Emily said she has always been fascinated by sharks and by how little information people know about them.
A childhood fear of sharks has turned into a lifelong passion for one American woman. Emily Morrison, who was once frightened by the movie Jaws, now works with sharks and has earned a Guinness World Records title for having the most shark tattoos on the body by a woman. Emily said she was eight years old when Jaws made her afraid of the ocean. She remembered telling her father that sharks would eat her because of the way the great white shark was shown in the film, Guinness World Records.
Instead of accepting her fear, Emily said her father took her to a library and asked her to find a real reason to hate sharks. As she read books and searched for information, she began sharing facts about sharks with him. Over time, her father noticed she spoke about the animals with so much enthusiasm that she no longer seemed to hate them.
Emily said she has always been fascinated by sharks and by how little information people know about them. She explained that she is obsessed with the adaptations and evolutionary journey that sharks and other cartilaginous fish have gone through during their 450 million years of existence. She added that understanding why sharks are the way they are and how they affect their environments is fascinating because there is always more to learn.
Her interest eventually became a career, and she started working as a shark biologist. She also bought a shark adventure tour company that offers fossil dive charters off the coast of Venice, Florida, where people can search for fossilised shark and megalodon teeth.
Emily also chose to express her love for sharks through tattoos. As she found shark teeth and encountered different species, she had them tattooed on her body. Over the years, she collected 106 shark tattoos from her feet to her neck, earning the Guinness World Records title for the most sharks tattooed on the body by a female.
Emily said she lives a shark life. She explained that she could not work a regular nine-to-five job, so she began taking specialised shark diving trips decades ago. When others wanted to join her, she started leading tours and fossil charters through Shark Lady Enterprises while continuing to work alongside the animals she admires.
She got her first shark tattoo, a great white on her lower back, in 1999 when she was 19 years old, around the same time she began working with sharks professionally. Over the years, she added more shark tattoos to her legs, arms, and shoulders.
