From Jaws to Jubilation
The Return of the Peter Benchley Awards and how you can nominate a Hero
I’m thrilled to announce the revival of the Peter Benchley Ocean Awards that Wendy Benchley and I co-founded many years ago after Peter passed away to honor an author who was also a lifelong marine conservationist. After the 10th annual awards in 2017, the Benchleys went into hiatus. Now they are back as what many called ‘the Academy Awards of the Sea,’ thanks to the support and commitment of the Aquarium Conservation Partnership, which is made up of 29 aquariums from around the nation.
The 2025 awards are now scheduled for May 8th, 2025 at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Winners will come from eight categories and nominations for these prestigious honors are still open to the public till Dec. 8. Meanwhile, it's also the 50th anniversary of Peter’s book, Jaws. To learn more or nominate someone go to: Peterbenchleyoceanawards.org
Vickie Nichols Goldstein of the Inland Ocean Coalition (VNG) and co-host of the Rising Tide Ocean Podcast, recently spoke with Wendy and me about the awards. Here are the excerpts:
(VNG): Wow. I can't believe that 2017 was the last one. Of course, I've been to so many of them and they are pretty magical affairs. So, I'm really excited that they're coming back. So, Wendy and David, thinking back to the start of the Benchley Awards, what inspired the two of you to create them? And how did this collaboration come about?
(DH): Peter Benchley was the keynote speaker in 2004 at our first Blue Vision Summit that Blue Frontier put on in Washington, D. C. And he was very inspiring. People at the time thought, Jaws was an anti-shark movie and anti-shark book but reality was, Peter dedicated his life to shark and marine wildlife conservation. So, here's a great keynote speaker, a great guy. And when he passed away, I approached Wendy with the idea of, setting up, an awards in his name and his honor and I think Wendy, you initially had had some, troubles with previous partners and were kind of reluctant to partner up on this.
Wendy Benchley (WB): Yes, I was. But honestly when we started to propose it and we heard the reaction from a lot of ocean people that they were intrigued and thought it would be wonderful. that did a great deal to make me feel really excited about it. And of course, then as it went along, it got more and more thrilling and fascinating and people came together. I think that was one of the most wonderful things about the Benchley's was that people from different walks of life in different professions would come together under one roof. And meet each other and exchange. And I remember one time when Louis Psihoyos (Academy-Award winning director of ‘The Cove’) was talking with Cyn Sarthou (long-time Executive Director of the Gulf Restoration Network), and they had such a good time because Louie said, I hardly ever get to meet a really great grassroots organizer and somebody who's been on the ground and at this for 20, 30 years, however long she was there. And she, of course, was thrilled to talk to Louie, so I'm just delighted that the Benchley's are coming back again, and we'll have those kind of exchanges.
(DH): The amazing thing with the awards is we created different categories that ranged from science to grassroots activism to youth, to policy, to media. They were all solution-oriented from sectors that normally didn't encounter each other. So. it really created this community and thanks to Wendy and her folks had a certain elegance.
(WB): Talking about elegance there was the time when we gave a an (National Stewardship) award to Prince Albert (of Monaco) And Nainoa Thompson (of the Polynesian Voyaging Society was there (to receive an award for Exploration) and he absolutely captured everybody in the auditorium with his talk because he had that special Pacific Islander way of letting his soul come out and you could feel his soul in the ocean and his ancestors.
And Prince Albert was so captivated by the speech and then Nainoa came and sat next to Prince Albert and they were just in tight conversation for an hour. So that was another exchange where the two of them may have never met but for the awards.
(VNG): You also had national leaders and people in decision making positions who could move the dial on ocean conservation.
(WB): Yes, we had John Kerry who was very powerful then. Or Macky Sall (President of Senegal at the time of his award), who wanted us to come over to Senegal and present the award there because he said this would help him so much if they saw that the United States and the Benchley Awards were congratulating Senegal for allowing their artisanal fishers to fish and getting rid of the huge boats (EU based offshore industrial trawlers that were overfishing West Africa’s waters).
(DH): Yes, we should have gone to Senegal. We did give the award to the President of Costa Rica at one point for creating a large Marine Protected area and also the President of Palau who was unable to attend the awards the year they were at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. So I went to Palau to dive and give the award to the president who approached me with his entourage. I said, ‘Mr. President, I love your country, but one of your residents attacked me yesterday.’ He got this stricken look. I said, “A titan triggerfish bit me yesterday,’ and he goes. “Oh, yes, that's a very bad fish. That's a very nasty fish.”
(WB): Yeah, we've all been bitten by trigger fish. They just nibble at you all the time.
(VNG): We also had…Who was that woman that blew up the boats? The illegal fishing boats?
(DH): That was the fishery Minister of Indonesia Susi Pudjiastuti.
(VNG): Oh my gosh. I just remember being blown away with her visuals and everybody just thinking, wow, that's incredible. That's one good way to handle things.
(DH): And she told us she was getting a lot of pressure from China and other countries that were, backing these pirate fishing vessels that were coming into Indonesian territory. She said the award really helped in her efforts. And I said, well, sure. But you literally had Your Navy blow up 400 vessels.
(VNG): And she said, well, but…
(DH): There were thousands of them. You have to set an example.
(VNG): That really stood out to me.
(WB): She was a really wonderful woman. And I saw her a few times afterward. She finally had to retire because I think her vision was a little too aggressive for Indonesia.
(WB): It is thrilling, absolutely thrilling that they're coming back, and I'm so pleased that John Racanelli of the National Aquarium in Baltimore and that Julie Packard and the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California helped get the Aquarium Conservation Partnership involved. So, I think the plan is that there will be an award each year at a different aquarium.
So that will be very nice because I would hope that it will go to some of the aquariums in the middle of the United States and not just be East Coast, West Coast.
(VNG) Well, as founder of the Inland Ocean Coalition, I love that.
(DH): It's important that movements, especially that are as broad as the oceans, which cover two thirds of our planet acknowledge our victories and solutions. And I think in awarding leaders practicing solutions across different sectors like youth, like grassroots, like national leadership and policy and science it gave impetus to other people to figure out how we grow solutions faster than the problems.
When I moved back to California, I wrote a book on California in the sea because I thought, Oh, here's a solution that's as large as the problem, 40 million people, the world's fourth largest economy, but it does good by the coast and oceans. And so we gave what turned out to be a postumous award to the long-time Executive Director of the California coastal commission
(VNG): Peter Douglas. Totally remember that.
(DH): And Peter, he had cancer. I said to him, ‘We're going to give you the award. We don't normally let the winners know ahead of time’. And he says, ‘Well, I'll be there if, fate and the ocean allows me to be.’ He didn’t make it but the award was accepted for hm by California’s Secretary of Natural Resources.
(WB): I'm also thinking about when David started to talk about the history and the idea, I'm just thinking about Peter when we first, after ‘Jaws’, when we first started going on National Geographic expeditions, and it was so, thrilling for both of us to be able to get out on the ocean.
And what other writer has ever been so fortunate as to write a book and then have it open up a whole new life for him as it did for Peter? We were very lucky that way. And that was one of the things we talked a lot about was that there are so many different vocations and avocations and jobs that are all associated with helping to get the ocean healthy again.
And so I think that this, the Benchley Awards are very true to that thought that he had and David helped put it into a real organized award system. But it was certainly something that we talked about when he was still alive. And so, it's a great honor, a marvelous feeling and I think he would be if he were alive very moved that the ocean community accepts Jaws and his writing as something that, the end result was fascination and more interest in the ocean and that it had a positive effect. And I think it's quite wonderful that the aquariums also feel comfortable with that concept.
(DH): Wendy I just was talking the other day with this young woman scientist who told me when I mentioned it, she didn't know there was a Peter Benchley Awards and she got very excited. She said, when she was a child she read “The Girl of the Sea of Cortez’ and carried it with her for years and it inspired her to become a scientist. So, it wasn't just jaws. It was, his whole body of work of that was all about the ocean.
(WB): That was Peter's favorite book. You do know that he had this wonderful ride on a manta ray that was injured in the Sea of Cortez. And (after people helped free it from the rope that was hurting it) the manta stayed with the ship for about three days. I think it was a safe place for the manta. It was like a feeding station and let people be with it. And so, he came back from that trip just exhilarated and fascinated with mantas. And then he wrote ‘The Girl of the Sea of Cortez’ about this young Mexican girl who has a very positive relationship with a manta, and it's a great book and we hope it's going to be a movie one of these days.
(DH): I think it would make a lovely movie and it's also nice that after meeting so many marine scientists who were inspired by the Marine biologist character in Jaws who Richard Dreyfuss played in the movie, it’s nice to meet a scientist who was actually inspired and had her life turned around by Girl of the Sea of Cortez.
(WB): I think Peter got thousands of letters from people saying they wanted to be Hooper. And actually, I think Peter wanted to be Hooper. That was sort of his role model.
(VNG): I know how carefully the honorees have been chosen in the past. Could you talk about 2025.
(DH): We have eight categories in the new Benchley's. They've been slightly altered and updated, but essentially the same. Excellence in national leadership, which, as we mentioned, it's not just heads of state, but people who are moving their nations in, sync with healthy oceans, Excellence in sustainable business solutions, which is a new category, but an important one, Excellence in action is our new name for grassroots activist organizations or individuals, Excellence in Science and Exploration, Excellence in Media, the Christopher Benchley Youth Award, which will go to a young person who's doing outstanding work for the ocean, and then Ocean Hero, an individual who's making a real difference.
To get a listing of these categories, you can go to the PeterBenchleyOceanAwards.org, where you can also submit a nomination, somebody or some group you think is worthy of one of these awards
(VNG): what's the date for submission?
(DH): It's been extended to December 8. So, time to get those nominations in if you know an individual or group or a business or a scientist who's just doing extraordinary work on behalf of the ocean and are not one of the 75 extraordinary people who've already received a Benchley Award
(VNG): One per customer. Now, I always looked forward to this event and I had to think about what to wear because it is such an elegant event a beautiful affair. Will it have that same kind of feeling to it? Tell me about the ambiance that you're anticipating for the relaunch of the Benchley Awards?
(WB): Definitely it's going to be elegant again. You and I have to go out and get something that will be smashing.
(VNG): I'm so curious because Wendy, the whole thing is honoring Peter and his conservation efforts and, you always had such a beautiful video introducing the Benchley Awards with his history. How do you think he would feel about the progress that these awards have made and what it's looking like now?
(WB): Oh, I think that he would be stunned and very proud, feel very happy and delighted with it. He was a very modest guy. So, he would be really startled, I think.
(DH): think in viewing the awardees, what you find is a commonality across many sectors, whether it's media, science, policy. These are people who love the ocean and followed their passion and that whatever aspect of our blue world inspires you, make that your life, and in making that your life don't get disconnected from the sea because as writer Isak Dinesen wrote, ‘The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears or the sea.’