50th Anniversary of Jaws
‘Dawn Patrol’ by © Dan Callister
June 20, 2025, marks the 50th anniversary of the movie that traumatized an entire generation. Jaws production cost less than $9 million to produce, but it grossed over $470 million worldwide. Sadly, the movie vilified the white shark and was responsible for sharks being killed in immeasurable numbers. Peter Benchley who authored the novel that the movie was based on said he regretted ever writing the book “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, who first became interested in sharks while spending summers on Nantucket, spent the rest of his life advocating for oceanic conservation and became a proud shark ambassador. Without sharks, there is no marine ecosystem.
