Endurance athlete begins swim in shark-infested waters

Africanews (in English)

Endurance athlete begins swim in shark-infested waters  Lewis Pugh, 55, is undertaking the challenge because he wants to change public perception around sharks— which he said were maligned by the blockbuster film 'Jaws' as “villains, as cold-blooded killers”  READ MORE : http://www.africanews.com/2025/05/16/endurance-athlete-begins-swim-in-shark-infested-waters  Subscribe on our Dailymotion channel and receive all the latest news from the continent.    Africanews is available in English and French.  Website : www.africanews.com  Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/africanews.channel/  Twitter : https://twitter.com/africanews

Transcript

00:01Lewis Park is no stranger to danger.

00:04He swam near volcanoes and among hippos and polar bears.

00:08This time he's swimming where no one else has,

00:10the island of Martha's Vineyard and deep into shark territory.

00:14I've now been swimming for nearly 40 years in the world's oceans

00:18and over that period of time I have seen them change dramatically.

00:23And I have always wanted to do a swim to talk about sharks.

00:27And the 50th anniversary of Jaws, which was filmed on this island,

00:33is the perfect opportunity to do a swim to talk about sharks.

00:39A 1970s blockbuster Jaws, which shows sharks attacking humans, was filmed here.

00:45Pag wants to change the narrative.

00:47The swim, I think, is going to take me 12 days to do.

00:51It's a very long swim. The water is incredibly cold.

00:54And because of measures which have been taken here off the east coast of the United States of America,

01:02there are obviously great whites in the water here.

01:05The waters around Martha's Vineyard will be just 8 degrees Celsius.

01:10But Pag is wearing just trunks, a cap and goggles.

01:14Around 274,000 sharks are killed globally each day,

01:19a rate of 100 million every year.

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