The Shark Attacks That Made Us Fear the Water

Summary

HISTORY This Week: The Shark Attacks That Made Us Fear the Water

Episode Release Date: August 11, 2025

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Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "The Shark Attacks That Made Us Fear the Water," hosted by Sally Helm, HISTORY This Week delves into a pivotal moment in early 20th-century America that forever altered public perception of sharks. Through expert interviews, historical accounts, and vivid storytelling, the episode uncovers how a series of shark attacks in 1916 transformed these marine creatures from misunderstood denizens of the deep to feared predators in the American consciousness.

Historical Context

The story begins six years prior to the main events, setting the stage with an incident that sparked initial suspicions about man-eating sharks. J.T. Dubois, the American Consul General to Singapore, becomes intrigued by reports of shark attacks following a maritime collision that left survivors declaring they were attacked by sharks. Despite prevailing expert opinions dismissing such claims as myths, Dubois persists in his investigation, gathering affidavits and even photographic evidence to support the existence of man-eating sharks.

The Beach Haven Tragedy

On July 1, 1916, at 6:30 PM ([06:30] MM:SS), tragedy strikes Beach Haven, New Jersey. Charles Van Zant, a 23-year-old stockbroker, decides to take a swim with his Chesapeake retriever despite warnings from fellow beachgoers. As Van Zant enjoys his swim, a dark fin ominously appears in the water, leading to a violent and fatal attack:

Sally Helm ([07:57] 07:57): "A man rushes into the water and tries to pull Van Zant towards the beach. But something pulls back."

Efforts to save Van Zant prove futile as he succumbs to his injuries, leaving the community in shock and uncertainty about the true nature of the attack.

Initial Skepticism and Speculation

In the aftermath, the community grapples with disbelief and speculation. Despite eyewitness accounts suggesting a shark was responsible, many dismiss the attacks as freak accidents caused by other marine life or even mechanical failures:

Sally Helm ([10:15] 10:15): "Or if it was a shark, that shark must have been going after the dog. Maybe it just bit Van Zant by accident."

Experts like Dr. Frederick Lucas of the American Museum of Natural History remain steadfast in their skepticism, arguing that unprovoked shark attacks are virtually non-existent:

Dr. Frederick Lucas ([17:51] 17:51): "Shark attacks, at least in temperate waters, has never been established."

Escalation in Matawan Creek

Just days later, on July 6, 1916, another brutal attack occurs in the unsuspecting town of Matawan Creek, a small inland community:

Sally Helm ([22:09] 22:09): "Then a fin, a flash of teeth, and Lester is gone."

Eleven-year-old Lester Stillwell is viciously attacked while swimming, followed by another attack on Stanley Fisher, a local tailor, who ultimately dies from his injuries. The community is thrust into fear, with widespread panic and a desperate hunt for the perpetrator:

Sally Helm ([24:37] 24:37): "Joseph Dunn will be the only survivor of these Matawan Creek attacks."

Media Frenzy and Public Fear

The relentless media coverage, including front-page stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post, amplifies public hysteria:

Sally Helm ([27:11] 27:11): "Three days after Matawan, the shark killing frenzy will make the front page of the Washington Post. America, it says, has declared war on sharks."

Communities across the nation respond with fear, implementing measures such as metal nets and armed patrols on beaches, driven by the belief that man-eating sharks are a genuine and present threat.

The Hunt for the Shark

Amidst the chaos, Michael Schleiser, a prominent taxidermist and lion tamer, takes it upon himself to capture the elusive predator. On July 14, 1916, Schleiser and his friend embark on a daring mission:

Sally Helm ([29:57] 29:57): "Schleiser thought the whole boat was going to tumble down and he and his buddy were going to be the next victims of this man eater."

After a tense encounter, Schleiser successfully captures what is presumed to be the killer shark. The subsequent examination reveals human remains in the creature's belly, compelling Dr. Frederick Lucas to reconsider his stance:

Sally Helm ([31:00] 31:00): "After all of this Matawan Creek Shark, Dr. Lucas does change his mind."

Scientific Debate and Changing Perspectives

With concrete evidence now in hand, the scientific community begins to reassess the risk posed by sharks. Dr. John Nichols, initially dismissive, acknowledges the reality of shark attacks:

Dr. John Nichols ([28:35] 28:35): "This was probably a single shark heading from south to north."

Despite acknowledging the attacks, Dr. Lucas maintains that such incidents are exceedingly rare:

Dr. Frederick Lucas ([34:07] 34:07): "There are an average of around six fatal shark attacks each year worldwide."

Legacy and Impact on Public Perception

The 1916 shark attacks left an indelible mark on American society, fostering an enduring fear of sharks that persists to this day. This fear was further cemented by cultural phenomena like Peter Benchley's Jaws and Steven Spielberg's iconic film adaptation, celebrating its 50th anniversary in the episode:

Sally Helm ([32:48] 32:48): "That book is Peter Benchley's Jaws, later adapted into a movie by Steven Spielberg."

The episode highlights the "Jaws effect", illustrating how media portrayals have exacerbated the public's fear, leading to detrimental impacts on shark populations due to overkill and habitat disruption.

Sally Helm ([33:12] 33:12): "Human beings to see sharks differently. That fear emerged in 1916 and has been passed on through the generations."

Conclusion

"The Shark Attacks That Made Us Fear the Water" offers a compelling exploration of how a series of tragic and rare events can reshape societal attitudes and environmental policies. By intertwining historical narratives with expert insights, HISTORY This Week provides a nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between humans and sharks, emphasizing the importance of balanced perspectives in the face of fear and misinformation.

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Notable Quotes

• Sally Helm ([07:57] 07:57): "A man rushes into the water and tries to pull Van Zant towards the beach. But something pulls back."

• Sally Helm ([10:15] 10:15): "Or if it was a shark, that shark must have been going after the dog. Maybe it just bit Van Zant by accident."

• Dr. Frederick Lucas ([17:51] 17:51): "Shark attacks, at least in temperate waters, has never been established."

• Sally Helm ([22:09] 22:09): "Then a fin, a flash of teeth, and Lester is gone."

• Sally Helm ([24:37] 24:37): "Joseph Dunn will be the only survivor of these Matawan Creek attacks."

• Sally Helm ([27:11] 27:11): "Three days after Matawan, the shark killing frenzy will make the front page of the Washington Post. America, it says, has declared war on sharks."

• Sally Helm ([29:57] 29:57): "Schleiser thought the whole boat was going to tumble down and he and his buddy were going to be the next victims of this man eater."

• Dr. Frederick Lucas ([34:07] 34:07): "There are an average of around six fatal shark attacks each year worldwide."

Expert Contributors

• Richard G. Furnicola: Author of 12 Days of Terror and a proud Jersey Shore resident.
• Dr. Gavin Naylor: Director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
• Dr. John Nichols: Curator of fish at the American Museum of Natural History.

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For more insights and episodes, visit historythisweekpodcast.com and follow HISTORY This Week on Instagram and your preferred podcast platform. Share your thoughts and join the conversation by emailing [e-mail].

Transcript

[Kristen Bell]

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[Sally Helm]

History this week is now in its sixth season, which is kind of crazy, but we're continuing to grow and to bring you stories from the past that you've never heard before. There are more ways than ever to follow our show, so yes, you can listen on your podcast app, but now you can also subscribe to History this week plus on Apple Podcasts for an ad free experience on all new episodes. Also, if you're more of a Spotify person, Spotify now lets you comment directly on individual episodes, so let us know what you think. Think you can also get email reminders each time an episode comes out. Sign up for [e-mail] and be sure to follow us on our new Instagram page too. There's some fun stuff going on over there. As always, share History this week with your friends. Give us a five star review if you want. And if you want to reach out, shoot us an [e-mail] Five years in, we have a ton of episodes that you can always go back and listen to, and we're also really excited about everything that's coming up. We hope you are too. For now, enjoy the latest Episode the History Channel Original Podcast history this week, August 15th, 1915 I'm Sally Helm. J.T. dubois has been thinking a lot about sharks. He's recently wrapped up his post as the American Consul General to Singapore. Consul Generals have many duties. They assist Americans abroad. They help out with diplomacy. But dubois also gave himself a special shark attack investigator. It all started six years ago on a hazy November morning. There was a maritime accident 28 miles off Singapore's coast. Two ships collided and more than 100 people were thrown into the water. Most of them died, but the survivors reported something strange. The people in the water had been attacked by sharks, attacked and killed. Word of this made it to the United States, and J.T. dubois, in his official consular General capacity, started getting letters from American citizens asking if it could possibly be true. Do man eating sharks really exist? At this point in the early 20th century, basically all of America's experts say no, that sharks are just big fish, timid ones, no real threat to human beings. Unprovoked shark attacks, they're just myths, sailors, tall tales no different from stories about mermaids. One of the most vocal of these experts is Dr. Frederick Lucas of the American Museum of Natural History. He's written a number of pieces in the New York Times addressing the rumors. They have titles like the Shark Slander and Let Us do justice to Sharks. He's spent decades investigating stories about these alleged man eaters, and he says almost none of them are credible. But J.T. dubois thinks otherwise. Ever since that crash six years ago, he's been investigating the rumors too. He's written 50 letters to diplomats all over the world asking if anyone could share verified incidents of man eating sharks. He got 16 letters back. Sworn affidavits reporting shark attacks on human beings. One diplomat actually sent him a photo. A boy who'd been diving for coins in the Gulf of Aden above Somalia, when he'd been seized by a shark. A passenger on a nearby ship had caught it on camera. JT dubois is now back in New York and he's written a letter to the New York Times. It's titled the Man Eating Shark, and it lays out all the evidence he has that sharks do in fact attack humans. And on August 15, 1915, it's published, page 12, one little letter saying that the experts are wrong, that man eating sharks do exist. Not a lot of people take notice. JT dubois doesn't single handedly change the story about these big, big, timid fish. But the following summer, just across the river in New Jersey, a series of mysterious attacks will radically Change the conversation and lead to a giant sea change in our feelings about sharks Today, shark attacks on the Jersey Shore. What happens when the myth of the man eater becomes real? And in the wake of these tragedies, did we overreact and in fact start to slander the Sharks? July 1, 1916. 6:30pm Charles Van Zant is out on the sand in Beach Haven, New Jersey, throwing a stick to a Chesapeake retriever.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

Charles Van Zant was a 23 year old stockbroker who had just gotten out of University of Pennsylvania.

[Sally Helm]

That's Richard G. Furnicola, author of the book 12 Days of Terror and a proud Jersey shore resident. He tells us Charles has just arrived in Beach Haven with his family. They're staying at a fancy hotel with seaside tennis courts and white gloved waiters serving tea. It's busy. This is a holiday weekend and there's been a heat wave. But it's dinner time now. So Charles and the retriever are sharing the beach with just a handful of people. His sister Louise, one lifeguard and a few stragglers on the boardwalk. And Charles wants to take a swim before dinner. It's a tradition. He coaxes the dog into the water with him and they start swimming.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

About 50 yards or so into the.

[Sally Helm]

Breaking surf, the dog suddenly turns around, starts paddling back to shore. But Charles keeps enjoying his swim until.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

People on shore began to shout. He thought they were shouting to the.

[Sally Helm]

Dog, but then he realizes they're actually shouting at him, telling him to come back to shore. Vanzant looks around and sees why. There's a dark fin slicing through the water. Vanzant gets a few strokes in, but then the people on shore watch in horror as the water around him turns red. A man rushes into the water and tries to pull, pull Van Zant towards the beach. But something pulls back. More men rush to help.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

A human chain was formed on shore to get out to Charles and drag him onto the beach. They did get him onto the dry sand and his sister was there. And a medical student was there. His father was ultimately summoned. His sister Louise said she looked at the wound and she thought his leg was virtually torn off.

[Sally Helm]

Someone rips the hem from a woman's skirt. An improvised tourniquet. But what next? The boy won't make it to the hospital. They carry him into the hotel and call a medic. But within an hour, the blood loss is too great. Charles Van Zant dies on the hotel manager's desk. News of Van Zant's death travels up and down the shore. It's shocking, tragic. And it's also a mystery what on earth just happened.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

Everyone was convinced that this man had met a horrible fate. But many people were speculating as to what the exact culprit was.

[Sally Helm]

Today we've seen Jaws. We jump right to a shark. But at this time, as far as people know, sharks have never killed anyone, at least not stateside. So even though eyewitnesses actually report that it was a shark, people just aren't sure.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

People speculated that it could have been a giant sea turtle or a killer mackerel or even a submarine propeller or something of that nature.

[Sally Helm]

Or if it was a shark, that shark must have been going after the dog. Maybe it just bit Van Sant by accident.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

They thought it was a once in a lifetime freak incident.

[Sally Helm]

So nothing to worry about. Freak accidents don't happen twice. July 6. Up the coast in Spring Lake, Bell captain Charles Bruder has spent the morning sweating, lugging guests heavy bags all over a different luxurious hotel. But now it's here, the best part of his day. Bruder is going for his lunchtime swim.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

He would go out and enjoy the surf with the elevator runner on a daily basis to get out of the stifling heat at the hotel.

[Sally Helm]

Staff aren't allowed in the crowded guest bathing area. They have their own spot up the beach. And even though Brooder has heard about the death down in Beach Haven, he's not really scared. Why would he be? He's swum with plenty of sharks out in California, and they'd always been afraid of him. So Charles Bruder dives into the water.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

He ventured out beyond the lifelines and.

[Sally Helm]

Heads for the open sea.

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[Sally Helm]

Charles Bruder has gone for a swim at the secluded staff beach. But soon, all the way over in the guest area, people start to hear screams. The lifeguard on duty sees someone flailing in the water and starts to run he rows a boat out and reaches the boy. But as he drags the him into the boat, he's horrified by what he sees.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

His lower legs were missing.

[Sally Helm]

By the time they make it back to the beach, Bruder is gone.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

He died in the bottom of the boat before they reach shore.

[Sally Helm]

This time, the beach is crowded. Hundreds of people see Bruder's body dragged ashore, and there are even reports of his last words. Ash. Shark bit me. It bit my legs off. Bruder's death makes the front page of the New York Times, and panic spreads up and down the Jersey shore.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

There was no way at this point in time they could hide from the fact that there could be a trend, something unusual might be happening.

[Sally Helm]

Metal nets are brought in to fence off the swimming areas, and men head to the beaches with revolvers, planning to shoot sharks on sight. But tourists are still scared.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

They wouldn't even dip their toe into the water even with the steel nets.

[Sally Helm]

Everyone wants answers. And not everyone is ready to blame the sharks. The Coast Guard superintendent even insists that these creatures are as timid as rabbits. Could an animal like that really have killed Charles Bruder? They turn to the country's foremost shark scientists. You've been telling us that this kind of thing can't happen. What do you say now? One of those scientists is Dr. Frederick Lucas. He runs the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He's in his 60s, a big guy with a shock of white hair, and he's famous. He's helped bring science to the public, make it approachable. Think a 1916 Bill Nye. He's also the man who wrote all those pieces in the New York Times about how we shouldn't be engaging in shark slander, that the myths of the man eaters are greatly exaggerated. And Dr. Lucas does have reasons to say all this. For one thing, he's spent a lot of time at sea.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

His dad was a Boston clipper ship captain. Lucas himself had gone around the world several times and never experienced any type of shark attacks.

[Sally Helm]

He's heard rumors about these attacks for decades and he's investigated them. But time and time again, his findings are the same. The reports aren't credible. He definitely didn't trust the newspapers to get the science right. They loved a good story too much. A few years ago, he'd even gone to Georgia to investigate what the papers claimed was a giant cliff dweller mummy, only to find a construction made of paper and cow's teeth. This Jersey shore story, he felt, was probably no different.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

Dr. Lucas was firm in saying that Shark attacks, at least in temperate waters, has never been established. Lucas and most other scientists of the day didn't feel a shark had the power in its jaws, nor the ability, nor any confirmation that they would actually attack a live human being in the water.

[Sally Helm]

But something has killed Charles BRUDER, and to Dr. Lucas, that merits investigation. He enlists his colleague, Dr. John Nichols, curator of the fish's wing. Nichols agrees with Lucas. Sharks don't attack people like this. To him, Bruder's wounds look more like bites from an orca. He holds a press conference to share his findings. The papers still prefer the man eating shark theory, but whether it's a shark or a whale or a killer mackerel, there is something deadly in the New Jersey waters, and people are scared that it's just a matter of time before it kills again. Over in Matawan, New Jersey, this summer feels more or less like any other because Matawan is not a beach community.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

The town of Matawan was very small, very close, a very nice community, more of a farm community.

[Sally Helm]

It's miles inland. The only water feature is Matawan Creek, a waterway that runs through town and out to sea. And who's ever heard of a shark in a creek? So six days after Charles Bruder's death, Madeline Creek is full of swimming kids, and Captain Thomas Cottrell is coming back from F.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

Thomas Cottrell was a elderly retired sea ship captain. He was well known in town. He was walking across the town's new drawbridge, and he looked down and he.

[Sally Helm]

Saw something impossible in the water.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

He saw a dark or black shark around 8ft long, heading up the creek.

[Sally Helm]

A shark in Matawan Creek.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

He thought he might have been hallucinating, but the workmen on the bridge corroborated the same sight.

[Sally Helm]

Cottrell rushes to the closest phone, and.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

The first person he called was John Molsoff, the chief of police.

[Sally Helm]

Molsoff is also the town's barber. It's a small community, and when Cottrell tells him what he's seen, it doesn't go over well.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

He was greeted with laughter, almost amusement from Chief Mosoff and other town residents who had hear.

[Sally Helm]

Cattrall must be imagining things, a victim of the shark hysteria sweeping the state. But Cattrall knows what he saw, and he has to do something.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

He got into a motorboat and began going up and down the creek, trying to warn children to get out of the creek. He was trying to warn them that there's a shark heading in their direction.

[Sally Helm]

He goes to all the usual swimming spots that Matawan kids frequent until finally they're empty. But not everyone gets the memo. Two hours later, six Matawan boys head down to their favorite swimming hole. The place is decrepit, a couple of pilings and a rotting wharf. But it's also wonderful. There's a partially sunken boat on one side, cattails and hermit crabs on the other, and a deep spot between the two. 11 year old Lester Stillwell paddles out there, turns to the other boys and.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

He said, hey fellas, watch me float.

[Sally Helm]

Then a fin, a flash of teeth, and Lester is gone. The other boys scramble out of the water and rush into town, screaming the whole way. A shark got Lester.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

They were frantic, so two or three men answered the call, one of whom was Stanley Fisher.

[Sally Helm]

Fisher is the town's tailor and he knows Lester plays baseball with the kid. Lester's epileptic, so Fisher thinks the boys must be confused. Lester's probably having a seizure. He runs down to the water with some other men, gets in a rowboat and paddles out to the deep spot.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

They began to dive to the bottom.

[Sally Helm]

Of the creek, but they come up empty handed. A crowd gathers on the dock. After a half hour, the men are exhausted, cold, but Stanley Fisher gets ready to give it one last try.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

Before Stanley could even make an attempt to get into the water, the shark came up and grabbed him on the right thigh.

[Sally Helm]

It pulls him under. This time there's no doubt there's a shark in the water. Fisher fights back, eventually makes it to shore. But the injuries are too severe. He'll die.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

At the local hospital, the mayhem, unfortunately, was not over yet.

[Sally Helm]

The mothers who had gathered on the dock are now running down the creek's shore looking for kids who might stay be playing in the water. They find a group of five boys and yell, shark. Four of them make it in, but.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

Joseph Dunn was unfortunately about 10ft from the dock ladder, the last one out. He felt a large tug from what he described as a big pair of scissors latch onto his left lower leg.

[Sally Helm]

His brother, who's safe on the dock, jumps back into the water.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

His brother and the dock man and one of the other boys literally pulled him out of the shark's mouth.

[Sally Helm]

Joseph Dunn makes it to shore alive and is taken to the hospital. He's mobbed by reporters, but he won't tell them his name. He doesn't want his mother to find out.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

He didn't want her to be worried.

[Sally Helm]

Joseph Dunn will be the only survivor of these Matawan Creek attacks. Back on the docks, the crowd has become a frightened frenzied mob.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

It was a mix of anger and despair and panic.

[Sally Helm]

There's a shark in their creek and they're determined to kill it.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

Some people pulled old harpoons down from their mantle or got pitchforks, hammers. Others ran to the local hardware store to get dynamite to try to blow the shark out of the creek.

[Sally Helm]

After Matawan, people stop questioning the reality of man eating sharks. They'll basically never question it again. And the shark scientists and others who said these animals are as tame as rabbits, they have a lot of explaining to do.

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[Sally Helm]

Three days after Matawan, the shark killing frenzy will make the front page of the Washington Post. America, it says, has declared war on sharks. Then it's not hard to see why. Three shark attacks in a single day in a small town creek. It was unprecedented and terrifying.

[Dr. Gavin Naylor]

Kind of strange that there'd be so many bites in just a two week period. What's going on?

[Sally Helm]

That is Dr. Gavin Naylor. He's director of the Florida program for shark research at the Florida Museum of Natural History. He also runs the International Shark Attack.

[Dr. Gavin Naylor]

This is a database that's been going since the 1960s. And we record all shell pipes that we learn about. And we have about a little bit over 7,000 from the 1960s coming forward.

[Sally Helm]

Back in 1916, Dr. Frederick Lucas is holding an emergency meeting at the American Museum of Natural History to ask that same question. What is going on? The attacks at Matawan seem undeniable. And Dr. Nichols, who'd thought an orca killed Bruder, he confesses to Dr. Lucas that his thinking has changed.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

This was probably a single shark heading from south to north.

[Sally Helm]

He thinks it's dangerous and he's going to try to track it down. But someone is about to get there first. It's 5am on July 14th. Michael Schleiser is heading out on his motorboat and dragging a reluctant friend, John Murphy, along with him. I want to tell you before we go any further, this story ends differently from the others.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

Schlicer was a very colorful character. He was a very prominent taxidermist for the major museums, including the American Museum of Natural History.

[Sally Helm]

He's also a lion tamer with a giant mustache. Schleisser has seen the papers. There's a killer shark near Matawan and people are losing their minds. He wants to see the shark hunting frenzy for himself and he's cajoled his friend Murphy into joining him. The men push off from South Amboy, heading towards Raritan Bay. Slicer lowers a net into the water. While they're out here, they might as well catch themselves some breakfast.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

They were pulling this drift net along and all of a sudden something got into the net.

[Sally Helm]

The engine stalls, then the boat is pulled backwards. The bow jumps out of the water.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

Schlicer thought the whole boat was going to tumble down and he and his buddy were going to be the next victims of this man eater.

[Sally Helm]

Schleisser reportedly grabs a broken oar and whacks the creature tangled in their net again and again until he's certain it must be dead. Then the men flagged down a larger boat to help them tow the shark to shore. Now there was just one thing left to see if this was the man eater. With the practiced fingers of a taxidermist, Schleisser slices the creature's belly open and takes a look at what's inside. The next day, a parcel arrives at the American Museum of Natural history addressed to Dr. Lucas. It's labeled Open at once and inside are bones found by Schleisser in the Belly of the shark.

[Richard G. Furnicola]

Lucas saw those remains and reluctantly confirmed that they were human.

[Sally Helm]

After all of this Matawan Creek Schleisser's shark, Dr. Lucas does change his mind. He's a scientist, after all, and he can't deny the evidence. Man eaters, as the papers call them, do exist. Still, he insists shark bites are rare. You're just as likely to get so struck by lightning. There are no more shark attacks on the Jersey shore that summer. Maybe it's because Schleisser caught the Jersey Man Eater. Maybe it's just luck. Even today, we don't know for sure why these attacks happened or why they stopped. Maybe some food source had moved closer to shore. Maybe sharks weren't used to seeing so many people in the water. Leisure swimming was a relatively new thing. But scientists and historians can't even agree on what type of shark was responsible or whether it was a few sharks. What we do know is that the 1916 attacks fundamentally changed how all sorts of people, from scientists to beachgoers to fishermen to politicians, see sharks. No one today would consider a shark rabbit tame. The idea is laughable. Our fear of them is so ingrained that it's hard to imagine we ever could have seen them differently. That fear emerged in 1916 and has been passed on through the generations.

[Dr. Gavin Naylor]

I've heard about them since the sort of 1980s, largely as the incidents that actually inspired eventually to write his book.

[Sally Helm]

That book is Peter Benchley's Jaws, later adapted into a movie by Steven Spielberg. This year is the film's 50th anniversary. There are festivals happening at Martha's Vineyard where it was filmed, special anniversary screenings all over the country. Even after 50 years, it still strikes a chord and scares the heck out of us.

[History Podcast Host]

Us.

[Sally Helm]

But Spielberg would eventually say that he'd come to regret how sharks are portrayed in Jaws. Because shark populations are struggling. Humans are responsible for an estimated hundred million shark deaths each year. And our fear of them is part of that. It's called the Jaws effect. And this image of sharks as bloodthirsty man eaters, despite what happened in 1916, it's actually not true. At least not most of the time.

[Dr. Gavin Naylor]

Humans like to put things in bins and they like to categorize things. Are sharks aggressive? Will they target humans, yes or no? I think it's correct to say it's a really rare event that a shark will target somebody.

[Sally Helm]

Since 1916, there's been a huge boom in shark research. We know a lot more about them than we used to. And one of the things that has become clear. 1916, as scary as it was, was kind of a fluke. Those first beachgoers in New Jersey were right. They were witnessing a series of freak accidents unlikely to happen again.

[Dr. Gavin Naylor]

The data speak volumes. There are tens of thousands of people in the water every day. There are hundreds of thousands of sharks, and there's very few incidents.

[Sally Helm]

There are an average of around six fatal shark attacks each year worldwide. Looking at those numbers, you can understand why Dr. Lucas couldn't wrap his mind around the idea that sharks were attacking people like that one after another. They truly almost never do, though he was wrong about one other thing. Your chance of getting bitten by a shark isn't quite like getting struck by lightning. It's, in fact, way less likely. Thanks for listening to History this Week, a Back Pocket Studios production in partnership with the History Channel. To stay updated on all things History this week, sign [e-mail] and if you have any thoughts or questions, send us an [e-mail] Special thanks to our guests, Richard G. Furnicola, author of 12 Days of Terror, and Dr. Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program of Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History. We also referenced the book Close to Shore by Michael Capuzo. This episode was produced by Katherine Isaac. It was sound designed by Dan Rosado and also produced by me, Sally Helm for Back Pocket Studios. Our executive producer is Ben Dickstein from the History Channel. Our executive producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fiddler. Don't forget to follow rate and review History this week, wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll see you next week.