Was the shark killing real?

I just watched this movie for the first time & I loved it! But at the end of the movie I had the same question as you, so I took to the internet to see what answers I could find. That search led me here & I was hopeful your question had gotten an answer. I went back to my searching once I saw you hadn't gotten a reply & I found this short article: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/1991/10/06/flipper-vs-the-shark-a-grudge-match-royale/ that addressed the question of whether or not a dolphin can harm a shark, not whether or not sharks were harmed in this movie, but this movie is the reference point & the answer to our question is revealed! You can click the link & read the whole thing, but it's a site that requests you to subscribe to it so you'll have to read fast before the subscribe popup covers the text or you can do as I do & hit the X button in the load/reload area to stop the loading before the popup has a chance to cover it. You've got to time it just right though... OR I'll just paste the relevant parts here for you if by some chance you see this 3 years later & for anyone else who may find this site when they also search the same question. I hope it helps! =)

"For an answer, we turn to none other than Ric O’Barry, Flipper’s former trainer, now an advocate of releasing captured dolphins. He says that many of the dolphins he sees have scars from shark bites, and that, in fact, sometimes sharks eat dolphins.

“When dolphins catnap on top of the water at night, they are very vulnerable,” he says. “We needed to capture five dolphins that looked alike for the Flipper show. We had to capture 100 to get five without scars.”

But what about Flipper’s battles?

O’Barry says the shark Flipper rammed was made of fiberglass. As for the blood gushing out of the gills, he says they squirted red dye into a real shark’s mouth, and it came streaming out its gills."

I'm glad to think it's likely no sharks were harmed in making this scene of the movie! =)

Kind Regards,
Melissa