Spare the sharks, please

‘Shark Girl’ inspired Dandenong North students to work hard and respect sharks.
Madison Stewart spoke at Lyndale Secondary College on Thursday 2 June through the library’s guest speaker program.
The 22-year-old underwater filmmaker is dedicated to preserving marine environments and spends much of her time travelling the world to speak about the issue.
She’s a dive master with more than 600 hours of dive time with sharks and is one of the human stars of her recent documentary Shark Girl.
Year 10 student Tameeka said Madison was an inspiring young presenter.
“Madison has worked hard and achieved so much in educating people about the true nature of sharks,” she said.
Classmate Ally said she liked Madison’s passion for her work.
“She has done so much for shark conservation but she was very humble about her achievements,” she said.
“I didn’t realise that flake was shark meat; I didn’t know that mercury in fish including sharks had implications for human health; I didn’t know that millions of sharks are killed each year just for their fins; and I didn’t know that a number of shark species, including the great white, are approaching endangered status.”
Year 7 Aleasha said she didn’t like sharks much.
“But after watching Madeline’s presentation and films my perspective has changed massively,” she said.
“I can guarantee you if you had listened to Madeline’s talk you would feel sympathy for sharks even if you still fear them.”
Classmate Lala said the things that stood out to her from Madison’s talk were “the way she was prepared to educate herself about sharks with first-hand knowledge then stand up for an unpopular cause to help an ancient species that is often treated unfairly by humans”.