Shark attacks in U.S. waters—and how common they really are

The first American shark panic began in the hot summer of 1916, when a series of attacks of the Jersey Shore killed four in two weeks. This was thought to be the work of a single great white shark—a species native to the Atlantic coast and the same likely involved in recent attacks. In a time when little was known about beasts from the deep, the deaths were big news. One paper warned that, facing a scarcity of fish, the shark had “probably acquired a taste for human flesh.”

But 1916 did not start a new time of human-hunting sharks. The rate of attacks in the U.S. stayed relatively stable, at two or three per year, for decades. From the 1950s on, that number rose with human population growth, and its attendant increase of people in the water.

Globally, both numbers have been climbing faster since the late 1980s and into the 21st century, but such encounters with sharks are still remarkably uncommon given that the human population is some 7.5 billion. In 2017, 53 of the world’s 88 confirmed attacks took place on U.S. coastlines, with 31 in Florida - but even there, you’re far less likely to be killed by a shark than by lightning. Thanks to beach safety and hospital access, only five of last year’s global attacks were fatal.

“If sharks were actively hunting people, we’d see far more attacks,” says Gavin Naylor, director at the Florida Museum’s Program for Shark Research.

Statistically, sharks have far more to fear from us than we do from them—fisheries wipe out an estimated 100 million each year, and climate change and other human activity have threatened shark habitats, sending their global population into decline. But that doesn’t make it any less sad when the beasts bite back.

I was eating breakfast at home in Hampshire in March this year, scrolling (滚屏) through social media on my phone, when a story caught my eye. It was about a nine-year-old dog, Charlie, nicknamed the loneliest in Britain. He had been in a rescue center in Somerset for more than 500 days.

For some reason, nobody wanted to ad opt him. I clicked on the link and right away Charlie’ shuge, sad eyes stared back at me. I was attracted by him. I turned to my husband, Sam, and said: “We’ve got to have him.” He read the article over my shoulder and felt exactly the same way. We wanted to give Charlie a happy home and a new life. Over the past few years we have tried to adopt a few different dogs, but we haven’t had any luck—we were never top of the list. Sam and I got used to filling in forms and not hearing anything. We’d almost given up hope.

But Charlie is an older dog and we felt we’d be suited—even older dogs have a lot of love left to offer. So we took our time with the application, sent photographs of our house and garden. We explained why Charlie would be happy with us, and then forgot all about it.

A few days later we received an email from Brent Knoll animal center, saying we’d been shortlisted. We were so amazed! They asked us to visit Charlie and to see if he liked us. When we arrived, we were taken to the staff room. We didn’t know what to expect. We hadn’t been told much about Charlie’s circumstances, but as he had been given up for adoption and hadn’t been placed with a new owner for so long, we thought there might be issues. But the dog was full of joy and charisma (魅力).

He came straight over to us, all curious.

Day after day, we occupied ourselves in Charlie’s company.