VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. (AP) — A British-South African endurance athlete is closing in on the end line of his 62-mile (100-kilometer) multi-day swim round Martha’s Winery on Monday, aiming to grow to be the primary changing into the primary individual to swim all the best way across the island.
Lewis Pugh started swimming a number of hours a day within the 47-degree (8-degree Celsius) water on Might 15 to boost consciousness in regards to the plight of sharks because the movie “Jaws” nears its fiftieth birthday. He desires to vary public perceptions and encourage protections for the at-risk animals — which he mentioned the movie 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 mentioned earlier than plunging into the ocean close to the Edgartown Lighthouse. “It’s completely unsustainable. It’s madness. We need to respect them.”
Pugh, 55, mentioned this could be amongst his most troublesome endurance swims, which says loads for somebody who has swum close to glaciers and volcanoes, and amongst hippos, crocodiles and polar bears. Pugh was the primary athlete to swim throughout the North Pole and full a long-distance swim in each one of many world’s oceans.
However Pugh, who usually swims to boost consciousness for environmental causes — he is been named a United Nations Patron of the Oceans — mentioned no swim is with out danger, and that drastic measures are wanted to get his message throughout: Round 274,000 sharks are killed globally every day — a fee of practically 100 million yearly, in accordance with the American Affiliation for the Development of Science.
“Jaws,” which was filmed in Edgartown, renamed Amity Island for the film, created Hollywood’s blockbuster tradition when it was launched in summer time 1975, setting new field workplace information and incomes three Academy Awards. The film would form views of the ocean for many years to return.
Each director Steven Spielberg and writer Peter Benchley expressed remorse that viewers of the movie turned so afraid of sharks, and each later contributed to conservation efforts as their populations declined, largely as a consequence of business fishing.
Day after day, Pugh has entered the island’s frigid waters carrying simply trunks, a cap and goggles, enduring foul climate as a nor’easter dumped 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain on components of New England and flooded streets on Martha’s Winery.
Pugh’s endeavor additionally coincides with the New England Aquarium’s first confirmed sighting this season of a white shark, off the close by island of Nantucket. Simply in case, he is accompanied by security personnel in a ship and a kayak, whose paddler is utilizing a “Shark Shield” machine to create a low-intensity electrical area within the water to discourage sharks with out harming them.
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See an AP picture gallery from round Martha’s Winery and the beginning of Pugh’s swim right here.
