A great article today by neurobiologist Douglas Fields (at Huffington Post) explores growing numbers of shark attacks in the world's waters...I enjoyed his analysis, which includes interesting pieces of shark's natural history:
Is there a scientific explanation for these alarming data and the spike in recent fatal shark attacks?
Yes, both experts agree. The steady increase in shark attacks is easily explained by the increase in human population and growing popularity of water related sports and recreational activities. "The increase in shark attacks is largely a function of human demographics and growth. The number we get in any given year is purely a function of how many people went into the water," says Burgess.
There are, however, some new patterns emerging from Burgess' data on shark attacks. "There has been an increase this year [in shark attacks] in a number of areas where we have not traditionally had such attacks, undoubtedly by white sharks, most notably the three series of attacks in Russia in areas of cold water most of the time," he says. This, he explains is due to warming of waters, possibly associated with global warming, that are allowing sharks to expand their range farther north and south into waters that they normally do not go, and also because warmer water induces more people entering the sea.
At the end of the article, George Burgess, shark researcher and curator of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History has some good advice for us terrestrial humans:
"When we enter the sea, we need to understand that we are visiting a foreign environment," Burgess observes. "We are terrestrial animals. Our evolution occurred on land. We don't have gills. We can't swim very well, and as such every time we enter the sea it is a wilderness experience for us...."
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