Recent drone video from South Florida shows a bull shark repeatedly ramming into the outboard engines of a fishing boat. While no one onboard was injured, the engines were dealt some serious damage. While they don’t understand all of it, scientists attribute shark attacks to a number of factors.
The number of humans in coastal areas has increased, and more people are boating, surfing, swimming, and spending time in the water. This increase of humans in shark habitats may be the largest factor in explaining the increase in shark encounters. In addition to the rising number of humans in shark habitats, rising ocean temperatures are probably another factor.
Due to water temperature changes, shark migrations and territories are changing. As a result, sharks are starting to populate places where sighting were once rare, thus causing more unexpected encounters. Ocean acidification has also reduced the available prey for sharks in the oceans and has forced them to search for food in more coastal and shallow waters.
Overfishing has also contributed to sharks showing up in new places. A lack of natural prey in the oceans, may be forcing sharks to change their diet and hunting practices. If humans overfish where sharks ordinarily feed, sharks will seek other places, like beaches, in search of prey.
While shark attacks may seem to be on the rise, statistics show they have remained relatively stable. However, the odds of human-shark encounters may be increasing because of the aforementioned factors and understanding them may help humans and sharks coexist more peacefully. At the end of the day, the ocean is the sharks’ domain.
This video from the Today show shows some recent shark encounters, including the bull shark bashing the outboards and a kayaker who also had a close encounter of the shark kind.
