Peter Benchley's widow speaks against shark tournament

Sharks have been good to Wendy Benchley’s family. Now, she was wants organizers of a shark fishing tournament on Martha’s Vineyard to be good to sharks and call it off.

Benchley’s late husband, Peter Benchley, wrote "Jaws." The movie version, filmed on Martha’s Vineyard, terrified swimmers everywhere.

Last week, Benchley spoke out against the "Monster" shark tournament at the selectmen’s meeting in Oak Bluffs, where the annual event will be held in July.

She said stringing up sharks to display is wrong.

Steven James of the Boston Big Game Fishing Club, which sponsors the tournament, tells The Cape Cod Times that Benchley has a lot of audacity to "pretend she is concerned about sharks."
He said her husband’s book portrayed sharks as "senseless killing machines."