New shark attack data

I generally dislike posts pertaining to shark attacks, and speculations that arise from media sensationalism that seem to accompany any attack but... Reading the local mullet wrapper this morning there was a decent blurb on the new shark attack (unprovoked) stats for 2000.

Looks like there is only a 12.7% chance of you buying the farm if attacked. Although this is the world-wide mean with the majority of the attacks occurring in the US (69.6%). 'Within Florida, Volusia County had the most (12) shark incidents, which is largely attributable to high aquatic recreational utilization of its attractive waters by large numbers of Florida residents and tourists, especially surfers.'

Although there is a high percentage of attacks in Florida there was only one death, which I think may have been heart-attack induced. It looks like your highest chance of becoming shark excrement is in Australia (43%, gee go figure) with 7 total attacks and 3 deaths. The article continues ...

'Swimmers-waders (46.1% of cases with victim activity information) and surfers-windsurfers (31.6%) were the recreational user groups most often subjected to shark attack in 2000. Other attacks involved upon divers/snorkelers (18.4%) and body surfers (2.6%). A single attack (1.3%) occurred during a water entry event.'

The authors of the web site make a good point with the correlation between an increased human presence and shark attack numbers. 'The number of shark-human interactions transpiring in a given year is directly correlated to the amount of human time spent in the sea. As the world population continues to upsurge and the time spent in aquatic recreation greatly rises, we might expect an annual increase in the number of attacks. By contrast, nearshore shark populations are declining at a serious rate in many areas of the world as a result of overfishing, theoretically reducing the opportunity for these shark-human interactions.'

It would be interesting to look at the relationship between attacks and population using a different statistical analysis (GLM, ANOVA, don't know if you could apply these, I seem to have forgotten everything!) Overall the odds look good for us although not so good for sharks (the odds are even better for craig and the GL crowd).

Anyway something to chew on ... (ha, bad shark pun)

Check out http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/sharks.htm for more information.

Andy 'Man shouldn't bite shark'

It would also be interesting to figure out why all the Florida attacks and almost no Southern California attacks.

That was on the Gulf Coast in Boca Ceiga Bay. An older fellow jumped off the dock behind his house like he often did. This time there was a school of mullet with a Bull shark lurking underneath. He was bit twice, once puncturing his liver, and bleed to death. The poor guy's wife was watching from the seawall.

Moral of the story- don't jump into boiling schools of fish.

TASTE BETTER?

So Cal doesnt have sharks. Florida water is much more tropical. Oh sure, there are occasional sightings of a great white, like the one off Newport Pier a couple years back. I also remember seeing dead sharks on the beach down at Blacks and around Carlsbad but that was years ago.

But an actual attack? or even a sighting.....rare enough to basically say, non-existent.

td

On Fri, 09 Feb 2001 13:57:10 -0500, alvin donovan

if you were a shark, would you feed in waters frequented by the likes of neon and BK? <g> surfgeo www.surfgeo.com 'ahhh - welcome to the party - we're all just pickels in the wind!' -jo jo gunn

i have always wanted to find a map and statistics of shark attacks. thanks!

Synchronicity ... this week's cover story in the Honolulu Weekly is on the shark research being done here (http://www.honoluluweekly.com/) ... the full story won't be online til next week, but in skimming it I noted that one of the main findings is about the migration habits of sharks. Basically, any shark that attacks is unlikely to remain 'in the neighborhood' for very long - they migrate here for up to 25 miles at a time. (This is good data for the arguments against the 'vigilantes' who try to drum up shark hunts after any attack incidents.)

Sus ... woman who has bitten sharks (they are sometimes good grilled!)...

Nyah nyah nya nyah nyah.

But they're so tasty!

Tom Keener

Vaguely remember something similar. Heard that someone once tagged a tiger shark off of Oahu. The guy cruised the North Shore, then swam all the way to Kauai (100 miles away), before the tag came off. Territorialism? Hmmm...

I once sat in the lineup off Daytona Beach as a large school of baitfish swam by. Birds were diving into it, every so often a bunch of fish would leap out of the water (I didn't see a fin) and it had a real Seafood Buffet atmosphere. Upon reflection, I should have just paddled in until it passed.

I think there is a law that fishing/shrimping boats need to stay a certain distance offshore. The sharks supposedly follow for the bycatch.

Sharks? I've seen a few.

BTWeaver