Fewer shark attacks counted

A University of Florida study calculates the number attacked worldwide declined from 85 the previous year to 76 in 2001.

©Associated Press
February 19, 2002

GAINESVILLE -- A spate of widely reported shark attacks last summer spurred speculation that sharks were attacking humans more than ever, but statistics released Monday show that attacks in 2001 were down from the previous year.

Researchers at the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File recorded 76 unprovoked attacks worldwide in 2001, compared with 85 in 2000. The number of people killed in shark attacks also dropped to five from 12 the previous year.

Shark attacks in waters off the United States increased by one, to 55. Florida, which leads the nation, had 37, one less than in the previous year, said George Burgess, who heads the research center.

Six attacks were recorded in the waters off South Carolina last year, four off Hawaii, two each off California, North Carolina and Texas, and one each off Alabama and Virginia.

Last year "was more like the summer of the media feeding frenzy," Burgess said.

Media coverage of shark attacks last year intensified in July after then 8-year-old Jesse Arbogast was attacked by a bull shark a few feet from shore in the waters off Pensacola.

The shark bit off Jesse's right arm and a large part of one of his legs. The boy's uncle wrestled the shark out of the water, the arm was retrieved, and surgeons were able to reattach it. Severe blood loss, however, left the Mississippi boy brain-damaged.

Weeks later, a 10-year-old boy was fatally mauled in the Virginia Beach, Va., surf. Two days after that, a shark killed a man and gravely injured his girlfriend off a North Carolina beach.

"Mother Nature cooperated kind of nicely with the press, with a series of incidents that occurred about every two weeks," Burgess said.

Most of the year's injuries were minor, but shark attacks figured prominently in media coverage for weeks.

Time magazine published a cover story, "Summer of the Shark," and questions were raised over whether shark feeding diving trips were making sharks more apt to target humans.

In November, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted to ban shark feeding, saying the practice could be altering the animals' natural behavior.

The commissioners emphasized, however, that there was no evidence connecting the feedings to the attacks.

Since 1994, the number of Florida attacks has exceeded 20 in every year except 1996, according to Burgess' records. Between 1960 and 1994, the number of attacks never exceeded 20 and rarely exceeded 10.

Burgess said the gradual upswing in attacks over the past decades is due to humans' spending more time in the water and more reliable reporting when there is an attack.

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