On September 6, a cruise passenger from Pennsylvania was attacked by a shark while snorkeling with his family in the Bahamas, CNN reported.
Although the lifeguards and family of the tour company pulled the woman from the sea on board in time and rushed to the nearest pier, doctors at the time diagnosed that there was no sign of life.
Although we often see movies and television content with sharks eating people and hurting people, the probability of being killed by sharks in reality is still less than one in 4 million, which is lower than the probability of drowning.
Combing through past shark attacks, it was found that there were 73 unprovoked shark attacks in the world last year, of which 47 occurred in the United States, and the United States is also the country with the most incidents in the world.
Most sharks that attack humans for no reason are actually the three major culprits: great white sharks, tiger sharks and bull sharks, and different sharks have great differences in behavior and things.
Bull sharks, for example, prefer to hunt in shallow, turbid water because they do not need to use visual predation, but instead use their sense of smell and radio receptors to detect the tiny electric fields produced by their prey.
The great white shark, on the other hand, prefers to hunt in clear water because it is also clear. In addition, there are also data that show that the shark's teeth have a mechanical feeling, which helps the shark perceive what it is biting. It should be pointed out that the movie "Jaws" completely demonizes the species of great white sharks into the image of "man-eating sharks", and we have to distinguish them from them.
Man-eating sharks do not refer specifically to sharks of a certain quality, but to sharks that, for some reason, prefer to feed on humans. But we really can't arbitrarily assume that man-eating sharks simply don't exist. However, there is no information to indicate that it does exist.
Carlos Julio Polo once said in the newspaper El Tiempo that human flesh is not attractive to sharks due to a lack of fat. Sharks prefer other marine mammals such as seals, sea lions, whales, etc.
So if humans are not on top of sharks' diets, why do sharks attack humans?
Scientists believe that most shark attacks on humans are due to misidentification. When seen from the bottom of the sea, surfers on surfboards resemble sharks such as sea lions and turtles who love food, so they will catch prey because of shark attacks.
Secondly, human activities such as fishing, provocation, etc. are also the reasons why sharks attack humans because they feel threatened and are only trying to protect themselves.
Finally, if people wear brightly colored, shiny jewelry, it may also attract the attention of sharks.
Gavin Naylor, a researcher at the Florida Shark Research Project in the United States, and his colleagues make several suggestions on how to keep the water safe:
- Swim in groups
- Avoid swimming at dawn or dusk
- Avoid schools of fish, especially if they jump out of the water
- Avoid wearing jewelry, as the light reflected by metal or watch can mislead sharks
- Avoid making too much noise when working on the water, as sharks are attracted to the sounds produced by injured animals
- Wearing a black or other dark wetsuit when diving can help reduce the shark's attention span