Worldwide Decline in Shark Attacks
If some of you are like me, and ever since you saw the movie JAWS, you can’t help but get a little nervous each time you jump in the water each summer; this story may help calm your nerves a little bit. Thanks to some University of Florida research you will be happy to know that shark attacks worldwide have barely risen and are on a downward trend. In 2005 there were 61 attacks and that number has gone up only 1. In 2006 there were 62 attacks and 4 of those were fatalities. This is a great improvement in comparison to the statistics of 2000. In that one year alone there were 79 attacks, 11 of which were deadly.
Scientists are having trouble explaining the overall decline in the attacks. Some attribute this lull in shark attacks to the fact that there is a decrease in the population of sharks located near the shore due to overfishing. Another cause could be changes in weather patterns or variations in the proximity of currents to the shoreline. Also there has been a lot more water safety precautions taken globally and swimmers are more cautious about where they are swimming. Of those attacked in 2006, surfers were the most prevalent and swimmers were a close second. Snorkelers and divers were at a distant third with only 5 attacked.
Of the four fatalities that occurred in 2006, none happened in the United States. In 2005 there were 40 U.S. attacks and that dropped slightly to 38 this past year. Florida still remains the world’s shark attack capital, but the number of attacks has lowered there as well. George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida seemed to be happy with the results of this year’s census. He said, “It's really quite remarkable when you have only four people a year die in the mouth of a shark. The reality is, as a biologist, this is a non-problem. It's a minor, minor thing."
The four fatalities this year occurred in Australia, Brazil, Reunion Island, and the South Pacific island Tonga. The Australian attack was a woman swimming off the coast with her dog. According to Burgess, the attack may have been provoked by bloody fish parts being thrown into the water by fisherman. In Brazil, a man was fatally attacked swimming off of the northeast coast. The death on Reunion Island happened to a man who was surfing in waters that are forbidden for swimming. In Tonga a young woman from the American Peace Corps was attacked while swimming.
Let’s hope that the trend of violent interaction between sharks and humans stays on a downward spiral. Remember the next time you enter the water at the beach, that you are not in a swimming pool in your backyard, but in fact you are in another environment. An environment that sharks and tons of other aquatic life are living and interacting with one another. Also if there is warning in area to not swim, don’t try and swim there.
Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/03/990316112634.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/13/sharks.reut/index.html
posted by PWH @ 4:35 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
It is always extremely interesting to follow trends in such gruesomely interesting topics as shark attacks. I'm glad to see that the statistics support the fact of an overall decline in attacks worldwide. However, I am a little skeptical of any conclusions drawn from a comparison of attack statistics per country. On such an individual scale, I think these comparisons are less reliable due to the variation from country to country of an incredible array of factors such as tourism profile, shark species that inhabit the area, weather, and ocean current patterns. Were there any available statistics on which sharks were involved in the attacks?
Posted by J543
This topic was really interesting to me, I love learning about sharks and watch Shark Week every August. I was interested to know that Florida was the shark attack capital for the country, I had no idea! I go to Florida almost every year and almost always go swimming. However, I've never seen a shark. I watched a documentary on shark attacks recently which focused on which sharks are the deadliest (which is the bull shark I believe). The film made a point that although shark attacks are decreasing somewhat in frequency, they can only go on shark attacks that are reported. They felt there were a lot of shark attacks, specifically in third world countries that go unreported.
This article was very encouraging to me, considering that I too am one of the beach-goers who can't seem to look past the fact that, regardless of their frequency, shark attacks do happen. The statistics showing such a dramatic decline between the years of 2000 and 2006 give reason to lose that fear of the Jaws-like shark attack. Also, the descriptions of the four fatalities also make it a little easier to believe that shark attacks are not very common, specifically the person swimming in a forbidden area. I spotted one grammatical error--the word "fisherman" rather than "fishermen" was used to describe more than one person. How accurate are these statistics? How many specific sources were used to find the same information?
id: hickeye6
This topic really caught my eye, it's interesting to know that shark attacks have been on the decline. But it's also very interesting that scientists don't have an exact answer as to why there has been a decline. I'm curious to know how weather patterns could possibly effect the behavior of sharks. It seems a little tough to say that because of several fewer attacks since 2000, that there is a downward trend. Since attacks have gone up from 2005 to 2006, there doesn't seem to be a significant drop in attacks to really call it a decline in the recent years.
It is always intresting to read about sharks. I was surprised to see a decline in worldwide shark attacks. I think that the decline should be supported with facts of maybe why it has dropped so much from 2000 to 2006. It would have been helpful to see the data from the other years to see if the decline is really that dramatic. I thought that this articles was really fun!!
I find the hypothesis of overfishing as a reson for the attack decline to be an interesting one. Recently I read an article in National Geographic that predicted by the year 2048 there would be no more fish that are commercially fished left in the ocean. Due to this fact I would predict that sharks would attack more humans due to a lack of their natural food source. This, or that it would drive the sharks into more open water rather than coastal communities in search of a food source. Its a statistic that we will have to wait and see if attacks continue to go down or rise with the predicted depleation of natural sources.
I hope there will be some kind of explanation to this in the future. To me though, it doesn't seem like much. So it could just be random. I agree that maybe people are just being smarter and more careful. Maybe in a way the sharks are getting used to humans being around. I don't know but this is interesting none the less.
I always wonder why the masses seem to be so frightened by sharks. There are so few attacks every year, it really doesn't appear to be that much of a threat. The fear is based solely on the buildup done by the media (truly terrible movies like deep water, or whatever it was), and not at all by the facts. It's great to read the actual statistics. Four fatalities. Just to put things in perspective, I'm pretty sure more people killed themselves at Cornell last year. I definitely appreciated the blog, it was informative and easy to read. Good balance between maintaining interest and presenting the facts.
After reading the article and the following posts, I still didn't have a clear idea as to why shark attacks are "declining". From what I read, over fishing seems to be the most realistic response to mystery but I'm not convinced. As was stated in a previous post the statistics that we read are of reported shark deaths. This makes me wonder- are shark attacks actually declining? Well, we really have no way of knowing. The best guess we can make is by finding out concretely what is causing the "decline". If it is global weather patterns, then yes shark attacks may be declining in all regions of the world- but if it is due to stricter policies on swimming areas, we can only apply that reasoning to areas that we know are actually putting those kind of polices in place. The article was interesting, and the write up was well done, but I don't feel like I have walked away with a lot of concrete facts.
Hashkes6
I thought this was a great topic. It's interesting to see that, for whatever reason, shark attacks are declining. This article would make me want to research the toipc a little bit more.
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