Peter Benchley: From Jaws Author To Shark Saviour

“The great fish moved silently through the night water, propelled by short sweeps of its crescent tail.”

So starts Peter Benchley's 1974 best seller, Jaws. So begins the legacy of the novel, that would become the legendary film from director Steven Spielberg.

With those opening lines, the Jaws phenomenon was born, and according to many, it helped fuel a hatred and fear of sharks.

It was something Benchley would regret, and would spend much of his remaining years trying to atone for and help promote shark conservation

Peter, along with his wife Wendy, made it their lives mission to right the perceived wrong message of Jaws and focus on educating people on sharks, their importance in the ocean, and their key to our survival.

For them, just like many of us, Jaws was the beginning to being introduced to the world of sharks, their beauty and the role we can play in helping ensure they survive.

People had killed sharks before Jaws, people had been scared of sharks before Jaws, but the Steven Spielberg film hit a cultural nerve, meaning that these majestic, creatures had become public enemy number one in the media and on the ocean.

Sharks were being decimated, but it wasn't just down to Jaws; we've not been destroying the world's oceans and coral reefs because of a 1975 film about a killer shark, nor has it prompted the culling of sharks for their fins.

Sharks have been hunted and killed in the name of Jaws, but nothing like the estimated 100 million that are killed each and every year.

Whatever your opinion of the impact of Jaws on sharks, whichever way you look at it, sharks are in serious trouble. And was something very much which Peter wanted to redress.

“What I now know, which wasn’t known when I wrote Jaws, is that there is no such thing as a rogue shark which develops a taste for human flesh,’’ Benchley told the Animal Attack Files in 2000. “No one appreciates how vulnerable they are to destruction.’’

"For all their power they are amazingly fragile. Sharks are no longer the villains, they are the victims."

That image of them as victims was cemented for Benchley when he witnessed the corpses of dead sharks littering the bottom of the sea. He's quoted as saying that it was one of the most horrifying sights he has ever seen.

That's echoed in this disturbing video hosted by Benchley, his message sadly resonating more today than it did when he recorded it:

Benchley would use any platform he could to help sharks fight back, and that included being the first ever host of Shark Week. The Discovery Channel's celebration of all things shark had been swimming round the channel since 1988, with Benchley's hosting turn coming in 1994.

Quoted in a 2014 Smithsonian article, he said: “I see the sea today from a new perspective, not as an antagonist but as an ally, rife less with menace than with mystery and wonder.”

Peter Benchley died on February 11 2006, but what he created lives on. Whether that is the book or the film - for which he has a co-screenwriting credit and of course has a cameo as a news anchor.

Spielberg, Carl Gottlieb, John Williams and Verna Fields all get a lot of credit for the success of Jaws, but Benchley is that starting point. Without his idea, there would be no film, there would be no Amity Island.

Much is made of the mafia subplot and affair between Hooper and Ellen Brody being removed from the book, but some of the film's iconic moments are straight from the book, such as Chrissie's death, the death of Alex Kintner and the heart wrenching scene between Mrs Kintner and Chief Brody.

And let us not forget, that as much as Jaws the book and film is about a shark, it is man that is the true villain, in the form of the greedy Mayor Vaughn.. And it is man's greed that propels the shark finning and near destruction of the great white, which is still on the endangered species list.

That momentum to educate others about sharks and the survival of our oceans also continues under the Benchley name, propelled forward by Peter's wife, Wendy Benchley.

Wendy is a renowned global voice for protecting sharks and safeguarding our seas. As a scuba diver for fifty years, she has witnessed dramatic changes to our ocean’s wildlife and its habitats.

This has motivated her vigorous efforts to help shape smarter, stronger environmental and marine policies with government officials, NGOs and other civic leaders.

Wendy co-founded the prestigious Peter Benchley Ocean Awards,™ honoring her late husband’s legacy, in order to shine a light on the exceptional conservation work being done by marine scientists, researchers, explorers, and policy makers both in the United States and internationally. The Benchley Ocean Awards recognised an astounding 83 winners for excellence and achievement over the course of a decade and are now retired.

Not that Wendy is, just last year it was announced that Wendy had joined ocean conservation group Beneath the Waves on its board of directors.

“Wendy is globally recognised as a leader in ocean and shark conservation, and her experience will be massively valuable to our growth plans,” Dr. Austin Gallagher, CEO and Chief Scientist, writes. “The word ‘shark’ is synonymous with the name ‘Benchley’.”

And despite Peter Benchley saying that Jaws helped create the shark as monster and give the species - specifically the great white - a bad name, for many it has helped spur a passion for these magnificent fish. A passion that allows them to enjoy the film and book as a work of fiction, but used it as a springboard into discovering more about sharks, conservation and even setting them on the road to become real life Matt Hoopers.

That is the true and lasting legacy of Jaws. It's also one that Peter Benchley would have been proud of. Perhaps Jaws has helped play its part in helping to save sharks and our oceans after all.

As this article started with a quote from Benchley, taken from his book, it's only fitting to end with one of the great man talking about the book if it were written today. The world is a lot different than it was in 1974, which is something Benchley freely admits.

Discussing his most famous work later in life, he said, "the shark in an updated Jaws could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim; for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors."

Words by Dean Newman

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