In the article, “Everything You Need to Know About Shark Attacks as Told by Graphs” reported by Meghan Keneally and Jan Diehm for abc news were interested on detailing the most recent number of shark attacks in comparison to the attacks that happened over the centuries. They also recorded interesting figures on the target surface activities where shark attacks happen the most in U.S and around the world. The news became of interest after two teens were injured in North Carolina not long ago and in addition the following data were collected by Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida.

According to their finding the most frequent shark attacks occurs to individuals who use “flotation device” such as surfing board, water skiing, wind surfing etc. In other words swimmers who perform activities on the surface of the water are the main target by the sharks.

In the above bar graph the numbers show that the most often target are the surface re-creationists compared to swimmers and bathers with a dramatic increase. From 2000-09 alone there has been over 300 shark attacks and the sudden increase happened between 1980-89 and 1990-09 with roughly a difference of 145 attacks.

Figure 1                                                                 Figure 2

Figure 1 shows that there has been 701 shark attacks from 2005-2014 in world locations with highest shark attack activity. Only 59 or about 8.4% were recorded fatal. However, the exact number hasn’t been determined by the researchers because the victims were unable to recall the exact details about their attacks. The researchers added that they were able to determine the most common species of sharks that were responsible for the attacks. As shown in figure 2 they are the white sharks followed by tiger sharks and bull sharks. These sharks were named the “Big three” as they are mostly found where people enter the water and also they are known for their shearing teeth.

figure 3                                                  Figure 4

Figure 3 shows the number of shark attacks around the world. As you can see US experiences the largest amount of shark attacks with 1,104 as opposed to other continental areas. In the US, Florida is reported to have the largest number of attacks as shown in the line graph in figure 4. As mentioned previously, Florida experienced 219 out of the 701 attacks that happened in 2005- 2014 preceded by Australia, Hawaii and South Carolina.

These were some interesting information I found from abc news, I hope it doesn’t scare the ocean lovers away.

Citation: http://abcnews.go.com/US/shark-attacks-told-graphs/story?id=31779076