Why are sharks the 'bad guys'?

Sharks have been vilified as the world’s ultimate killing machine.  But their bad boy image is all wrong, according to the guys we worked with on this week’s “TechKnow.”

Jim Abernethy owns a SCUBA diving business known for its shark dives near West Palm Beach in Florida. If there’s a shark around – you’re likely to find Jim in the water with a camera. (He shot most of the gorgeous underwater footage used in our piece.)

"I haven’t had a single aggressive shark in the 35 years I’ve been swimming with them on a daily basis," Abernethy says. "We have 400 billion years of sharks shaping our ocean's health, and in the last 50 years—in my watch—we have literally destroyed it."

Abernethy loves sharks, and he wants you to love them too. That’s one of the reasons he became a pioneer in cage-free shark diving—offering people the chance to encounter them up close in the wild. 

"It's up to those of us who really know what's going on to protect them the way they truly need to be protected," Abernethy says. "We only protect what we love."