Shark researcher Dr. Erich Ritter has died

Dr. Erich Ritter, probably the most famous shark researcher, died on 28 Aug 2020 of a heart disease in his adopted home of Florida at the age of only 61.

Heiko Blessin, head of the JBL research expeditions, has a personal obituary: It is said that everyone can be replaced - but that’s not the case with Erich Ritter. His enthusiasm and commitment to endangered sharks was unprecedented!

Erich and I got to know each other at the water sports fair “Boot 2004”. At that time he was still with the shark protection organisation SharkProject.

JBL was planning a workshop with 80 participants at the Red Sea and Erich immediately agreed to visit us there and give our participants a lecture on shark interaction. In 2005 he arrived at Marsa Shagra in the afternoon and we talked for two hours prior to his lecture. I found his argument that sharks don’t recognise human blood quite convincing: sharks have never bitten menstruating women swimming in the sea! I don't know if this was Swiss humour or Eric's humour - but you never forget something like that. The next day he flew back to the USA without going in the water. His calf was severed in a shark accident, and he even saw the humour in this, saying that he would win any breakdance competition by just walking across the stage. During our 2006 expedition to South Africa, we coordinated the times so that his group and ours were at the same hotel at Aliwal Shoal at the same time. In the evening, spontaneously, out of friendship and passion, he gave a lecture for the JBL team on white sharks. In the evenings we sat together for a long time and talked about our childhoods, in which the foundations of our passion for the oceans were laid. We realised that the TV series Flipper had probably been the deciding factor in our fascination with the sea for both of us. Erich was still working on his doctoral thesis on the perch when I became a marine biologist. But he moved to Florida and stayed much closer to our role model Flipper. Our last meeting was in the Bahamas in 2018 and when free diving world record holder, Christian Redl, Erich and I sat together in the bungalow in the evening, Erich usually occupied himself with writing research papers or using social media. One of the last things I can remember him saying was: "If you still aren’t getting decent pictures of sharks, you’re in the wrong job!“.

We’ll miss you, Erich!

© 31.08.2020 JBL GmbH & Co. KG

A word about cookies before we continue

The JBL Homepage also uses several types of cookies to provide you with full functionality and many services: We require technical and functional cookies to ensure that everything works when you visit this website. We also use cookies for marketing purposes. This ensures that we recognise you when you visit our extensive site again, that we can measure the success of our campaigns and that the personalisation cookies allow us to address you individually and directly, adapted to your needs - even outside our website. You can determine at any time - even at a later date - which cookies you allow and which you do not allow (more on this under "Change settings").

The JBL website uses several types of cookies to provide you with full functionality and many services: Technical and functional cookies are absolutely necessary so that everything works when you visit this website. In addition, we use cookies for marketing purposes. You can determine at any time - even at a later date - which cookies you allow and which you do not (more on this under "Change settings").

Our data protection declaration tells you how we process personal data and what purposes we use the data processing for. tells you how we process personal data and what purposes we use the data processing for. Please confirm the use of all cookies by clicking "Accept" - and you're on your way.

Are you over 16 years old? Then confirm the use of all cookies with "Noticed" and you are ready to go.

Choose your cookie settings

Technical and functional cookies, so that everything works when you visit our website.
Marketing cookies, so that we recognize you on our pages and can measure the success of our campaigns.

PUSH messages from JBL

What are PUSH messages? As part of the W3C standard, web notifications define an API for end-user notifications that are sent to the user's desktop and/or mobile devices via the browser. Notifications appear on the end devices as they are familiar to the end user from apps installed on the device (e.g. emails). Notifications appear on the end user’s device, just like an app (e.g. for emails) installed on the device.

These notifications enable a website operator to contact its users whenever they have a browser open - it doesn’t matter whether the user is currently visiting the website or not.

To be able to send web push notifications, all you need is a website with a web push code installed. This allows brands without apps to take advantage of many of the benefits of push notifications (personalised real-time communications at just the right moment).

Web notifications are part of the W3C standard and define an API for end user notifications. A notification makes it possible to inform the user about an event, such as a new blog post, outside the context of a website.

JBL GmbH & Co. KG provides this service free of charge, and it is easy to activate or deactivate.