The common myths about sharks just don’t match the recent incident involving a diver off the coast of Portugal.
While the video was filming, Italian diver Stefano Ulivi of Florence was conducting a dive excursion when six large blue sharks began swimming toward the group. One started to circle Ulivi.
The shark gradually came closer and closer. But Ulivi said he wasn’t scared at all, and actually found the proximity to a wild shark exhilarating.
“Usually blue sharkes are super curious and commonly they approach divers really at a short distance,” Ulivi told The Dodo.
Ulivi, being in the business of diving, knows that sharks hardly ever want to hurt anyone, despite what “Jaws” and other narratives might suggest. In fact, your chance of being killed by a shark is about 1 in 3.7 million.
But even Ulivi was a bit taken aback when the blue shark approached Ulivi directly; it was almost as though Ulivi was anticipating a hug. Ulivi was then softly kissed on the face by the shark, who had appeared to be giving him a kiss.
Ulivi stated, referring to the shark’s careful examination, “This guy was attempting to test me.” “Is it good food?
According to George Burgess, a renowned shark specialist and the head of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History, many other movies and accounts do not accurately portray sharks.
Burgess told The Dodo after another shark encounter: “The fact is most of those movies you see of the sharks jumping out of the water after anything, they’ve been attracted by photographers using polystyrene props in the style of a seal.”
They are physically dying because of their terrible reputation; 73 million sharks are murdered annually for shark fin soup alone, a practice that might lead to their extinction.
Maybe more people would care about saving sharks if people saw a bit more of their sweet side.
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