[The Lone Ranger]

There are indeed many more sharks swimming about in those waters than most people would guess. I saw a fascinating picture in Natural History magazine a couple of years ago, taken from a ultralight aircraft flying over a Miami (I think it was Miami anyway; maybe it was Tampa -- I can't recall exactly right now) beach. There are hundreds of people in the water, and you can clearly see maybe a dozen or so fairly big sharks swimming among them.


Of course, a human is much larger than the prey normally taken by all but a few sharks (like Great Whites, for instance), and even they almost never intentionally attack humans.* The great majority of shark attacks take place when visibility is poor -- either because of darkness or because the water is clouded with silt. This is apparently because under those conditions, the shark can't see, and mistakes a human in the water for a wounded fish. (The splashing of a person in the water sounds remarkably like the sounds made by a wounded, struggling fish.)


Sadly, quite a lot of shark species are seriously endangered. Largely, it's due to overfishing, though habitat destruction is also a serious threat. (The mangrove groves of Florida serve as "nurseries" for several shark species, including lemon sharks and hammerheads. Pregnant mothers come into the mangrove forests to give birth, and the mangroves provide cover for the young sharks until they're large-enough to move out into open water.)

To "harvest" sharks for shark-fin soup, the common practice is to catch sharks, hack off their fins, then toss the still-living animals back into the water to bleed to death.


Despite the fact that many shark species are in real danger of extinction, it's difficult to interest people in their plight, unfortunately.



*Great whites feed largely on seals and sea lions, which have thick layers of blubber. Many of the people attacked by great whites have been surfers. It's thought that, to a shark swimming below, a person on a surfboard looks more or less exactly like a seal or sea lion. In virtually every instance of a great white attacking a human, the shark bit once, then immediately let go and swam away. Apparently, as soon as it bites into a human victim, it realizes that what it had bitten into has too little body fat and too much bone density to be a pinniped, and lets go.

Small comfort for the person bitten, I'm sure. But it does illustrate the point that there are few -- if any -- sharks that deliberately attack humans. So, if you want to avoid shark attacks, make sure to always swim in clear, well-lit water.


Cheers,

Michael