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Great white shark swimming in the ocean
There aren’t many people who would go out of their way to have an encounter with a great white shark given their reputation. However, a fisherman known as the “Long Island Shark Man” allegedly did exactly that last year, and he’s found himself facing criminal charges after dragging one onto a beach on Cape Cod.
Jaws is widely credited with instilling a widespread fear of sharks across multiple generations of people who witnessed the great white at the center of that film go on a bloodthirsty rampage off the coast of the fictional island of Amity.
It also led to an increase in shark hunting due to people who viewed the apex predators as the ultimate trophy. Steven Spielberg admitted he had regrets about the movie’s impact on that particular front, and Peter Benchley, the author of the novel it was based on, devoted the latter half of his life to promoting conservation efforts.
Great white sharks have been a federally protected species in the Atlantic Ocean since 1997, and a number of states also have laws that ban people from actively hunting them in their waters. That includes Massachusetts, which recently beefed up preexisting legislation to crack down on reelers attempting to bag one.
However, one man who traveled there from New York allegedly ignored those rules and landed in legal trouble as a result.
Christopher Stefanou, a.k.a. the “Long Island Shark Man,” was hit with animal cruelty charges over an alleged quest for a great white
Chris Stefanou has racked up over 550,000 followers on Instagram by chronicling fishing excursions that primarily revolve around the sharks he catches and releases while angling from the shores of beaches around the United States.
He’s worked in conjunction with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to further their tagging efforts, and while he positions himself as a conservationist who prides himself on protecting sharks, he is now facing animal cruelty charges over what allegedly transpired on Cape Cod last year.
According to NBC Boston, police say the “Long Island Shark Man” headed from New York to Massachusetts last October to lead a charter commissioned by an unnamed European client who wanted to track down a great white.
They were ultimately able to reel in a tagged one known as “Aaron,” a catch that was chronicled in a now-deleted video that Stefanou posted online. However, it came to the attention of authorities, who say he broke the law by harnessing a drone and charged him with “cruelty to animals, fishing for shark, mechanical deployment of bait, attempting to capture a shark and possession of a protected species shark.”
Stefanou’s bail was set at  $10,000 when he appeared in Barnstable Superior Court, and he was ordered to surrender his fishing license and barred from entering Massachusetts until he returns for a hearing scheduled for December 11th.