Sharks get a bad rap – experts
CREATURES MUST SHED THEIR SCARY REPUTATION BECAUSE BITES ARE RARE Worry about drop in numbers amid calls for conservation.
As the northern hemisphere edges toward spring and millions flock to the beach, headlines have dubbed the southeastern US state of Florida the world’s most likely place to be bitten by a shark.
They’re right but, at the same time, shark bites are exceedingly rare overall. This is a fact scientists wish more people knew, especially amid declining shark populations desperately in need of conservation.
“When the sharks in the water are targeting fishes they normally feed on, once in a while, people get in the way and the sharks make a mistake,” says Gavin Naylor, co-author of a recent report tallying last year’s shark attacks.
According to data he gathered for the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File, Florida was home to a quarter of
last year’s shark attacks – a scary statistic if taken on its own.
And yet this only amounts to 16 unprovoked attacks out of a total of 69 worldwide – and millions of swimmers flocking to Florida’s coast each year.
If sharks wanted to attack us,
“people are very easy to target. They are a bit like floating sausages,” says Naylor.
“So we know that they must be avoiding them.”
Florida’s subtropical climate zone means many sharks move through the waters of its continental
shelf, which are rich in nutrients and fish to feed them.
And miles of beaches attract huge numbers of tourists to the Sunshine State – 135 million last year, according to Florida’s statistics.
Yet despite the long odds of a shark bite, the predators still carry an outsized reputation.
This is probably not helped by their rows of razor-sharp teeth or fictional movies about killer sharks like Jaws and the decades-long US cable television phenomenon known as Shark Week.
New Smyrna Beach in Volusia County – which was home to half of Florida’s shark bites last year – is inauspiciously known as the “shark bite capital of the world”.
Surfers often flock to its coast where the murky waters reduce sharks’ visibility and increase the chances of biting a human by mistake.
Bites are like an “airplane crash” – shocking but rare, says New Smyrna Beach resident Bruce Adams.
He remembers close encounters with sharks of his own during his surfing days.
“It’s sensational, it sells a lot of T-shirts,” he adds, lamenting the creatures’ bad reputations.
In fact, most of us have probably been in the water alongside sharks, but we just didn’t know it, says report co-author Joe Miguez.
“They don’t really want anything to do with us,” he says. –