The Summer of the Shark, Part II

There is something ominous about the recent run of shark attack stories in the news over the past few weeks. And here it is: the last time we had a “summer of the shark”, if you recall, it was the summer of 2001. Later that fall, I remember several media pundits looking nostalgically back to a simpler time, when we had to rely on incredibly rare (but SCARY) natural events for our daily dose of terror.

Hey, how about that. In the year 2000, the estimated United States beach attendance figure was 264 million (yes, that probably is more than the US population, but you have to count all those tourists from the Caribbean who come to New Jersey each year). And out of that, there were 23 unprovoked shark attacks, with one fatality. 2001 certainly was a scarier year, with a 200% increase in the fatality rate (to three).

Well, we all found other things to give us nightmares that September, but now sharks are in the news again. These attacks are extremely uncommon yet very dramatic, and they dominate the airwaves when there is a lull in other stories. So I hope that this upswing doesn’t imply any fresh horror waiting in the wings.

Anyway, the point of this post is to let you know about a great Web site from the Florida Museum of Natural History. Don’t just dismiss this as a chamber of commerce, “mayor-in-Jaws” style smokescreen to get the tourists back in the water. Risk and danger are all about statistics, and this site has some good ones.

The actual risk of a shark related fatality is pretty low. Never zero (unless you stay in the beach bar), but pretty close. Certainly far lower than many other risks that we assume without a second thought. You have a one in 7,000 chance of dying in an automobile accident for each year you drive in the United States. That means, for even the worst year in the past few decades (2001, with three shark related fatalities in the US), you are about FIFTEEN THOUSAND times more likely to die in a car wreck than from a shark bite.

Between 1948 and 2003, there were 13 fatalities from alligator attacks in Florida, compared to 8 shark related deaths over the same 55 year period. There were approximately 80 times as many deaths from lightning strikes than from sharks in the country over the past 50 years, and 35 times as many people died from tornado injuries than sharks over the last decade and a half. Fatal dog bites are about 45 times as common as shark bites, and even mountain lions kill more people on average each year than sharks.

All this doesn’t mean that there aren’t activities that put you in an increased risk pool. Surface activity, especially surfing on short boards, is notorious for making a person resemble traditional shark prey (such as seals). There is a lot of good information on this site on reducing the risk of attack, and how to react if a shark does appear while you are in the water.

Happy swimming…!