May 27 (UPI) -- An endurance swimmer spent 12 days swimming 59 miles around Martha's Vineyard, the filming location of the classic movie Jaws, to raise awareness for shark conservation.
British-South African swimmer Lewis Pugh became the first swimmer to circumnavigate the Massachusetts island when he completed his swim on Monday.
"It's been one of the toughest swims of my life. Cold water, relentless wind, big waves and the constant thought of what might be beneath me," Pugh wrote on social media.
The swimmer chose Martha's Vineyard for his swim on the 50th anniversary of Jaws to push back against the common perception of sharks as undersea monsters.
"For the past 50 years, it's all been about fear and about the danger of sharks. What I want to do is I want to try to change the narrative for a new generation and say sharks actually bring life, they sustain life, they make oceans healthy," Pugh told PBS News.
Pugh said Jaws and the films that followed in its wake contributed to negative perceptions of the animals.
"They portrayed sharks in a way that they are villains. They're out to get humans and we know that they are nothing of the sort. And so this is an opportunity to try and tell a new narrative for a new generation," he said.
