X-ray of shark attacks: five people died in the 57 incidents that occurred in 2022

The famous movie

was recreated in the waters of the United States, the country that accumulates in real life the highest number of attacks by these animals in the world, followed by Australia, where last weekend a 16-year-old girl died from a bite of a shark in the Swan River near Perth.

Despite this tragedy, the annual number of bites and deaths not only shows that the danger they pose to people has little to do with that reflected in Steven Spielberg's film in 1975, but also that the death toll dropped in 2022 and It was the lowest in recent years.

This is reflected in the annual balance offered this Monday by the International Shark Attack File of the University of Florida.

According to data collected in 2022, five people died as a result of the 57 registered attacks, the majority in the US and Australia

By way of comparison, in 2021 9 people died and in 2020, 10.

2020 is considered, however, an atypical year because due to the restrictions due to the Covid-19, the reduction of trips and the closure of many beaches reduced the possibility of humans and sharks meeting.

unprovoked attacks

On average, since 2013 there have been 74 unprovoked bites per year.

Unprovoked attacks are those that sharks commit by their own instinct or nature, without any human-caused circumstance that encouraged them.

When this happens, the attacks are counted in another list.

Thus, there have been another 32 bites attributed to fishing activities near these animals or to the presence of remains of meat in the vicinity.

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"Unprovoked bites offer us a greater understanding of shark biology and behavior. Changing the environment in such a way that sharks are drawn to the area in search of their natural food source could encourage them to bite humans." , when they normally wouldn't," said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

With 16 attacks, Florida continued to be in 2022 the place in the world where the most incidents were recorded and, although last year there were no fatalities,

Scientists believe that these two attacks were carried out by bull sharks (

), a species that feeds on all kinds of animals, including other sharks, and which can be dangerous to humans because it hunts in places where people usually swim. .

However, the attack suffered at the beginning of 2022 by a woman who was diving in the

has been surprising , since she was bitten by a lemon shark

a species that rarely attacks humans.

In fact, this would be the 11th attack attributed to this species of shark.

Australia tallied nine confirmed unprovoked bites, while New Zealand, Thailand and Brazil all reported individual attacks.

Deathly victims

The US recorded one fatality from an unprovoked attack, a person who was snorkeling and who disappeared on Keawakapu beach in Maui, Hawaii.

Egypt, where shark encounters are rare, reported two deaths in the Red Sea on January 8, 2022. Both attacks occurred just over a kilometer away and may have been carried out by a single shark, which was initially identified. mistakenly as a shortfin mako

).

It is currently unclear which species was responsible for the deaths, but based on the shape and coloration of the described fins, biologists believe it may have been a tiger shark (

).

A lemon shark, a species that does not usually attack humans, bit a woman in the USAlbert Kok

South Africa also recorded two unprovoked attacks in 2022, both fatal and likely caused by great white sharks, the same species from the movie Jaws, according to the US center.

The gradual reduction in attacks is linked to the increase in security measures but also to the decline in the population of these animals, because as Gavin Naylor points out, "

.

The scientist also considers that "it is likely that deaths have been reduced because some areas have recently implemented rigorous safety protocols on the beaches, especially in Australia."

Of the 548 known shark species, only 13 have bitten humans ten or more times.

Although the chances of being attacked by one of these animals are extremely low, the International Shark Attack File offers a series of recommendations to further reduce the risk if you are going to swim in an area frequented by sharks, such as removing your reflective jewelry before entering the water, avoid areas where people are fishing, do not go swimming at dawn or when it is getting dark, always swim with at least one other person and stay close to shore.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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