Published this week in the journal PLOS One, a new report from professors and scientists at Louisiana State University and the University of Florida states the number of shark attacks across the world is rising.
In the 1950s, the number of reported shark attacks worldwide was between 150 and 200. That number has been rising steadily and peaked in 2018 with more than 700 reported attacks.
While some countries have seen no increase in shark attacks over the decades, the number of attacks has climbed substantially in countries like the United States and Australia.
“With more people in the water, the chance for a shark attack increases,” said LSU oceanography professor Stephen Midway says in a statement. “However, I must stress the fact that not all places across the globe saw an increase. And even in the places where we saw an increase, the chances were still one in several million.”
However, it’s important to remember that an attack simply means a bite or nip, not a fatality. Most shark attacks are about as severe as a bite from a dog.
From 1960 to 2015, officials reported a total of 1,215 shark attacks in the U.S. Of those, only 24, about 24 percent, were logged as fatal.
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