On the beaches of which countries of the world sharks most often attack people

Not all beach resorts can be called safe. Some of them regularly appear in news reports as a meeting place for people with sharks. Some seas of our planet almost do not visit large species of sharks, and somewhere vacationers regularly encounter aggressive marine predators. We tried to find out in which seas the probability of encountering dangerous animals is the highest.

According to statistics, over the past 50 years, the frequency of shark attacks on humans has increased. But in general, there are not so many cases of attacks of these fish on people around the planet, not more than 100-120 cases annually. In this case, fatal outcomes are many times less, as a rule, no more than 10-15. But if earlier attacks of predators were recorded mainly in the tropical seas, in recent years shark attacks have been recorded in the seas of temperate latitudes. A widely known case of shark attacks in Russian Primorye a few years ago, when three people were injured by the actions of fish.

The most dangerous and aggressive species are the white and tiger sharks, which account for most of the attacks, including fatal ones. There are also cases of aggression from the blunt-nosed and long-winged sharks. As for the reasons why predators attack humans, the opinion of biologists is clear: sharks do not do this to satisfy the feeling of hunger. A person does not belong to the favorite food of these animals, so most of the attacks are due to the fact that the shark, being in troubled waters, simply confused the surfer's hand or the diver's foot with a sea turtle or tuna.

Shark encounter statistics

We proceed directly to the places of the most frequent attacks. Scientists note that over the past decade, cases of shark attacks on the beaches of Australia, Egypt, South Africa and the United States have become more frequent, although the past 2018 pleasantly surprised scientists - only 66 attacks were recorded. But it is worth noting that 32 of them occurred off the coast of the United States, and in 2017 53 people suffered from attacks on the beaches of this country. Thus, the United States holds the first place in the number of recorded cases of attacks of aggressive fish. In second place, according to 2018, Australia is located: on the beaches of this country, 20 people were injured. Following them with a noticeable lag are Thailand, Brazil and Egypt, where over the past year only 3 attacks were recorded.

Countries of the world, on the beaches of which meetings with sharks were most often recorded from 1960 to 2015 (source: //journals.plos.org/plos ...)

At the same time, experts note that the number of unpleasant encounters with predators has decreased on the coasts of Mexico, Fiji and Ecuador. Most of the recorded human contacts with a shark are encounters with a white shark. And about where these large marine predators are most often found, you can learn from our previous material.