Endurance swimmer Louis Pew spotlights shark declines after 12‑day Martha’s Vineyard swim, UNEP says

Louis Pew completed a 12‑day swim around Martha’s Vineyard to draw attention to shark conservation, and at a press session at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice he urged a change in how people perceive and protect sharks.

Pew, an endurance swimmer and ocean advocate, told the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) panel he framed the swim with three numbers to explain the scale of the threat: 50 (years since the movie Jaws), 274,000 (the number he said are killed, on average, globally every day) and roughly 100 million (his annual extrapolation). "It is an ecoside," Pew said, summarizing the stakes.

UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson said the swim helped shift public attention. Anderson noted the 50th anniversary of the first regional seas convention and pointed to the 1972 Convention on Migratory Species as a multilateral instrument that helps protect species such as sharks when they cross national boundaries. "They are so important," Anderson said of sharks, echoing Pew’s conservation message.

Pew described the Martha’s Vineyard swim as one of the toughest of his four‑decade career: cold water, long days and the psychological strain of doing interviews around the globe while attempting daily long swims. He recounted moments when seagrass or groups of seals briefly made him think he had seen a shark, and said the risk of encountering great white sharks in the area added a persistent mental burden.

The pair also criticized the practice of finning, with Anderson noting that people frequently remove fins and discard carcasses at sea — a practice she and Pew presented as a driver of population decline. Pew said broad media pickup, including interviews on U.S. television, helped him reach audiences who might not otherwise engage with environmental issues.

Anderson thanked Pew for wearing UNEP insignia during his swims and acknowledged support from the Global Environment Facility for work that amplifies ocean conservation. The session closed with applause and expressions of gratitude to Pew for delivering a high‑profile message about predators’ role in healthy marine ecosystems.

The press session did not announce new regulatory measures or specific policy commitments; Anderson referenced existing regional seas conventions and the Convention on Migratory Species as instruments the international community uses to coordinate protections across jurisdictions.