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Why does the writer say that people who know sharks intimately tend to be least afraid of them?
Answer
The people who know sharks intimately tend to be the least afraid of them, and nobody knows that better than divers. They lovingly speak to the tiger sharks the way people talk about their children. While the writer was trying to fend off the first tiger shark that followed him, he noticed that the other divers were feeding it fish and steering them gently as though they were harmless pets and not man-eating predators.
From the composition:
But I just wanted to puncture an illusion. The people who know sharks intimately tend to be the least afraid of them, and no one gets closer to sharks than divers. The divers who run operations at Tiger Beach speak lovingly of the tiger sharks the way people talk about their children or their pets. In their eyes, these sharks aren’t man-eaters any more than dogs are.
