'Shark Girl' swims with, fights for sharks

Madison Stewart is a 20-year-old woman who spends her spare time swimming with sharks. She visited "Fox & Friends" Thursday morning to discuss, well, why.

"Once you meet a shark, all that fear of them just kind of disappears. They're my buddies ... I'm losing them. Ninety percent of the sharks are gone from our oceans, and Great Barrier Reef is home to illegal shark fishery."

According to Sunshine Coast Daily, Stewart, who shoots her own short films, is now the star of a documentary called "Shark Girl." The activist says she wants to help people understand sharks, so that they'll fight for sharks' safety and wellbeing as they do for dolphins or whales.

New York Daily News spoke with Stewart by phone. She said, "There is no such thing as 'Jaws.' I want people to see these animals as something that should be respected, and not as mindless killers we need to eliminate."

Although, we can't ignore the fact that shark attacks happen every year, USA Today points out:

"There's an average of about 10 deaths a year from shark attacks worldwide ... but about 100 million sharks are killed by humans each year."

And Stewart has been vigilant about her fight. In a video on YouTube, she says:

"When you take the oceans away, you've got Mars. It's really the heartbeat of our planet. And there was once a time we thought we couldn't do anything to impact it, but that's changed now, and we are impacting it greatly."

The Smithsonian Channel will feature the documentary "Shark Girl" this Sunday.