‘Sharks aren’t here to kill us’: Irish filmmaker urges public to rethink fear of sharks
Underwater filmmaker Ken O’Sullivan has never been afraid of sharks, admitting it was a far more “dangerous” species that once threatened his life in the water.
“What would I consider the most dangerous creature?” he echoes in response to an question. “Well, that would have to be humans.”
While his conspiratorial tone might be in jest, it belies a deep frustration with the recent flood of misinformation surrounding sharks in Ireland. It comes a number of weeks after a man sustained a leg bite from a blue shark off the coast of Waterford during what he claimed was a conservation-related tagging exercise.
Ken, a documentary maker who has spent 30 years filming marine life, acknowledges that, despite his best efforts to reassure swimmers, some are still afraid to get back in the water.
“Funnily enough, in my three decades of diving the only creature that ever really put my life at risk was a human.
”The most dangerous incident I’ve had in the water was when a man in a boat came close to my face with a propellor, despite my warning not to come too near due to the number of divers in the area. He made some comment that I didn’t own the sea right before it happened. The harbour master did an investigation into it but I never pressed charges.
“Where animals are concerned, they don’t really want to harm us. However, this can happen if you find yourself in their territory.
"I have been attacked by dolphins in the middle of the Atlantic. They showed their teeth in the same way dogs do, with two of them co-ordinating to smash me in the knuckles with their beaks. I immediately moved away because I knew I was in their territory.
"It’s funny because the last few weeks there has been so much sensationalist reporting from media outlets about the shark bite. 'Dolphin attack' doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.”
The conservationist is on a mission to spread awareness.
On this occasion he has invited the to join him on his boat as he captures footage of some of Tralee Bay’s most enigmatic creatures. The ocean conservationist exudes a fearless confidence as he prepares for his first dive of the morning.
“I’m really glad that the man bitten by the shark made a recovery which was the most important thing but I also felt that many of the reports were inaccurate. Media outlets were falsely calling it a shark attack.
"A neighbour of mine who is a farmer told me that he thought I was mad for going into the sea with these animals. I explained that I wouldn’t be going into a field with his horses and bullocks because I don’t know anything about how to behave around them. It’s the same with sharks.
"Still, it’s mad how difficult it is to change a person’s point of view. I recently got into an conversation with a woman living in Bray who told me there was no way she would go swimming close to where she lives because she had seen Jaws.
"I am old enough to remember when came out. Part of the publicity strategy involved perpetuating the idea that thousands of people would never get into the ocean again. What happened was it generated such a prejudice against sharks that it became the justification for killing millions of these animals.
"The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) say we are killing up to 270 million sharks every year. Peter Benchley, who wrote the novel , spent the rest of his life after actively helping with the conservation of sharks.
"While there is no doubt that is a brilliant movie, it’s amazing how entrenched these attitudes can become. I’ve even had journalists telling me that they won’t be getting in the water.”
However, he says the public response to what he described as misinformation pertaining to sharks in Ireland has filled him with hope.
“I was really enthused by the reaction from thousands of commentators on social media calling out the sensationalism. Nonetheless, we all live on our own side of the algorithm so I might be seeing something completely different to the next person. All I can do is try to spread as much awareness as possible.
"I am blue in the face from saying it, but I want to show people that sharks aren’t here to kill us. They have been coming to the bay for thousands of years. There are children in the water with inflatable toys, yet nobody even knew the sharks were there.
"There have been a couple of shark bites over the years but they all happened on angling boats. I have been around four or five different species of sharks in Ireland.
"Species such as the porbeagles, which are the cousins of great sharks, have never made me feel threatened. That’s not to say that they are cuddly toys because that’s certainly not the case. They just need to be respected.”
He reiterated the importance of sharks to our ecosystem.
“Sharks are very important, not because you like them or I like them but because they are a great sign of a functioning marine ecosystem. I hope we find a great white in Irish waters because they are like a keystone species at the top. They regulate the ecosystem.
"This means that nature has evolved over millions of years to a natural balance. If you take one large chunk of it out then everything else will fall out of balance. These animals are really important and people need to know them for what they are.”
Sadly, the animals remain at serious risk.
“What worries me a lot is long lining, which is a practice where commercial fishermen put out a long line of hooks with one marking every few metres. There is no monitoring to target who is doing this in our waters.
"In 2018 a Spanish long liner was brought into Castletownbere. They had the fins of 5,000 blue sharks on board. Shark fins are worth their weight in gold as a number of people in Asia make soup from them like with the rhino horn. Some falsely believe it cures cancer and male impotence.
"Those involved in the Castletownbere incident were fined just €2,500. What was most worrying about the case is that those responsible didn’t come from an impoverished country where people might feel forced to do this just to make a living.”
Ken says the increase in human interaction due to social media platforms is of growing concern.
“Someone went swimming with rays off the Kerry coast and did a TikTok about it. There were two female rays and one of them was clearly pregnant. If a human enters their territory then they immediately take flight, which is not a good thing to happen in a breeding ground.
"People saw that there were rays you could swim with. She referred to her first time swimming with rays and even named the beach. The following day there were 20 people snorkelling there, which was extremely negative for this area’s marine life.
“When I see people online posing for selfies with sharks and other animals I have to ask what the motivation behind doing this is. A lot of the time it’s more about the person in the photo than the animal. It might be cynical of me to assume that it’s always for their own gratification.
"If I’m swimming near a humpback whale it’s to tell a story as opposed to for views or publicity. Anything else just sheds light on the depressing side of social media.”
Superfluous levels of bycatch have also become an issue.
Figures released by the Marine Institute shed light on the extent of “bycatch”, or unwanted catch, in tangle nets that were identified in the South-West between 2021 and 2024.
The death toll included 1,161 drowned grey seals, 81 critically endangered angel sharks, and 1,712 critically endangered flapper skates. More than 500 tope sharks and 80 sting ray deaths were also recorded.
Some 8,000 spurdog — a type of shark that gestates its young for two years and is listed as endangered by the National Parks and Wildlife Service — were also lost to tangle nets.
“In terms of sightings, the angel shark has to be the holy grail," says Ken. "Some American guy once called this the bay of angels because historically there was a huge number of these creatures here.
"However, in the late 1980s fishermen were advised to use something called tangle nets. A tangle net is any net that you have to put out to catch crayfish. They are a very valuable fish that can fetch as much as €70 a kilogram compared to lobster, which might be €15 or €20.
"Tangle nets are very effective at catching crayfish because they live at the bottom of the ocean. The issue is that endangered species like angel sharks also live at the bottom of the ocean.
"The marine institute has done a fantastic project to look at possibly replacing the nets with pots. This will mean less of a return but I’m hearing the results are good and perhaps there is a level of compensation to be paid that it is worth the overall value to our ecosystem.”
- Ken O’Sullivan will be staging his brand new live show at the Everyman theatre in Cork on Saturday, September 26.
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