Sharks Aren’t the Monsters — We Are
A new Netflix documentary, Shark Whisperer, peels back the myth of sharks as mindless killers and forces us to look in the mirror. Spoiler: the real threat to ocean life isn’t lurking beneath the waves — it’s at the end of our fishing lines and on our dinner plates.
The film follows Ocean Ramsay, a marine conservationist who free dives with sharks to show the world what they really are: intelligent, social, and vital members of marine ecosystems. While pop culture prefers to paint sharks as bloodthirsty villains, Ramsay swims beside them without a tank, capturing footage that both mesmerises and challenges.
More than 100 million sharks are killed every year. Most are victims of the fishing industry and the shark fin trade — both driven by human appetite and profit. We’ve decimated global shark and ray populations by 70% in just 50 years. We do this while acting shocked at rare shark bites, ignoring that we are wiping them out at industrial scale.
Sharks are keystone species, holding marine ecosystems together. Kill them off, and the entire food web starts to unravel. In Shark Whisperer, we’re reminded that 70% of the air we breathe comes from the ocean. Remove sharks, destabilise the ocean, and suddenly we’re all gasping for breath.
Ramsay’s work isn’t just about dramatic Instagram shots — though they certainly grab attention. Her advocacy helped push through a ban on shark fishing in Hawaii, protecting over 40 shark species in state waters. She’s rescued over 1,000 sharks from entanglement, a brutal side effect of humanity’s addiction to fishing nets and gear.
But like all women who dare to take up space, Ramsay faces endless criticism — for her appearance, her methods, her very existence in a male-dominated field. Still, she continues, using every dive and every image to shatter the monster myth and expose the real violence: ours.
Sharks are not monsters. They’re misunderstood, vilified, and commodified to death. Meanwhile, we remain the only species systematically destroying the planet for the sake of taste buds and tradition.
Shark Whisperer is streaming on Netflix now. Watch it — and then ask yourself who really needs protecting from whom.