The recent spate of shark attacks seems like a sequence pulled right out of “Jaws.” And just like Stephen Spielberg’s classic film, a rise in shark attacks tends to coincide with a rise in paranoia about the water.
Many people are afraid of sharks and shark attacks, although most recognize that the chances of becoming the victim of a shark attack is very rare. But after a series of events like those in North Carolina, and a month earlier, in Florida, it is not as easy to be rational.
It also does not help that the recent North Carolina attacks appear to be a little out of the ordinary.
According to George Burgess of the University of Florida, who publishes the International Shark Attack File and has been studying sharks for four decades, the North Carolina incident was an event that is rarely recorded: attacks that are “so close to each other in time and space.”
“This is the real deal threat. This is highly unusual — I have seen this twice in 40 years. Once in Egypt and once in the Florida Panhandle,” the researcher told CNN.
One factor that makes the attack on the 13-year-old girl and 16-year-old boy so unusual is the time span in which the attacks took place. Both attacks happened within an hour and a half and 2 miles of each other on Oak Island, N.C., on Sunday. Both victims were in waist-deep water about 20 yards from the shore.
“They may have interpreted the humans as being appropriate in size and behavior to give it a shot,” Burgess added.
While the two sustained serious injuries that resulted in both kids receiving arm amputations after being airlifted to the nearest hospital, they are currently stable and doing well.
A little less than a week before this now-infamous double assault, on June 11, another 13-year-old girl fell victim to a shark at Ocean Isle Beach, N.C. She was boogie boarding when the shark attacked. Though the shark did slice the girls foot, the injuries weren’t too severe, as the shark went after her boogie board as soon as she discarded it.
On June 8, a 10-year-old boy swimming off Cocoa Beach, Fla., was mauled by a shark and bitten at least twice in the leg. He too was in waist-deep water. The shark that attacked was thought to be young and around four feet in length, a typical profile for the majority of these rogue fish.
A month before this incident, and in a sequence of events much like those in North Carolina, two other run-ins with sharks took place along the coast of Florida. Within an hour, a 19-year-old girl in New Smyrna Beach was struck in the foot, quickly followed by a 14-year-old girl off of Cocoa Beach who was also bitten on the foot. New Smyrna beach, where multiple attacks, though few deaths, happen yearly, is considered the “shark attack capital” of not just the nation, but the world.
From 1882-2014, 717 unprovoked attacks have taken place in Florida, with 11 fatalities. In North Carolina, between 1935-2014, 52 unprovoked shark attacks have occurred in North Carolina, only three of which were fatal. With a growing shark population and more people than ever in the water, however, these rates might be on the rise.
When it comes to these arbitrary attacks, experts shine the light on tiger sharks, bull sharks and great white sharks, all of which have a high incidence of attacking humans unprovoked. Sightings of these sharks, and many other species, have increased in recent years.
Despite these frightening and somewhat daunting facts, reasons abound to stay calm and trust that a shark attack is very unlikely to befall most people. These facts should help future beach goers relax.
According to National Geographic’s “Shark Attack Facts,” the average American has a one in 11 million chance of being killed by a shark. You are also 1,000 times more likely to drown in the sea than be attacked by a shark while in there. Additionally, the United States averages 16 shark attacks a year, with less than one fatality every two years. On the other hand, in coastal states on average, lighting strikes and kills more than 41 people each year.
“Considering the billions of hours we spend in the sea,” Burgess said, “it’s clear that shark attacks aren’t common.”
Shark attacks are also much less common than even some very unusual incidents that can happen at home. For instance, in 1996, 43,000 people were injured from toilets while only 13 were injured by sharks. It is also more likely to be dealt a full house three times in a row than be attacked by a shark. The odds of being dealt one full house is one in 693.
On top of that, for every human killed by a shark, approximately two million sharks are killed by humans, totaling around 73 million killed annually.
“You’re about five times more likely to win the lottery than to be bitten by a shark,” Erich Ritter, a research associate with the University of West Florida, told nj.com.
Despite these animals’ clear dominance in the water, humans tend to do much more damage to them than sharks do to humans. Common toilets even cause more injuries. For each of the harrowing shark attacks that encourage paranoia and fear, there are just as many reasons to remain calm, cool and collected about the large fish.
