Sharks: beyond the fear of ‘Jaws’

Steven Spielberg’s film has left a lasting mark on the popular imagination of sharks. To distinguish this fear from reality, we need to separate cinematic storytelling, documented incidents and conservation data.

The shark in ‘Jaws’ is first a presence that we hear before we see it. To tell this story of fear, Steven Spielberg was able to make use of a production problem: the mechanical shark kept breaking down. John Williams’s music, pared down to two notes that became famous, then took centre stage. This cinematic choice helped establish the shark as a figure of menace. But the image of the monster tells us neither how sharks live nor what the figures allow us to conclude about the risks to humans.

Radio France’s podcast ‘L’Océan d’Arthur’ links the publication of Peter Benchley’s novel in 1974 and Spielberg’s adaptation the following year to a transformation in the collective imagination. It also refers to deserted beaches and an increase in recreational fishing following the film’s success. The significance of this story is cultural: to understand what is happening to marine populations, we must then look at the pressures they face and the conservation data.

Fear staged for the screen

Cinema can focus attention on a simple signal: a silhouette on the surface, recognisable music, an approaching threat. The animal thus becomes the centre of a story of danger. But the staging describes a dramatic situation, not how often encounters occur in the wild or the behaviour of every shark species.

This distinction matters because the word ‘shark’ groups together different animals. A fictional scene tells us nothing about the species involved, their habitats or their interactions with humans. To talk about risk, we therefore need to look at defined and dated data, rather than take the power of an image as a measure.

The International Shark Attack File (ISAF) 2025 report, maintained by the Florida Museum of Natural History, illustrates the importance of categories. The organisation examined 105 alleged interactions worldwide and confirmed 65 unprovoked bites on humans, as well as 29 provoked bites. An ‘unprovoked’ bite is defined as an incident in a shark’s natural habitat without human provocation; situations in which a person initiates an interaction are classified separately.

These 65 cases therefore represent neither all interactions between humans and sharks nor an estimate of shark abundance. The report classifies incidents that have been reported and examined. It also records nine deaths linked to unprovoked bites in 2025, compared with an annual average of eight over the previous five years, from 2020 to 2024. The ISAF describes this total as in line with that recent average. An annual report provides information about recorded events: it does not turn the shark into a uniform threat, nor does it allow us to infer the risk at any particular beach or from any particular activity.

Overfishing at the heart of the conservation issue

The decline of some populations is measured using different tools from the number of bites. A study published in ‘Nature’ in 2021, featured in the European Commission Joint Research Centre’s repository, brought together two indicators: an abundance index based on 57 monitoring series for 18 species, and an extinction risk index covering 31 species of oceanic sharks and rays.

The researchers estimate a 71 % decline in overall abundance since 1970 and link it to a sharp rise in relative fishing pressure. Their finding concerns this group of oceanic species, not every shark species in every sea. It documents an issue of overfishing and conservation; it does not measure the effect of Spielberg’s film on catches.

The difference between the two subjects is illuminating. Fiction can shape perceptions and the way an audience responds to an animal. The state of populations, by contrast, depends on concrete pressures that must be studied in their environments. Replacing the image of the monster with that of an invulnerable animal would be just as misleading: some species are subject to catches that threaten their future.

The study calls for science-based catch limits and protective measures to prevent further collapses. The ecological role of sharks and rays is therefore also a question of managing human activities. The fate of a population is determined not only by how we see it, but also by the rules and practices that govern catches.

Looking at risk at the right scale

The ISAF figures are not an invitation to ignore precautions: rather, they help us name what they measure. In 2025, among confirmed unprovoked bites, 46 % involved people swimming or wading, 32 % involved surfing or other board sports, and 15 % involved snorkelling or freediving. These proportions describe the activities of people involved in the recorded cases; on their own, they do not tell us the risk per hour spent in the water, as there is no corresponding denominator.

Moving beyond the monster stereotype does not mean denying that a bite can injure or kill. It means bringing together scales that are often confused: a work of fiction, rare but documented incidents, and conservation issues that require data on species and populations. Spielberg’s shark is a cinematic creation. The animal itself is better understood by distinguishing between species, habitats and the measures that are actually available.