Claims that Jaws is lurking off the Cornish coast could cause long-term damage to the region’s fragile holiday industry, tourist chiefs said yesterday.

Pictures earlier this week of what was claimed to be a great white shark, one of the world’s deadliest marine predators, were identified by marine experts as a harmless basking shark. But newspapers have continued to publish reports and photographs of “great white” sharks supposedly taken off Cornwall.

The “shark mania” was condemned as scaremongering by tourist industry leaders who fear that it could scare off visitors, particularly those with young families. The summer had already got off to a poor start with rising interest rates and the wettest July on record hitting the number of visitors.

A spokeswoman for the tourism agency VisitCornwall said the shark claims could cause serious damage, even if few people believed them. “When you listen to what some of the experts are saying, it’s crystal clear that these so-called great whites are actually basking sharks,” she said.

“It is simply scaremongering to sell newspapers. On the face of it, it’s a bit of fun but when you dig a bit deeper it’s a bit irresponsible and could have a negative impact on tourism. Long-term bookings won’t be affected but the worry we’ve got is that the weekend breaks could be. It’s a story that comes up every summer but it’s never been true once.”

She said that few people had taken the claims seriously. “Thankfully most people are intelligent enough to work it out for themselves.”

The latest claims include a photograph of a great white supposedly taken a mile off Newquay a fortnight ago. Experts have cast doubts on the veracity of the photograph, and the nightclub bouncer who took it has refused to provide any evidence to back up his claims. The boat from which he claimed to have taken it has not been based in Newquay for at least 15 years.

Lorraine Harrison, chairwoman of Newquay chamber of commerce and tourism, demanded an end to the “silliness. “They [sharks] are not sitting there and waiting for individuals to come along so they can eat them. The scaremongering has to stop.”

Kevin Keeble, 52, told his local newspaper, the Newquay Guardian, that he had been fishing for mackerel when he spotted the 20ft great white and immediately grabbed his camera. The photograph was published on the front page and also appeared in The Sun, which reported the first claimed sighting of a great white off St Ives last Saturday.

Mr Keeble said that he had taken the picture with a EOS 600 film camera from 100ft. “I have been fishing off Newquay for 25 years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.

“I’ve seen porbeagle sharks, basking sharks, bull sharks — but this was something else.” But he said he was unable to produce the negatives to show the sequence of pictures and refused to name the friend he said had taken him fishing. He said he recognised it as a great white because he had been on shark fishing trips to South Africa.

Captain Derek Aunger, Newquay’s harbour master, said the Benita Ann, the boat that Mr Keeble claimed to have been fishing from, had been sold to someone in Scotland 15 years ago and had not been back in the area.

“The veracity of the picture is doubtful. I suspect it is not true. It would appear that this is a picture of a great white; it is only the geography that is wrong. If we had a photograph of a great white in Newquay we would know about it,” he said.

Douglas Hurdson, of the National Marine Aquarium, confirmed that the shark in the photo was a great white but said that damage to its fins suggested that it was living as part of a larger group. “It is obviously approaching a boat and the angle suggests it was not 100ft away,” he said. “The picture is exactly what you might expect to see if you were on a shark diving trip off South Africa and a great white approached the boat. The other pictures that have appeared this week of sharks off the Cornish or Devon coasts are obviously basking sharks.”

Mr Keeble refused to discuss the photograph yesterday.

Marine biologists believe that it is only a matter of time before a confirmed sighting of a great white is made in British waters but they are convinced that none of the sightings made this week stands up to scrutiny.

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