Despite its reputation as the bane of divers, surfers, and seals, the great white shark has become revered by the people most likely to encounter them.

This summer, state law was changed to permanently prohibit commercial and sportfishermen from capturing great whites - a move that was widely supported by surfers and divers, said Bolinas naturalist Burr Heneman.

"The Jaws mentality associated with the Steven Spielberg movie wasn't out there, and a broad coalition of support came out to protect them," explained Heneman, who in 1993 wrote legislation that temporarily protected the predator. "The most support came from sport and commercial divers. That's where the most respect for great whites came from."

Great whites have attacked nearly 50 people on the California coast since 1972, including seven divers and surfers off Tomales Point, one of the most dangerous areas for shark attacks in the world.

Don Joslin of Point Reyes Station, who said he too supports protecting the great white, was attacked by one in 1969 while diving for abalone off Tomales Point. The shark grabbed him in his jaws and violently shook him. The shark let go, then circled around for another bite, recalled Joslin, now 81.

Joslin hit the shark with his abalone iron, slugged it with his fist, and raced back into his boat. Just seven years earlier, he had watched another diver get attacked off the Farallon Islands. He said his friend panicked and was bitten three times.

"Anybody that's familiar with them says fight them with everything you got and they'll leave you alone," Joslin said. "They aren't after people. They're just natural feeders, and if they come upon something they'll grab it."

Joslin said it is more dangerous to drive on coastal roads than to dive in shark-infested waters. "There aren't that many around, and the attacks are few and far between," he said.

While Bolinas' Heneman was director of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, researchers on the Farallon Islands confirmed what local divers had suspected for years: White sharks congregate at the mouth of Tomales Bay during fall and early winter, hungry for seals and sea lions, and taking bites out of wetsuits from time to time.

However, it wasn't until a commercial fisherman caught four large adult white sharks off the Farallones in 1983 that scientists there began to realize that the most feared predator in the ocean was also one of its rarest and most vulnerable species, Heneman said.

"Their population can't withstand any level of taking," said Heneman, explaining that great whites, like all large predators, don't reproduce often and take many years to reach breeding age.

Researchers on the Farallones began watching the shark's population carefully around 1972, when Congress passed the Marine Mammal Act that protected seals and sea lions from human predators, he said.

Researchers soon noticed a close relationship between great sharks and pinnipeds: As the colonies of seals and sea lions grew, so did the frequency of shark attacks on them.

During the peak months of October and November, Heneman said, preying white sharks became a daily sigh - until the four adults were taken by the fisherman in 1983. "The number of attacks dropped off the chart," Heneman said. "It took five years to recover."

Farallon researchers began conducting more formal research in 1987, using transmitters to track the depth and body temperature of the great whites and identifying them by their fins and bodies.

Some of those sharks appeared as far away as Catalina and the Channel Islands, said Heneman, who estimates the "local" white shark population to be anywhere from the high tens to low hundreds.

But much of the sharks' behavior remains unknown, he said, noting that their true numbers and breeding habits are still a mystery.

Nevertheless, their reputation as ferocious hunters has spurred a cottage industry of shark hunters who can command up to $10,000 for a souvenir set of adult jaws, he said, but few hunters exist on the West Coast.

"We were able to act on that before it became a problem," said Heneman, who acknowledges that the great white holds fascination for nearly everyone.

"We're not used to being threatened by wildlife," he said. "It's something we forgot about, and there's a thrill or tingle when we see something like a great white."