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In a recent interview with BBC Radio<\/a>, director Steven Spielberg expressed remorse about how his epic 1975 film, Jaws<\/em>, negatively shaped the public\u2019s perception of sharks<\/a>. Jaws <\/em>did, after all, paint the great white as a vengeful creature, intent on singling out humans to satisfy its unquenchable thirst for blood. That portrayal made Jaws <\/em>terrifying, and subsequently one of the most acclaimed and widely viewed films in the horror genre. It is hard to deny, of course, that interest in recreational shark fishing spiked after Jaws. <\/em>The late 1970s and early 1980s are considered by many offshore anglers the heyday of shark fishing, and with minimal regulations, or a complete lack of them in some regions, most of the time a caught shark was a dead shark.\u00a0<\/p>\n In those days sharks were hung up at the marina scale for crowds to gawk at, regardless of the food value of the species.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s one of 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 sportfishermen that happened after 1975,\u201d says Spielberg. \u201cI truly and to this day regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film. I really, truly regret that.\u201d<\/p>\n