Shark attacks
| Shark attack | |
|---|---|
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| A sign warning about the presence of sharks off Salt Rock, South Africa | |
| Classification and external resources | |
| ICD-10 | W56 |
| ICD-9-CM | E906.3 E906.3 |
A shark attack is an attack on a human by a shark. Every year over 70 attacks are reported worldwide. Despite their relative rarity, many people fear shark attacks after occasional serial attacks, such as the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, and horror fiction and films such as the Jaws series. Out of more than 489 shark species, only three are responsible for a double-digit number of fatal, unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white, tiger, and bull. The oceanic whitetip has probably killed many more castaways, but these are not recorded in the statistics.
According to the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), between 1958 and 2016 there were 2,785 confirmed unprovoked shark attacks around the world, of which 439 were fatal.
In 2000, there were 79 shark attacks reported worldwide, 11 of them fatal. In 2005 and 2006 this number decreased to 61 and 62 respectively, while the number of fatalities dropped to only four per year. The 2016 yearly total of 81 shark attacks worldwide was on par with the most recent five-year (2011–2015) average of 82 incidents annually. By contrast, the 98 shark attacks in 2015, was the highest yearly total on record. There were four fatalities worldwide in 2016, which is lower than the average of eight fatalities per year worldwide in the 2011–2015 period and six deaths per annum over the past decade. In 2016 58% of attacks were on surfers.
Despite these reports, however, the actual number of fatal shark attacks worldwide remains uncertain. For the majority of Third World coastal nations, there exists no method of reporting suspected shark attacks; therefore, losses and fatalities near-shore or at sea there often remain unsolved or unpublicized.
Of these attacks, the majority occurred in the United States (53 in 2000, 40 in 2005, and 39 in 2006).The New York Times reported in July 2008 that there had been only one fatal attack in the previous year. On average, there are 16 shark attacks per year in the United States, with one fatality every two years. According to the ISAF, the US states in which the most attacks have occurred are Florida, Hawaii, California, Texas and the Carolinas, though attacks have occurred in almost every coastal state.
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