If a shark sees a human splashing in the water, it may try to investigate, leading to an accidental attack.
But she still has the occasional nightmare about sharks.The majority of unprovoked attacks on humans where a species is identified involve three large culprits: the great white, tiger and bull sharks. “I’ve seen that behaviour a couple of times over the years we have been doing this.
Yet great whites – the species depicted in the film Jaws and demonised by Hollywood ever since – isn’t just a separate species, but an entirely different taxonomic order from the other two.“Many of them never fully recover and the psychological scars can be even greater than the physical ones,” he says. But then something took hold of her leg.“Fear has played a very important role in our evolution,” adds Chapman.
Most of the time we put a camera in the water and the sharks are completely complacent. They fail to account for the comparatively fewer numbers of people who actually use the water, and the fewer still who swim in water inhabited by dangerous sharks. While she got back onto a surfboard within six months of her attack and went “shark mad”, plastering her bedroom walls with pictures of the animals, she says her passion for surfing gradually ebbed away.Bull sharks, for example, tend to hunt in shallow, murky water that will require them to rely less on vision and more upon their sense of smell and electroreception, which allows them to detect minute electrical fields produced by their prey.“If you are frightened, you can always stay out of the water.”Pearson says this is a common problem in shark attack victims.Her shark posters have gone, as has her enjoyment of the sea.
But despite being potentially such an easy meal, sharks are really not that interested in hunting humans. Now I am scared of it.
For those who fear them without having had such a close encounter she has a sound piece of advice.Great white sharks typically attack their prey from below with great speed, delivering a single devastating bite (Credit: Getty Images)A spate of shark attacks on Reunion Island led to calls for the local authorities to take action beyond bans on swimming and surfing (Credit: Getty Images)“If these animals are chasing bait fish, the flash of the white sole of a foot from someone kicking on a board might cause them to dart at it,” he says.
In some cases they will withdraw while their prey bleeds to death before returning to eat.“Shark attacks cause a lot of personal loss, but the impact they can have on the wider community is often not considered,” says Dave Pearson, one of the founders of Bite Club, which offers support to the survivors of shark attacks. Now, these do not attack for fun or because humans are very appetizing.
“The fear spreads really quickly.”Despite the fear and economic costs of shark attacks, like many of those who survive encounters with sharks, Hannah Mighall doesn’t want to see these animals being punished with culls or by killing those animals that stray into areas being used by humans.Mighall still has the surfboard she was riding on the day of her attack, a huge toothy bite missing from one side. Sharks have no particular liking for human flesh as it contains a lower level of fat than they need. The shark pulled away from him and as it went underwater it let go of Mighall, lunging instead for her surfboard that was still attached by a rope to her leg.Efforts to tag great white sharks is starting to provide insights into the behaviour and life cycles of these enormous predators (Credit: Getty Images)Great white sharks are considered to be the most dangerous species in the oceans today, but we still know very little about their life cycle and behaviour (Credit: Getty Images)“I wonder if those strikes on people that are not merely investigative are the result of a person being in the wrong place at the wrong time with a shark in this kind of heightened state.”- Avoid wearing jewellery as light reflecting off metal or a watch might look like a darting fish to a sharkLuckily for Mighall, among the few people on the beach who witnessed what had happened that day were a doctor and a nurse. He himself was attacked by a bull shark while surfing eight years ago in south-west Australia, nearly losing his arm when the animal smashed into him, bit into his forearm to the bone and carried him underwater.“I’d be fine and then I’d get this weird feeling and start looking around,” she explains. I think if people knew how frequently they were in water with sharks, they would probably be surprised.”He hopes it might help to answer questions about the behaviour of these animals as well as about where and how they breed. Attacks on remote islands or in less developed communities probably go unreported.Getting into water where there are lots of bait fish that can attract sharks will increase your risk of being bitten (Credit: Alamy)In some areas, the local authorities themselves have taken action.
Our three-volume, first edition book is now available online through your Britannica Premium membership.\r\nRichard Pallardy received a B.A.
The 2010 Fren… Sharks know what they like to eat. She was sitting astride her surfboard, enjoying the warmth of the sun as she and her cousin waited for the next wave in Tasmania’s idyllic Bay of Fires. All I could see was my black wetsuit leg, its teeth, pink gums, teeth and the dark bit under its nose where it meets white.