![]() “(Great) white sharks, which often hunt in very clear water use their vision a lot more and their eyesight is much better,” says Chapman. Yet great whites – the species depicted in the film Jaws and demonised by Hollywood ever since – isn’t just a separate species, but an entirely different taxonomic order from the other two. The majority of unprovoked attacks on humans where a species is identified involve three large culprits: the great white, tiger and bull sharks. There are dozens of different species responsible for bites, each with their own unique behaviour, hunting strategies, prey and preferred habitat – although in many cases the species can be misidentified or not identified at all. The findings highlight one of the key challenges in understanding why sharks bite humans. The 16 cases it saw in 2022 represented 39% of the US total and 28% of all unprovoked bites worldwide. These sharks account for many of the bites around the south-eastern US, migrating down the coast of Florida due to rising sea temperatures that have led their prey to become more dispersed.įor decades Florida has seen the most number of shark bites globally. The reason for the fall in attacks – which bucks the overall trend of growing numbers of attacks – has been attributed to a sharp decline in the number of black-tipped sharks. Just four of these were fatal according to the International Shark Attack File, although another database of shark attacks records seven deaths. In 2018, there were just 66 confirmed, unprovoked attacks, roughly a 20% fall compared to previous years. Looking deeper at the statistics for the number of shark attacks can reveal some fascinating trends. Attacks on remote islands or in less developed communities probably go unreported. Most reports come from highly developed countries with large populations and highly active news media. ![]() However, Naylor believes that the official statistics on shark attacks are probably an underestimate. I think if people knew how frequently they were in water with sharks, they would probably be surprised.” But despite being potentially such an easy meal, sharks are really not that interested in hunting humans. “We are like helpless little sausages floating around in the water,” says Naylor. Some mature adults will venture out into the open ocean for months at a time, covering tens of thousands of miles and diving to depths of 1,000m (3,280ft) as they seek prey. Great whites in the North Atlantic, for example, show seasonal movement patterns, migrating thousands of miles to warmer waters further south during the winter months. But southern Australia has also seen rising numbers of fur seals along its coastline, the favourite prey of great white sharks in the region.īut there is no real evidence that sharks are actively hunting humans, according to the scientists who study them. The large human populations along the southern coast of Australia and the eastern coast of the US mean large numbers of people enjoying the water. This seems like an obvious point, but when you look closer at where attacks are taking place there are some clues as to what might be going on. “The more sharks and people there are in one place, the greater the chance of them bumping into each other.” “Shark bites are strongly correlated to the number of people and number of sharks in the water at the same time,” says Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, which maintains the International Shark Attack File. ![]() The eastern US and southern Australia have seen shark attack rates almost double in the past 20 years, while Hawaii has also seen a sharp increase. In 2022 there 57 unprovoked shark bites on humans and 32 provoked bites, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File. Nine of these attacks where fatal, with five considered to be unprovoked.īut recent research indicates that shark attacks in some parts of the world appear to be on the rise. The average number of unprovoked attacks between 2013-2017, for example, was 84. It is a figure that has remained around the same level over the past decade. Mighall was one of roughly 83 people around the world to be attacked unprovoked by sharks in 2009.
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