Gaining Access to The International Shark Attack File

The International Shark Attack File contains about 2700 individual investigations of shark attacks world-wide and is housed in two five-drawer file cabinets. In addition to obvious time and cost constraints, duplication of the File's contents is forbidden since it contains such confidential items as physician reports, autopsies, victim's interviews and photographs that might be characterized as "sensational" if they fell into the wrong hands. Qualified scientists are allowed access to its contents only after careful review of a researcher's credentials and goals by the American Elasmobranch Society's Shark Attack Committee. Requests for access are usually confined to a particular geographic region, species of shark, or specific attack circumstance. Broadscale analyses will be performed periodically by File staff and Committee members who are active in building and curating the File. We currently are working on a revision of H. David Baldridge's synthetic seminal analysis of worldwide attacks. His 1974 analysis of the File's contents, Shark Attack: A Program of Data Reduction and Analysis, provides a good summarization of trends in worldwide shark attacks and is available from the International Shark Attack File. Also available from the File is the raw data package that Dr. Baldridge used in his analysis, A Database Compiled From Early Case Histories In The International Shark Attack File, and reprints of shark attack-related chapters published in the out-of-print book, Sharks and Survival.

WHO TO CONTACT:

ATTENTION: Please note that due to an overwhelming influx of e-mails, letters, and phone calls, Mr. Burgess is at present unable to respond to such communications in a timely manner. Please understand that every effort to reply to these messages will be made, but that such a reply may be delayed. We greatly appreciate your interest in the International Shark Attack File and we thank you for your patience.

George H. Burgess
Director, International Shark Attack File
Florida Museum of Natural History
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611 U.S.A

TEL:   (352)-392-1721
FAX:  (352)-846-0287
EMAIL:  gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu

Alexia Morgan
Assistant, International Shark Attack File
Florida Museum of Natural History
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611 U.S.A.

TEL:   (352)-392-1721
FAX:  (352)-846-0287
EMAIL:  amorgan@flmnh.ufl.edu

© International Shark Attack File Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida