or have been curious on why the shark attacked the humans. People had thought of the idea of killing all sharks, but they soon realized that sharks are the apex predators in marine ecosystems, which means they have few natural predators and feed on animals below them in the food chain. Also, sharks limit the abundance of their prey, which then affects the prey of those animals, and so on throughout the food chain. Which means that if sharks went extinct, seals would eat all the fish and then that type of fish would be extinct and the number of seals would increase rapidly and would overrun the ocean.  

Did you know that we cause more harm to sharks than sharks do to us? Each year sharks normally kill only 10 people each year and we kill about 100 million sharks each year. We cut off sharks' fins and then drop them in the ocean and eventually they die because they can't swim. Like how messed up is that. It's like cutting our arms and legs off and then throwing them on the ground. Doesn't sound fun and dandy does it? We also kill them by trash in the ocean, nets, and a bunch of other things. Also, scientists have discovered that sharks kinda have bad eyesight and most of the time mistake humans for seals. So most of the time when a shark attacks a human it is not on purpose. 

That is how the shark attacks of 1916 change people's beliefs about sharks and how our understanding of sharks today is different. Has your mind changed about sharks? Do sharks really deserve what we're doing to them?  81% of people believe that sharks play a crucial role in the marine ecosystem and 19% believe that sharks should be wiped out at all costs, no matter the consequences.