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Wendy Benchley urges action to protect sharks, highlights Peter Benchley Ocean Awards
Summary
At a Sister Cities Association event in Wilmington, ocean advocate Wendy Benchley warned that mass shark killings and untested seabed mining threaten marine ecosystems, credited demand-reduction campaigns and marine protected areas for conservation gains, and promoted the Peter Benchley Ocean Awards.
Wendy Benchley, a longtime ocean advocate and cofounder of the Peter Benchley Ocean Awards, told an audience in Wilmington that protecting sharks and expanding marine protected areas are central to ocean health.
Benchley opened by recounting how her late husband Peter Benchley's novel Jaws and her experience in local elected office shaped a life devoted to marine conservation. “We were horrified that some people took Jaws as a license to go out and kill sharks,” she said, and described how the family turned that attention toward research and advocacy.
Benchley framed several specific conservation priorities. She said shark finning—severing fins and returning sharks to the water alive to…
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