Sharks have been the recurring theme of many monster movies, including Jaws, Deep Blue Sea and epic Sharknado. These films helped the popular perception that these creatures are perfect killing machines and an ongoing threat to any bathers in for a refreshing swim at Pretty Bay.

Add to this the local catch of a great white estimated to be 7.13m in length by Alfredo Cutajar in 1987 and swimmers start looking suspiciously at the deep end of the beach. But this fear is greatly unjustified.

Great white sharks in Maltese waters are “extremely rare” (according to a local study published close to a decade ago). Also, sharks do not specifically target humans. When a human attack occurs, it is most likely the shark has mistaken the human for its actual prey (a seal perhaps). There are less than five fatal shark attacks every year. You are more likely to be killed by a falling coconut or by lightning than a shark attack. Humans are not part of a shark’s diet.

While sharks have remarkable sensory receptors that can detect a drop of blood in an olympic-sized swimming pool, this does not mean they can zero in on the source of blood without additional cues such as a struggling animal or other predators feeding. Even the myth that sharks can detect a drop of blood has been recently busted by the popular TV show MythBusters.

Another common myth is that sharks must constantly swim to survive. Beneath their gills are tiny blood vessels that extract oxygen out of the water as it passes over them. Most sharks breathe by swimming and moving through water, a process called ram ventilation. Others are able to pump water over their gills using buccal pumping and do not need to swim to breathe. Another popular belief is that their fins contain valuable medicinal properties. Shark fins are made up entirely of cartilage, a flexible protein that has zero nutritional value or health benefits. Shark flesh is actually likely to contain poisonous amounts of mercury, as sharks absorb mercury and other toxins from all the fish they consume. Sharks are magnificent creatures, which have acquired an unjust reputation. Time to go for a swim!