b'Above: A scene from Jaws when hundreds of summer beachgoers flee the ocean in panic, after the big shark was spotted; Right: Famed director Steven Spielberg sitting on the mechanical shark whose theme music drew fear and loathing in a generation of Americans, and in an interview decades later.shark, but that sharks are somehow mad at me for the feeding frenzy of crazy sports fishermen that happened after 1975, he said.The truth is that neither Jaws, nor shark hunting on the beach in Texas before catch-and-release, were most to blame for the 70% worldwide decline in shark populations. The real cause is the industrial-grade over-fishing of sharks by Asian interests, whose catch of fins lead to the sale of $100 bowls of soup to elite commu-nists in China. At the same time, the transition of recreational shark fishing in the United States from catch-and-kill to catch-and-release has no substantial impact on shark populations on a broad scale.Nonetheless, Sharkathon is a good thing. The sharks are sent back after a good fight and a selfie and dont have to be hauled home to Momma. Shark tagging was integrated years ago with the cooperations of the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, and electronic GPS tagging lets scientists track shark migration and survival. Researchers have expressed their gratitude to Sharkathon anglers for providing access to live animals at a level they cannot, and their efforts working together have even been featured in a National Geographic documentary.Simultaneously, its fair to question whether the scientific data derived from these efforts do more to benefit the survival of sharks at sea than the harm that results from being hooked, enduring the fight to shore and the disgrace of being photo-graphed with your captor, and the shock and trauma that the shark is subjected to through the catch-and-release experience. Regardless, weve come a long way from the wholesale slaughter of sharks for sport that officially started a half-centu-ry ago. At least now were aware, and most of us actually care.TheCoastalBend.com THECOASTALBENDMAGAZINE103'