Slideshow: Dana Point's Famous Brush with Jaws

This week marks the and Dana Point offers a perfect microcosm of the evolution in popular attitudes toward sharks.

Today Jon Mansur is a Dana Point business owner, having hung up is harpoon and traded it for a cash register. But, the owner of famously wrangled the great white shark in 1975 that spent weeks on display at Sea World, startling and captivating thousands of tourists.

Back then, crowds lined the wharf to cheer the capture of the huge shark. This week scientists submitted a petition to federal wildlife officials, seeking to have the Great White declared an endangered species along the west coast. About 73 million sharks are killed every year, threatening 30 percent of shark species with extinction, according Global Shark Conservation.

While it’s no longer commonplace to see a being towed ashore, Bill Rice, who once did public relations work for Dana Wharf Sportfishing and Whale Watching, was there with his camera that fateful day Mansur brought in his catch.

He remembers being on hand when Mansur and his brother Larry harpooned the Great White (shown in these photos). and reached out.

"It's been a while, but, as I remember it, Don Hansen, who owned Dana Wharf Sportfishing and Whale Watching, called me about Larry harpooning this big shark off Santa Barbara Island, and he was bringing it to Dana Point harbor the next day," said Rice, who is now retired and living in Oregon.

He said at the time he was the editor of Western Outdoor News and also did fishing public relations work for .  

"I called several TV stations, but the only one that showed up was ABC ... they shot video, and had it on the ABC news that night," he said. "I was there when the boat arrived, and shot all my pictures on the deck of the boat. I had someone shoot the black and white picture of me with the shark."

Jon Mansur later sold the shark to Sea World for $6,500 and they had it on display for several weeks, on ice.

"As you can see by the photos, the shark was huge," Rice said. "About 17.5 feet long and 3,600 pounds. It took about a half-dozen guys to slide the sling under the shark, which was like trying to lift a bagful of Jello. Once they got the sling under it, they had the hoist to lift it … slowly."

Rice added that although the hoist at the harbor was used to lift the shark, it became twisted, "but it did not break, luckily."  

"Then they got the shark on a flatbed truck covered with ice, and made the trip to Sea World in San Diego," he said.

These days the Mansur brothers don't fish for shark anymore, but they do still fish.

Jon, 67, has owned in Dana Point harbor for 32 years with his business partner, Sharon. Larry, 78, also still fishes but for commercial salmon. 

"I haven't fished for sharks in years," Jon Mansur said. "Back then, it was just incidental catches and there was a lot of interest in sharks after the movie, ."

Jon did say previously that pulling in a Great White is "an adrenaline rush and you shake a lot because it is so powerful."

About this column: With Dana Point so close to Laguna Niguel, Patch often finds interesting items and things going on in this city called, "The Whale Capital of the West."