How Dangerous are Sharks, Really?

This week is, to some, as sacred as a holy week in a church's liturgical calendar, or as treasured as the only two weeks of vacation that some get every year. Can you guess what I'm talking about?

That's right. It's SHARK WEEK on the Discovery Channel.

If you watch this annual event, you are likely to be bombarded by accounts of the terrifying ferocity of these creatures. Man-eaters with no regard for human life; savage beasts who only want one thing: to get their teeth on you and rip you to shreds.

Pretty scary, right?

But how dangerous are sharks, really?

On average, there are around 75 shark attacks reported worldwide. Of those 75, the average number of human fatalities works out to around 4 to 5 per year. So, while sharks are by no means cuddly creatures with whom you might want to spend an afternoon swimming around with, the chances of being attacked by a shark are very slim, and chances are even far more unlikely that you will be killed.

To put this in a bit of perspective, let's consider only people who go to the beach. Even among this higher-risk group (after all, you're extremely unlikely to be attacked by a shark while walking in downtown Los Angeles, Sharknado notwithstanding), the chances of being attacked by a shark in the United States is 1 in 11.5 million. The chances of dying from a shark attack is far, far lower: only 1 in 264.1 million.

So, if not sharks, what should we be afraid of?

Cows.

Yes, that's right: cows. In the United States alone, cows are responsible, on average, for 20 human deaths per year. But for some reason, it's sharks who get the bad rap. Thanks a lot, Spielberg.

Let's look at this from a different perspective. Sharks account for 4 to 5 human deaths per year worldwide. Let's err on the side of shark-hate and say 5. To us, it's not a huge number, but for the families of those 5 people, it's a much bigger deal. However, let's look at a different number. That number is 100 million. What is the significance of the number 100 million you ask?

100 million is the approximate number of sharks killed by human beings every year.

Add to that the fact that the worldwide shark population is rapidly declining while the human population in 2012 was 7.046 billion and on a steady upward trend, and you can see which of our species is winning this fight.

Due to huge amounts of shark fishing and destruction of shark habitat by human activities, we are actively and rapidly killing sharks en masse. And we show no signs of slowing down any time soon.

Shark Fin Soup, a pricey and prized delicacy for which many fishermen will catch sharks, cut off their fin, and throw them back to the sea.

So please, by all means, watch Shark Week, and enjoy! But take the time to understand that the sharks might not be the true menace the Discovery Channel makes them out to be. Sharks should be far more frightened of us than we are of them.

And, for the love of God, watch out for cows.

Boo!
Er, moo.

Coming this summer... just when you thought it was safe to go into the pasture... 


Photos:

"Carcharodon carcharias" by Sharkdiver.com - Own work. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carcharodon_carcharias.jpg

"JAWS Movie poster" by PosterRevolution. Licensed under Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of Jaws (film) via Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JAWS_Movie_poster.jpg

"Sharksfin" by Arthur Hungry - From Arthur Hungry. All original material on Arthur Hungry is licensed under a Creative Commons License.. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sharksfin.jpg

"Anneau anti tetee P1190486" by David.Monniaux - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anneau_anti_tetee_P1190486.jpg