George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History, displays shark specimens in Dickinson Hall on the University of Florida campus.
©Florida Museum of Natural History photo by Eric Zamora

The U.S. saw an upturn in attacks with 53, the most since 2000. There were seven fatalities worldwide, which is lower than 2011 but higher than the yearly average of 4.4 from 2001 to 2010. It is the second consecutive year for multiple shark attacks in Western Australia (5) and Reunion Island (3) in the southwest Indian Ocean, which indicates the localities have developed problematic situations, said George Burgess, director of the file housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus.

“Those two areas are sort of hot spots in the world – Western Australia is a function of white shark incidents and Reunion is a function most likely of bull shark incidents,” Burgess said. “What I’ve seen in all situations when there’s been a sudden upswing in an area is that human-causative factors are involved, such as changes in our behavior, changes in our abundance, or an overt shark-attracting product of something that we’re doing.”

Burgess displays shark specimens in Dickinson Hall on the UF campus.
©Florida Museum of Natural History photo by Eric Zamora

Eighty unprovoked attacks occurred worldwide, slightly more than 2011. Four attacks were recorded in South Africa, three of which resulted in death, which is higher than its recent average of one fatality per year. Australia had an average year with 14 attacks and two fatalities, despite the media attention regarding incidents in Western Australia that resulted in a government-sanctioned culling hunt for endangered white sharks.

“The concept of ‘let’s go out and kill them’ is an archaic approach to a shark attack problem, and its opportunities for success are generally slim-to-none,” Burgess said. “It’s mostly a feel-good revenge – like an ‘eye for an eye’ approach – when in fact you’re not likely to catch the shark that was involved in the situation. The shark that was involved in the situation also isn’t necessarily likely to do it again.”

Following long-term trends, most shark bites occurred in North American waters (42). The 53 U.S. incidents include Hawaii and Puerto Rico, which are not recorded as occurring in North American waters in the International Shark Attack File database. Florida led the country with 26, followed by Hawaii (10), California (5), South Carolina (5), North Carolina (2) and one each in Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Puerto Rico. One fatality occurred in California, and Hawaii had the highest number of attacks since seven in 2007, more than its yearly average of four. Most incidents in Florida occurred in Brevard (8) and Volusia (7) counties because these central east coast beaches are high aquatic recreation areas, especially for surfers, Burgess said.

“The numbers from an international standpoint were on target for the last couple of years because, in theory, each year we should have more attacks than the previous year owing to the rise of human population from year to year,” Burgess said. “Thus the shark attack rate is not increasing even though the number of shark attacks is rising. Shark attack as a phenomenon is extremely uncommon, considering the millions of hours humans spend in the water each year.”

The 2012 U.S. fatality rate of 2 percent is far lower than the 22 percent for the rest of the world, likely due to superior safety and medical capabilities in the U.S., Burgess said.

“We could reduce risks by avoiding areas and times when sharks are most common, and where danger is at its highest,” Burgess said. “A perfect example of that is in Western Australia, where people have been getting hit in areas of known white shark abundance at times of year when white shark numbers are at their highest – the responsibility is upon us, as humans, to avoid such situations or else pay the consequence.”

Surfers experienced a majority of shark incidents with 60 percent, largely due to the provocative nature of the activity. Swimmers were affected by 22 percent of attacks, followed by divers, with 8 percent.

Burgess said 30 million to 70 million sharks are killed every year in fisheries, and people need to recognize humans pose a greater threat to elasmobranchs (sharks, skates and rays) than sharks do to humans. Worldwide over-fishing, especially to meet demands for flesh and fins used in shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy, continues to contribute to the decline in shark populations, Burgess said.

In the case of a shark attack, researchers advise taking a proactive response, such as hitting the shark’s nose, since they respect size and power.

“Shark attacks are rare and it doesn’t matter whether you call them attacks or bites or bumps – your chances of having any of them are slim,” Burgess said.

For additional safety tips and to view the 2012 Worldwide Shark Attack Summary, please visit www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/isaf/isaf.htm.

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Writer: Danielle Torrent, dtorrent@flmnh.ufl.edu
Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360; Cell 352-318-3812; gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu

The study currently online and appearing in the July print edition of Pacific Science warns that swimmers entering the cookiecutter’s range of open ocean tropical waters may be considered prey. The sharks feed near the surface at night, meaning daytime swimmers are less likely to encounter them. The species is small, with adults reaching about 2 feet, but their unique jaws specialize in scooping out a piece of flesh, leaving victims with a crater-like wound.

“Not only is it painful, but it presents a difficult circumstance for recovery in the sense that there has to be plastic surgery to close the wound and you have permanent tissue loss,” said co-author George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “It’s not as scary as ‘Jaws,’ but it’s very different from any other kind of attack we have in the International Shark Attack File because of the size of the shark and the modus operandi.”

The March 16, 2009, incident involved a cookiecutter shark, Isistius brasiliensis, repeatedly attacking a long-distance swimmer attempting to cross the Alenuihaha Channel from Hawaii to Maui. After sunset, the victim said the first bite on his chest felt “like a pin prick.” He then was bitten on the left calf while climbing into the rescue kayak following him during the swim. The International Shark Attack File lists two other incidents involving cookiecutters, both judged to be inflicted post-mortem. Dubbed “demon whale biters” by biologist Stewart Springer, a shark expert who studied the fish for more than 60 years before his death in 1991, cookiecutters inhabit deep tropical waters and their bites have been found on many deep-sea animals, including tuna, whales, dolphins and swordfish.

Unlike other sharks, a cookiecutter’s teeth are connected at the bottom in the lower jaw. When feeding, the shark bites its victim and then rotates to remove a plug of flesh, “kind of like using a melon-baller,” Burgess said.

“They have the biggest teeth of any shark in relation to the size of their jaws,” he said. “They look like the cartoon sharks you see with oversized teeth.”

The victim also reported seeing squid before the attack. Like squid, cookiecutters are bioluminescent, producing their own light on parts of their bodies. Researchers believe the sharks may use this specialization to hide among squid while larger fish, such as tuna, prey on the squid. The sharks then surprise the larger fish, taking bites before quickly leaving the scene.

A type of dogfish shark, cookiecutters do not kill their fish victims and the wounds they inflict may be useful as biological markers, Burgess said. Because they are known to only dwell in tropical waters, scientists can use the bites to better understand the movement patterns of their victims.

“When we see a killer whale in Alaska with the mark, it tells us the whale traveled there from the tropics,” Burgess said. “We can also judge how long ago it happened by how much the wound has healed.”

John O’Sullivan, curator of field operations and a senior collector at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, said he is fascinated by the sharks’ interesting behavior. Researchers know little about the animal and O’Sullivan’s attempts to collect a live specimen for the aquarium over the past few years are “turning out to be more difficult than our white shark program,” he said. Because of the sharks’ small size, swimmers may be able to protect themselves by wearing a thick wetsuit, he said.

“We have to be careful because of how different species occupy a niche – how that varies is not at all understood,” O’Sullivan said. “These animals are very small and very aggressive in behavior. People say, ‘Thank God these things don’t get big.’ ”

The study was led by Randy Honebrink of the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources and co-authors include Robert Buch of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service, and physician Peter Galpin of Maui Memorial Hospital.

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Danielle Torrent
Media Contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida Museum of Natural History shark expert George Burgess departs for Mexico today to research three shark attacks near Cancun on Jan. 31 and March 21 and 24.

This marks Burgess’ fourth trip to Mexico to investigate shark incidents in the last 20 years. While attacks in Mexico are not as common as in more populated areas, the events of early 2011 drew media attention because of the tourists involved, Burgess said.

“It’s the same thing as Egypt in December, just a different language,” said Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File housed at the Florida Museum, whose work is featured in the current issue of Playboy magazine.

In early December 2010, Burgess traveled to Egypt to investigate a series of shark attacks he described as the most unusual of his career. It involved six attacks, five within five days, and four of the five caused by two individual sharks.

Burgess concluded the incidents were caused by a combination of over-fishing, warmer-than-usual waters, the feeding of reef fishes and sharks, and the tossing of sheep carcasses from boats into the water.

“It sort of made this ‘perfect storm’ occur in the Red Sea, but there is the commonality of both [places] involving tourist destinations, hence the level of concern by local business and government,” Burgess said of the attacks in waters off Egypt and Mexico. “The real concern in all of these situations is how to make it go away and in that respect, it’s very much like the movie and the book ‘Jaws’.”

Burgess was summoned to Mexico by a representative of the local government and businesses of Cancun and will be working with other scientists to understand the circumstances from various perspectives, identify the species involved and hypothesize causes of the attacks, he said. According to reports, all three victims were injured while swimming about 30 to 300 feet from shore.

“A big part of what we end up doing in these situations is public education,” said Burgess, who was recently interviewed for an article about sharks scheduled to appear in the August issue of Outside magazine. “Sharks only kill four to five humans a year worldwide, but we as humans have to do what we can to reduce the risks.”

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Danielle Torrent, dtorrent@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

Ichthyologist George Burgess, director of the file housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, said Florida typically has the highest number of attacks worldwide, but 2010 marked the state’s fourth straight year of decline. Florida led the U.S. with 13 reported attacks, but the total was significantly lower than the yearly average of 23 over the past decade.

“Florida had its lowest total since 2004, which was 12,” Burgess said. “Maybe it’s a reflection of the downturn in the economy and the number of tourists coming to Florida, or the amount of money native Floridians can spend taking holidays and going to the beach.”

Worldwide, 79 attacks occurred in 2010, the highest number since 2000 (80), but the global total of six fatalities was only slightly above average, Burgess said. Attacks worldwide numbered 63 in 2009, close to the yearly average over the past decade of 63.5.

“Based on odds, you should have more attacks than the previous year,” Burgess said. “But the rate of attacks is not necessarily going up — population is rising and the interest in aquatic recreation grows. That will continue as population rises.”

The United States had 36 incidents, including five in North Carolina and four each in California, Hawaii and South Carolina. There were single attacks in Georgia, Maine, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Washington. Florida’s four-year decline began in 2007 with 31 attacks, followed by 28 in 2008, 18 in 2009 and 13 last year.

The U.S. led the world in shark attacks — an average year by U.S. standards — followed by Australia (14), South Africa (8), Vietnam (6) and Egypt (6). The most unusual event occurred off the coast of Egypt in early December with five attacks, including one fatality. The attacks occurred within five days and four of the five were attributed to two individual sharks.

“This was a situation that was hugely unusual by shark attack standards,” said Burgess, who has researched sharks at the museum for more than 35 years. “It was probably the most unusual shark incident of my career.”

Burgess suggests the attacks in the Red Sea may be attributed to a combination of natural and human factors. Some of the reasons include higher water temperatures caused by an unusually hot summer, international livestock traders dumping sheep carcasses into the water and divers feeding reef fishes and sharks, he said.

“The reality is, going into the sea is a wilderness experience,” Burgess said. “You’re visiting a foreign environment — it’s not a situation where you’re guaranteed success.”

Thankfully, in the sea the risks are low and the number of shark attacks in a year could be cut in half if people just used more common sense, Burgess said. There are simple ways to reduce the possibility of a shark attack, he said, including avoiding fishing areas and inlets where sharks gather and leaving the water when a shark is sighted.

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“The sea is actually very forgiving, certainly from the standpoint of the animal life,” Burgess said. “When you look at the big picture, it’s kind of ironic that these animals which are apex predators, the top of the food chain in the sea, are so readily caught.”

Because they are experts at finding their next meal, sharks are threatened by the lure of fishing lines. Humans kill 30 million to 70 million sharks per year in fisheries, while sharks claim an average of five human lives each year — the number of deaths caused by sharks is minimal compared to the billions of hours humans spend in the sea every year, he said.

“One-on-one in the sea, the sharks are going to win in a confrontation with humans if they really want to do so,” Burgess said. “But out of the sea, we can sit high and dry with a beer in our hand, put a line overboard and catch the fiercest animal in the sea.”

Surfers were the victims of slightly more than half of the incidents reported in 2010, nearly 51 percent of the cases. An economic downturn will usually influence tourists but not necessarily surfers, whose sport is relatively low-cost, Burgess said.

Swimmers and waders were the second-largest group affected, accounting for nearly 38 percent of the shark attacks internationally.

The 2010 Worldwide Shark Attack Summary may be viewed online at www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/isaf/isaf.htm.

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, Cell 352-318-3812; gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Danielle Torrent, dtorrent@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

Researchers analyzed statistics from shark attacks that occurred in Florida’s Volusia County, dubbed the “Shark Attack Capital of the World,” between 1956 and 2008. They also spent a year observing people between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History.

“It’s basically an analysis of why, where and when in an area that traditionally has had more shark-human interactions than any other stretch of coastline in the world,” he said. “One of our students, Brittany Garner, essentially camped out there, counted the number of heads on the beach and took photographs.”

While this 47-mile-long section of Central Florida’s Atlantic coast leads in human-shark skirmishes, making up 21 percent of all global attacks between 1999 and 2008, most are “hit and run” incidents that seldom cause serious injury and no fatalities occurred.

“Calling them attacks is probably a misnomer because the consequences are usually no more severe than a dog bite,” Burgess said. “They’re not the same kind of bites made by 10- to 20-foot-long white sharks that you have off the coast of California. Here we see a different style of attack, primarily perpetrated by smaller fish-eating sharks such as spinners and blacktips that are less than 6 to 7 feet long, which because of their size normally seek smaller prey.”

There have been 231 shark attacks between the first one reported in 1956 in Volusia County and 2008, said Burgess, who also oversees the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History. The study, part of which was published recently in the edited volume “Sharks and Their Relatives II,” uses statistics from 220 of those cases for which detailed information is available.

Human, shark and environmental factors combine to create a perfect storm of favorable conditions in Volusia County for attacks, particularly near Ponce Inlet between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, he said.

The more people in the water the greater the chances they will encounter a shark, and New Smyrna Beach south of the inlet is a “hot spot” for surfers with its well developed sand bars and good waves, Burgess said. Hand splashing and feet kicking provoke sharks, which bite and release what they mistake for normal prey items in the turbid waters.

Also, the strong tidal flow in the inlet makes it “an aquatic smorgasbord of food items for sharks, barracudas, mackerel and other large predators,” boosting shark numbers, he said.

Young white males were attacked most because they spend the most time in the water, Burgess said. The analysis showed 90 percent of victims were male, 77 percent of 196 victims were between 11 and 30 years old and in the 171 cases where race was known, 98 percent were white. The study also found more than half of the 220 victims were bitten on the leg — 158 — more than five times the number bitten on the arms — 34 — the second highest body part to be injured.

Surfers were the most frequent victims, making up 61 percent of the total. Burgess said they tended to be bitten more in the early morning and late afternoon when waves were highest and they spend more time surfing.

“At the time of the attack, most of the surfers were sitting or holding onto the board waiting for a wave, which explains why most surf victims were bitten on the legs,” he said.

Sharks are not weekend warriors. Rather it is human leisure that leads to the fewest number of human encounters on Wednesdays and the highest on Sundays, followed by Saturdays. “There are a fair number of attacks on Fridays as well, reflective of people skipping work and taking three-day weekends,” Burgess said.

The analysis showed the greatest number of attacks occurred during new moons, followed by full moons, the edges of the lunar extreme when the moon has its biggest pull on the tidal phase. Probably the moon’s phases influence the movements and reproductive patterns of fish, the shark’s food source, just as they affect human behavior, Burgess said.

Attacks were highest during the swimming season, from May through October, peaking in August. Burgess said attacks spiked in April as sharks began their seasonal northern migration up the eastern coast of the United States.

The study shows most incidents involved one bite, occurred in turbid, murky or muddy waters and were at the water’s surface. Only one attack was on a diver.

Burgess said more victims wore swimsuits that were black and white than any other color combination, followed by black and yellow, attesting to sharks’ abilities to see contrast.

The analysis shows that between 1999 and 2008, shark attacks worldwide numbered 639, of which there were 428 reports in the United States, 275 in Florida and 135 in Volusia County.

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Cathy Keen, 352-392-0186, ckeen@ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Despite last month’s fatality off the Florida coast, the number of shark attacks in the United States continued its downward trend by taking a plunge in the latest recorded year, according to a new report from the Florida Museum of Natural History.

There might not be a sea change in the violent encounters because attacks worldwide edged up from 60 in 2008 to 61 in 2009, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum.

“The big story is that the number of attacks in the United States dropped dramatically from 41 in 2008 to 28 in 2009,” he said. “Considering there were 50 attacks in 2007, we may have a bit of a trend, but only time will tell.”

Florida led the way in the decline in attacks, which fell from 32 in both 2007 and 2008 to 19 in 2009, said Burgess, who released the latest annual shark attack figures today. The file is housed in the Florida Museum on the University of Florida campus.

Burgess said the rate of attacks is dictated by the number of sharks and people in the same waters, and yearly variations are common.

A possibility for the decline of assaults in American waters might be the influence of the recession reducing the number of beach-going bathers, Burgess said. “Florida’s population hasn’t gone down, so I suppose the economy could have had an effect on how many times people can afford to put gas in their cars and go to the beach.”

Worldwide, victims died in five attacks, compared with four the previous year. Except for a death in New Caledonia, the fatalities occurred in South Africa, where white sharks congregate in cooler waters, Burgess said. One of the victims was body surfing, another paddle boarding and the other three were surfing, he said.

The United States led the world with 28 attacks, followed by Australia, 20, and South Africa, six. There were two attacks in Egypt and one each in Ecuador, Indonesia, Mozambique, New Caledonia and Viet Nam.

Perhaps more telling than the annual figures is the number of shark attacks in a 10-year period, which rose to unprecedented levels between 2000 and 2010, Burgess said.

“As scientists we don’t get so excited about individual years and tend to look at things in terms of decades,” he said. “The first decade of the 21st century continues a 100-year trend of each decade having more attacks than the previous one, the result of increases in human population and the amount of time spent in recreational activity.”

Conversely, fatality rates have sharply declined. “These first 10 years of the new century have the all-time lowest fatality rate for any decade,” Burgess said.

At the beginning of the 20th century, 60 percent of all shark attacks were fatal, compared with only 7 percent between 2000 and 2010, he said.

“The number of people who died relative to the number of attacks was so high at the beginning of the 20th century in large part because of poor at-the-scene care, no lifeguards and obviously a much more rudimentary ability of medical science to save severe trauma victims,” he said.

In the United States last year, there were 19 attacks in Florida, four in California, three in Hawaii and one each in Texas and Georgia.

“More than half the attacks — 33 out of 61 — were surfers and this continues a trend that we’ve been seeing for quite awhile,” Burgess said.

Swimmers were the second largest group of victims, accounting for 10 of the attacks. The remaining incidents involved scuba diving, swimming, paddle boarding, body surfing, boogie boarding, kite surfing, snorkeling, spear fishing, wading, floating and entering the water, he said.

Within Florida, the county with the largest number of attacks was Volusia, 8, followed by Brevard, 4, Palm Beach, 3, Pinellas 2, and Lee and Monroe, one each.

Volusia County has the dubious distinction of being the world’s shark bite capital as a result of attractive waves off New Smyrna Beach on the central Atlantic coast that are popular with surfers, he said.

“As always, Volusia County was the bell winner,” Burgess said. “Year in and year out there have been more attacks there than anywhere else in Florida. This turned out to be a low year for Volusia County and I’m sure the chamber of commerce was very happy about that.”

In 2009 there were 14 fewer attacks in Volusia County than the previous year, he said.

If the recession contributed to a decline in shark attacks, that would likely show up in Volusia County’s visitor statistics, which draws surfers to its beaches and tourists to Daytona Beach, he said.

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Source: George Burgess,, 352-392-2360 gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Cathy Keen, 352-392-0186, ckeen@ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

In a method analogous to analyzing human fingerprints, scientists can make identifications by precisely comparing shark bites to the jaws and teeth of the powerful predators, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File, which is housed at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History.

“Every time we investigate a shark attack one of the pieces of information that we want to have is what species was involved and what size it was,” he said. “Because I’ve been looking at shark attack victims for 30 years I can estimate what did the damage, but I have never been able to actually prove it.”

Now scientists can say with a degree of certainty whether the beast was a 14-foot tiger shark or a 9-foot bull shark, a distinction that has unforeseen emotional, ecological and even monetary benefits, said Burgess, who collaborated with researchers from the University of South Florida. Their findings are published in the November issue of Marine Biology.

“There’s a psychological need for many shark attack victims to know what bit them,” Burgess said. “One of the few things shark attack victims have going for them after a bite is bragging rights and the bragging rights include knowing what did the damage.”

Because of the hype surrounding shark attacks, off-the-cuff estimates of shark size are often exaggerated, he said. “This will give an actual basis for determining what species was involved and the size, not that that’s going to affect the size claimed by the victim in a bar,” he said.

Using dried shark jaws from museums and private collections, the researchers were able to identify bite patterns of particular sizes and species of sharks by measuring jaw circumference and the distance between the six frontal teeth on the top and lower jaws, Burgess said. They experimented on 10 to 24 sets of shark jaws for each of the 14 species they analyzed. The technique works not only on human and animal tissue, but also on inanimate objects like surfboards and underground cable lines, he said.

The ability to make predictions from bite patterns is important to understanding the behavioral underpinnings of shark attacks and their prey habits, said lead researcher Dayv Lowry, a biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, who did the work as a graduate student at the University of South Florida.

“Often someone will send us a picture of a dolphin carcass or a sea turtle and want to know what kind of shark bit it,” Lowry said. “Knowing that it’s a large tiger shark, for example, would help us figure out what large tiger sharks like to eat and how they attack their prey. If an animal or person has been bitten on the rear end, then we know these sharks are likely to sneak up to get their prey instead of facing the victims.”

Being able to determine what size shark attacked people in certain geographic areas such as South Africa where offshore nets are used to protect swimmers is valuable because it may influence the size mesh that is used, Lowry said. With larger sharks, beaches can get by with bigger mesh sizes, which are cheaper and less environmentally intrusive, he said.

The technique also has the potential to save thousands of dollars in damages caused by the sharks’ penchant for attacking underwater electronic equipment, which includes intercontinental telephone wires, top-secret communication lines between government officials and sensors companies use to uncover oil fields, Burgess said.

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Sharks are equipped with organs on the underside of their snouts – gel filled pits called ampullae of Lorenzini – that allow them to detect electromagnetic fields from their intended food, Burgess said. Unfortunately, sharks often do not distinguish between the signals sent by prey and equipment, which can be ruined by water seeping in through the bite marks, he said.

“That’s one thing that makes them special – they can sense electro-magnetic fields around their prey items,” he said.

Laying cable lines at the bottom of the ocean is extremely expensive, and having to remove a piece, fix it and install it again adds to the cost, Burgess said. “Knowing that a certain species of shark did the damage is useful because in the future cable lines can be placed in a different location, outside the path of that particular shark’s area of distribution,” he said.

And the ability to determine what size shark was involved in an attack by the size and configuration of its bite marks could result in the installation of a heavier seal designed to withstand damage from that kind of shark, he said.

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Cathy Keen, 352-392-0186, ckeen@ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

Shark attacks worldwide in 2008 dipped to their lowest level in five years, a sign that Americans may be forgoing vacation trips to the beach, said George Burgess, ichthyologist and director of the International Shark Attack File, which is housed at UF.

According to the latest statistics released today, the total number of shark attacks declined from 71 in 2007 to 59 in 2008, the fewest since 2003, when there were 57, said Burgess, who works at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus.

“I can’t help but think that contributing to that reduction may have been the reticence of some people to take holidays and go to the beach for economic reasons,” Burgess said. “We noticed similar declines during the recession that followed the events of 2001, despite the fact that human populations continued to rise.”

Shark attacks dropped in the United States and abroad in 2008, Burgess said. In recent years, vacationing tourists have been attacked off beaches in remote parts of the globe, such as Cocos Island in the Indian Ocean, where none was reported in the past, he said.

There were four fatal attacks last year — an average number — compared with only one in 2007, which marked a two-decade low. Two of the deaths were in Mexico, one was in Australia and one was in the United States.

La Niña, a meteorological condition that brings water masses and deep ocean creatures closer to shore, probably was a factor in the deaths of two male surfers and injury of a third that occurred in less than a month along a resort-studded stretch of Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, Burgess said. The U.S. fatality was a 66-year-old man swimming at Solana Beach, Calif., while the Australian death occurred along the country’s eastern coast and involved a 16-year-old boy.

The number of shark attacks in the United States, which typically makes up about two-thirds of the total worldwide, dropped from 50 in 2007 to 41 in 2008, Burgess said. Thirty-two of those attacks were in Florida — the same number as the previous year — followed by North Carolina and South Carolina, with three each; Hawaii, two; and California, one.

Florida, with its warm waters, has more sharks, including black tip sharks and spinner sharks, species not found in lower temperatures, Burgess said. “A lot less attacks occur off Long Island, New York, than Florida simply because there are fewer sharks up there,” he said.

Within Florida, Volusia County continued its dubious distinction as the world’s shark bite capital with 22 incidents, its highest yearly total since 2001, Burgess said. Attractive waves off New Smyrna Beach on the central Atlantic coast are popular with surfers, he said.

As in past years, surfers accounted for most of the world’s attacks — 57 percent — followed by swimmers and waders, 36 percent; and divers, 8 percent, he said. These numbers are rounded up, which is why they total more than 100 percent.

“Surfers are the heavy favorites largely because the splashing of arms and particularly the kicking of feet at the water’s surface where visibility is poor is provocative to sharks,” Burgess said. “They result in what we think are cases of mistaken identity, where the shark interprets the irregular splashing to be activities of its normal prey.”

As a group, surfers seem to accept the risks of pursuing a sport in the ocean, he said.

“I’ve yet to find a surfer who says he or she won’t go back into the water after a bite or a nip,” he said. ‘Some of them may be looking over their shoulders a little bit more than they did before, but the reality is they understand where humans fall in the grand order of things.”

Burgess said he doubts the economic recession is likely to deter surfers because their interest in the recreational activity is so high. “It’s oftentimes not a group that is economically blessed, but all they have to do is drive to the beach with the board and get into the water, and the rest is free,” he said.

To a certain extent, divers, like surfers, pursue their sport as something of an avocation, leaving swimmers and waders as the group most likely to be affected by economic hardship, Burgess said. “These are sort of the average folks that go to the water for recreation, lie on the beach, work on their suntan and take their kids in the surf for a swim,” he said. “I would expect their numbers to decline in 2009.”

Over the long term, though, Burgess expects shark attacks to rise because of a gradual upswing from one decade to the next. “We’ve already surpassed the numbers of attacks in the previous 10-year period,” he said, “so we know this decade will be higher than the last.”

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Cathy Keen
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

Burgess is working with scientific colleagues and public officials to determine the potential reasons for the increased frequency of attacks and help calm the fears of locals attempting to catch as many sharks as possible from the beaches to eliminate the threat.

“Setting baited hooks to kill sharks only attracts them into the area and thus is counterproductive,” Burgess said. “We want to let people know what factors influence these events and educate them on what they can do. There is a lot of reaction to these attacks specifically because of their frequency.”

The attacks have worried local government and citizens in a coastal region where fatal shark attacks are rare. The last fatal shark attack in the area was in 1997, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File.

Since arriving in Mexico, Burgess has visited the attack sites, interviewing witnesses and examining environmental conditions, specific actions of the victims and other factors that may have contributed to the attacks.

Burgess and his colleagues will continue to examine local oceanographic and beach utilization patterns to see if they may have played a role in these shark-human interactions.

“We are trying to find the causative factors of these attacks,” Burgess said. “Our hope is that we can put this shark situation in perspective now and in the future. We will continue to study the local shark community and begin collaborative efforts to find the cause.”

Each of the three shark victims was surfing prior to being attacked. Adrian Ruiz, an American tourist, was fatally attacked April 28 in the waters off Troncones. The second attack occurred about 6 miles to the south at Pantla, fatally injuring Osvaldo Mata, a Mexican native on May 23. The most recent victim, Bruce Grimes, an American now living in Mexico, was attacked Saturday off of Playa Linda, but was able to escape with injuries to his arm and hand.

Burgess is director of the International Shark Attack File and the Florida Program for Shark Research, both housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the University of Florida campus. In recent years, Burgess has been asked to visit various locations including Pensacola; Hong Kong and Cozumel, Mexico when high frequencies of attacks or unusual attacks have occurred.

For more information on the International Shark Attack File and the Florida Program for Shark Research visit www.flmnh.ufl.edu.

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Caroline Glagola
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

Except for 1987, when there were no fatalities, the last year a single human death occurred from a shark attack was in 1985, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File housed at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History. By comparison, there were four deaths each in 2005 and 2006, and seven in 2004.

“It’s quite spectacular that for the hundreds of millions of people worldwide spending hundreds of millions of hours in the water in activities that are often very provocative to sharks, such as surfing, there is only one incident resulting in a fatality,” he said. “The danger of a shark attack stays in the forefront of our psyches because of it being drilled into our brain for the last 30 years by the popular media, movies, books and television, but in reality the chances of dying from one are infinitesimal.”

Advances in medical treatment, greater attention to beach safety practices and increased public awareness about the danger of shark attacks are all likely reasons the fatality rate so far for the 21st century, at 7.6 percent, has been lower than the 12.3 percent recorded for the 1990s, Burgess said.

The number of shark attacks overall increased from 63 in 2006 to 71 in 2007, continuing a gradual upswing during the past four years, he said.

“One would expect there to be more shark attacks each year than the previous year simply because there are more people entering the water,” he said. “For baby boomers and earlier generations, going to the beach was basically an exercise in working on your suntan where a swim often meant a quick dunking. Today people are engaged in surfing, diving, boogie boarding and other aquatic activities that put them much closer to sharks.”

Occasionally, the number of attacks may drop in a particular year because of changes in meteorological or oceanographic conditions that affect water temperature and salinity, such as the frequency of hurricanes and tropical storms, Burgess said. But scientists don’t put too much stock in these year-to-year fluctuations, preferring to look at long-term trends, he said.

Traditionally, about half of the world’s attacks occur in United States mainland and Hawaiian waters, but the proportion was greater in 2007, Burgess said. Last year’s total of 50 attacks returned to 2000 and 2001 levels of 53 and 50, respectively, after dropping from 30 to 40 for each year between 2003 and 2006, he said.

Elsewhere, there were 12 attacks in Australia, up from seven in 2006 and 10 in 2005, but down slightly from the 13 attacks recorded in 2004. There were two attacks each last year in South Africa and New Caledonia, with single incidents reported in Fiji, Ecuador, Mexico and New Zealand.

There also was an upswing in attacks along the Florida coast, jumping from 23 in 2006 to 32 in 2007. There has been a gradual increase in human-shark skirmishes in the Sunshine State since they dropped from 37 in 2000 to an 11-year-low of 12 in 2004, he said.

Within Florida, Volusia County continued its dubious distinction as the world’s shark bite capital with 17 incidents, its highest yearly total since 2002, Burgess said. Attractive waves off New Smyrna Beach on the central Atlantic coast are popular with surfers, he said.

Additional U.S. attacks were recorded in Hawaii — seven — marking a five-year-high, along with South Carolina, five; California, three; North Carolina, two; and Texas, one.

Fifty-six percent of the 2007 victims were surfers and windsurfers; followed by swimmers and waders, 38 percent; and divers and snorkelers, 6 percent.

Last year’s Sept. 30 fatal attack involved a 23-year-old woman from France who was snorkeling off the Loyalty Islands archipelago in French New Caledonia and became separated from a friend, Burgess said. She was a nurse who had just finished a hospital contract in Noumea and was taking a brief vacation before flying home, he said.

“We advise not getting yourself isolated because there is safety in numbers,” he said. “Sharks, like all predators, tend to go after solitary individuals, the weak and the infirm, and are less likely to attack people or fish in groups.”

Last year had few spectacular attacks or heartwarming rescue stories, Burgess said. “It was mostly minor injuries,” he said. “There weren’t too many made-for-movie moments.”

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Source: George Burgess, 352-272-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Cathy Keen, 352-392-0186, ckeen@ufl.edu
Media Contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu