Everything you thought you knew about sharks is wrong!

While scuba diving in the Maledives, I have been surrounded several times by sharks. Not the really huge fellows, but still large enough to really impress.

The sharks over there have never attacked a diver, apparently for two reasons:

1. There is really plenty of fish, so they are never hungry enough to attack something that looks unfamiliar.

2. The have never been fed by divers. Apparently, sharks can quickly make the link diver -> food, and become aggressive if that is not the case.

 

Funny I know of two fatalities off the Gulf Coast of Fl and 1 major mauling in the last few years.

 

What is funny? Did you even look at the link I provided? It shows 4 fatalities and 397 attacks. Florida leads the world in shark attacks.

I still doesn't change the fact that the chance of being attacked by a shark is statistically tiny.


Drowning and other beach-related fatalities --- 1 in 2 million
Drowning fatalities ------------------------------- 1 in 3.5 million
Shark attacks ------------------------------------- 1 in 11.5 million
Shark attack fatalites ---------------------------- 1 in 264.1 million

 

I do not consider sharks a major threat. I have been diving for a living since the late 60's so have tons of experience with them along with many people I know in the business I'm in. As a group the encounters have been from Whites on down the list. I have had friends die from the bends, drowning, and misc accidents while diving but never a shark attack. That being said there have been shark attacks in the areas I dive. One was a guy snorkeling with dolphins (just like Daniel) on a tour (survived), one was a kid with a boogie board in a few feet of water next to the shoreline (he bled to death) near my house. I still take my daughter and her friends to the same spot to swim with the dolphins. Maui has seen a few attacks also.

The coke machine statistic is a bit misleading. If you take the same amount of stupid people shaking a 400lb top heavy machine to the point of tipping over and exposed them doing equivalent stupid behavior with sharks the sharks might have more of a chance to catch up a bit.

While true, the amount of people going in the water vs shark attacks makes the odds of getting bitten by a shark small there was probably little exposure to sharks anyway. The millions of people that visit Waikiki waters every year are rarely exposed to any sharks at all.

If you are eaten by a shark your odds just went to 100%. At least you will know you died in a pretty unique way.

 

And the Prius is a high performance luxury car that doesn't have a ticky tacky interior.

 

I, too, am well aware of the senseless slaughter of sharks, and like the wolf analogy, when you remove the top of the food chain the littler critters abound exponentially leading to yet more unintended consequences.

However, I also know first hand the fear and havoc the great whites create when they troll at popular swimming beaches. I both live and vacation within what is called the red triangle here on the left coast and out to Hawaii. I've been on the beach when surfers hauled out a fellow surfer who was bitten. Word to the wise, keep that wet suit on after an 'event' as it hinders blood flow. I've been on Maui and swimming the same place the day before a person was taken and the event witnessed a couple of years ago. Here in CA I've seen fins trolling just offshore (don't know enough to state what type of shark). I was once bumped by something massive while swimming well offshore of CA, and let me tell you it's a hard choice to panic and swim manically to shore after such an event, or choose to calmly sidestroke to shore so as not to create excitement. That time I did not see a fin and the bump could have been an elephant seal or sea lion, all I know is I keep closer to shore now.

Since I don't use soft drink machines and do regularly swim in the ocean I guess my odds are with the beasts, tho I can think of much worse ways to die than becoming a shark's meal.

The TV documentaries showing 'finning' and pushing the remains of the magnificent creatures back to die a slow death far more appeals to my sensibilities of right and wrong than the fear of ocean swimming. The healing qualities of warm ocean water far outweighs the fear of becoming lunch.

While most of my shark 'experience' is with great whites, I think I'd fear bull sharks more as they can and do travel up rivers where one would think pollution would be a greater concern than ocean going beasties.

 

" both live and vacation within what is called the red triangle here on the left coast and out to Hawaii. I've been on the beach when surfers hauled out a fellow surfer who was bitten"


What!!!??? Are you implying that sharks are dangerous?

 

I take it your idea of long-term financial planning is buying lottery tickets, because the odds of you getting the big prize in that is MUCH better than your odds of being attacked by a shark. Yes, people get attacked, nobody is saying they never do. However, people also win the Lotto, too, but I'm not going to run out and spend my life savings on tickets.

 

Not just any lottery tickets. Powerball.

I'm still not going swimming here at night

 

Listening to all this warm and fuzzy huggie crap about sharks...

First off... it IS true the shark populations are being decimated by asian fishing... and they are not taking the whole fish, they are discarding the majority of the meat.

It is a sad fact that they are being overfished because there is no regulations regarding them in most waters.

Now that that has been said...

ANYONE that says sharks are not maneaters is sadly mistaken, woefully incorrect, and utterly a PC moricon.

How about a little education before you say that...

Google the USS Indianapolis
USS Indianapolis (CA-35) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Re: Listening to all this warm and fuzzy huggie crap about sharks...

Those sharks were misunderstood. They were actually trying to carry the sailors to shore but with the sharp teeth it just didn't work out.

 

Re: Listening to all this warm and fuzzy huggie crap about sharks...

I think the Bull Shark in this case just wanted to play with swimmers:

Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually, I totally don't disagree with Daniel... most sharks are pretty harmless. However, if someone feels that all sharks are harmless and misunderstood, I invite that person to go swimming with bull sharks for a quick attitude readjustment.

 

Seriously. Keep trying

 

Re: Listening to all this warm and fuzzy huggie crap about sharks...

Yep, a Bull Shark killed a guy in a canal in Tampa a few years ago. Right behind his house.

Alligators are friendly too. The one that dragged an old woman in Sarasota out of her garden and into a pond was just overly friendly

 

Who's advocating fear? I advocate a healthy respect for any animal which can kill you with minimal effort.

 

Re: Listening to all this warm and fuzzy huggie crap about sharks...

I knew someone was going to bring this up. The USS Indianapolis is not your typical swim. We know that sharks follow large ships and eat the garbage that is discharged into the sea. With the Indianapolis you had large numbers of injured and dead sailors in the water. Lots of blood, other bodily fluids and decomposing corpses to attract sharks. Even then if you would have read the your source material:

"About 300 of the 1,196 men on board died in the attack. The rest of the crew, 880 men, floated in the water without lifeboats until the rescue was completed four days later. Three hundred and twenty-one crew came out of the water alive, with 317 ultimately surviving. They suffered from lack of food and water, exposure to the elements, severe desquamation, and shark attacks. The Discovery Channel has stated that the Indianapolis sinking resulted in the most shark attacks on humans in history, and attributes the attacks to the oceanic whitetip shark species. The same show attributed most of the deaths on the Indianapolis to exposure, salt poisoning and thirst, with the dead being dragged off by sharks."

 

Isn't it ironic that the Indy had just delivered the "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" weapons to Tinian Island on July 26. She is then sunk 3 days later on the 29th. No one knew she was missing for 4 days. Hiroshima and Nagasaki disappear a week and a half later on August 6th and 9th.

Talk about KARMA!

Imagine if the Indy was torpedoed BEFORE she offloaded the weapons!!!

What might the world be like today?????

73 de Pat KK6PD

 

Statistically, driving to work is one of the most dangerous things we do. Somehow, the risks are laughed off, yet people are far more afraid of lions and tigers and bears. And wolves and sharks. Go figure.

I talked with a taxi driver in Detroit (talk about a hazardous job!) on Tuesday, and he said he'd be afraid of hiking in the forest because of the bears. But he feels safe in inner city Detroit?!