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Director Steven Spielberg is apologizing for the impact that his movie "Jaws" had on the shark population 47 years after the film's release.
The 1975 Hollywood blockbuster is about a New England beach town attempting to fight off a great white shark killing tourists and beachgoers. The 76-year-old director told BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs" in a recent interview that he believes the popularity of the movie correlated to the decline of sharks.
"I truly and to this day regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film. I really, truly regret that," said Spielberg, who was 27 years old when the film was made.
"That’s one of the things I still fear. Not to get eaten by a shark, but that sharks are somehow mad at me for the feeding frenzy of crazy sport fishermen that happened after 1975," Spielberg continued.
Steven Spielberg recently apologized for the impact his 1975 movie "Jaws" had on the shark population. (Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
However, the link between the film's popularity and the decline of the shark population over the last few decades is not widely agreed upon, according to shark expert Paul Cox, who told the Guardian that pinpointing the blame on "Jaws" would be "giving the film too much credit."
"The cases of shark population decline are very clearly fisheries overfishing," Cox added.
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However, the author of the book that the movie is based on agrees with Spielberg that the popularity of the franchise had a devastating effect on the shark population.
"Knowing what I know now, I could never write that book today," Peter Benchley told the BBC in 2015. "Sharks don't target human beings, and they certainly don't hold grudges."
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