The Shark Whisperer - Donald Nelson spent his life undoing the damage that Jaws did to the perception of sharks ( nautil.us )

Pretty neat article, wanted to share.

Nelson was credited as a science advisor and fully supported the film, as well as its 1978 sequel, Jaws 2. But over the next two decades, as Nelson’s research career took off, he would flip the script about sharks, bringing them out of the dark realm of fevered imagination into the clear light of science. By researching shark behavior up close for the first time, and making countless documentaries that allowed people on their couches into the underwater world he loved, he began to change people’s minds. A deadly, despised predator with a face full of teeth began to seem vulnerable, even elegant, a critical choreographer of the ocean ecosystem. By the time Nelson died in 1997, sharks had become the focus of conservation programs across the planet.