Shark Attacks Shark
Shark Attacks Shark
Shark Attack - What is the Risk?
By Rocky Boschman
Thanks to sensational movies like Jaws and reporting like Time Magazine's "Summer of Fear", our fear of sharks has been driven so deep into our core, that many are afraid to even enter the ocean.
You might think that its a lot safer to just stay at home and putter around the house. In 1996, home improvement projects in the USA involving toilets led to 43,687 injuries. Mishaps with ladders added another 138,894 injuries. Even buckets caused over 10,000 injuries. Shark attacks in that year injured just 13.
Statistically, we should be more frightened by man's best friend and age-old companion, the family dog. During the period of 2001-2007, there were 175 dog attack fatalities in the USA. There were only six shark attack fatalities in the same period.
There are a lot of other animals that we should fear before sharks. In 1981, New York City alone reported 81 squirrel bites. There were only 12 shark bites reported nation-wide that year. Even rabbits - 37 bites in NYC - represented a higher bite risk than sharks.
And of course, the true litmus test of any risk assessment is "the risk of being struck by lightning." In the USA, from 1959 to 2007, coastal states reported 1945 deaths caused by lightning strikes and only 23 deaths due to shark attacks. The National Safety Council calculates the annual risk of death in one's lifetime by lightning to be 1 in 79,746 and by shark attack to only 1 in 3,748,067.
That means, in any given year, you are 47 times more likely to be struck and killed by lightning than to be killed in a shark attack.
Now go have fun in the ocean. (Stay out of open fields).
By Rocky Boschman
Thanks to sensational movies like Jaws and reporting like Time Magazine's "Summer of Fear", our fear of sharks has been driven so deep into our core, that many are afraid to even enter the ocean.
You might think that its a lot safer to just stay at home and putter around the house. In 1996, home improvement projects in the USA involving toilets led to 43,687 injuries. Mishaps with ladders added another 138,894 injuries. Even buckets caused over 10,000 injuries. Shark attacks in that year injured just 13.
Statistically, we should be more frightened by man's best friend and age-old companion, the family dog. During the period of 2001-2007, there were 175 dog attack fatalities in the USA. There were only six shark attack fatalities in the same period.
There are a lot of other animals that we should fear before sharks. In 1981, New York City alone reported 81 squirrel bites. There were only 12 shark bites reported nation-wide that year. Even rabbits - 37 bites in NYC - represented a higher bite risk than sharks.
And of course, the true litmus test of any risk assessment is "the risk of being struck by lightning." In the USA, from 1959 to 2007, coastal states reported 1945 deaths caused by lightning strikes and only 23 deaths due to shark attacks. The National Safety Council calculates the annual risk of death in one's lifetime by lightning to be 1 in 79,746 and by shark attack to only 1 in 3,748,067.
That means, in any given year, you are 47 times more likely to be struck and killed by lightning than to be killed in a shark attack.
Now go have fun in the ocean. (Stay out of open fields).
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