Now, Virginia Beach had its first shark attack in 30 years, the news claims. So, what’s the truth? Is this summer unusually active? Are the experts downplaying all this? Or, what?
And, does it surprise anyone how far they’re coming into shallow waters? I didn’t think they came so close to the shore!
When I was standing in line at the grocery store yesterday reading the tabloid front pages, I saw that the Weekly World News is claiming that the Cubans are launching shark attacks at us. Hmph.
Sharks go where the food is, that’s all. If that’s close in to shore, then they’ll go in close.
I used to live in Port Lincoln, South Australia, in a flat that overlooked Boston Bay. One afternoon, I got the shock of my life. I was sitting on my balcony, which overlooked Boston Bay, having a quiet beer and recovering from the day, as you do, I looked down and there’s a great white shark, about eight feet from shore.
i belive there is a reason for all these attacks probably a change in the color or stain in the water or a change in the food supply if the latter i think the attacks will only become more common
Keep in mind, when people quote “in the last 30 years” types of statistics, that for many beaches for most of those 30 years there were relatively few beachgoers for sharks to munch on hence no possibility of shark attacks.
Unless you are talking about a beach where the numbers of beachgoesr have been fairly constant over the years, you really need to consider the denominators.
"There have been 49 shark attacks worldwide this year, with one fatal in Brazil, said George Burgess of the International Shark Attack File in Gainesville. Twenty-eight have been in Florida waters.
“Last year, there were 84 shark attacks worldwide, 53 in the United States…”
Doesn’t look like anything unusual this year, except that it has been an unusually slow summer for news here in America.
First we had two rather news-spectacular attacks. A child is attacked and his uncle wrestles the shark up onto the beach to kill shark and retrieve limb. There are six attacks on one beach in two days–on a surfing get together where the surfers describe hopping over the sharks to get to the waves.
Since then, any shark movement or attack becomes a good national news tie-in to the older stories, even if they would have made only the local news back in July or May.
I agree that the lack of newsworthy events lately is a big reason why this is getting so much play. Still, it is interesting that the majority of all shark attacks worldwide occur in US waters. Do Americans taste better than other people?
It would seem to me that Florida should do what Australia does, and set up shark netting around the beaches to protect swimmers.
Nah, too fatty. OTOH, the U.S. has the highest numbers for shoreline plus people in waters where sharks swim. Note that Australia, with a bit more shore but somewhat fewer people also makes it into the top two or three.