In the Jupiter town of the state people attend a shark diving trip off the coast having opportunity to swim with sharks and discover their nature closely.
Eco tourism is a big part of the local economy with fishing, snorkeling and shark diving in the town. One of the missions of these trips is to support conservation and help educate the general public about the misconceptions of sharks being vicious killers.
“Obviously, everyone thinks the sharks may think jaws, they are man-eating. But that’s really not the case at all. So, that’s why we like to take people out to show them it is not jaws, they are not going to get mauled by a shark right away anything like that,” diver Jordan Lempke told Anadolu Agency.
“It’s funny to see, my favorite part about taking people out is to see how terrified they are at first and then five minutes into it they are like ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever had.’ It kind of becomes like a relaxing thing once you see the sharks there that they’re doing their thing they’re not there to hurt anybody, they are there to mind their own business,” she added.
Stressing that each shark has different personalities Lempke said “Some are boulders, some are very sweet, some are very shy, different things like that.”
She also underlined the importance of the sharks for the ocean that they are at the top of the food chain.
“So, without the sharks there, the oceans are just going to collapse. They won’t be healthy or anything like that. So, one of the best ways to kind of save the sharks is to get the people to care,” said she adding that taking people to sharks diving help them to start caring about the cause.