The chances of being attacked by a shark are almost zero, according to an interactive map that shows where, when and under what conditions attacks occur globally.
If you look at the data, there are 100 shark attacks worldwide annually, but every year humans kill about 100 million sharks.
When it comes to humans and sharks, it seems that we are, in fact, the predators.
“What started as a fun research project quickly became a passion project,” David Angotta, founder of FloridaPanhandle, said in a statement to IFLScience.
“During our research, we learned that in a normal year, fewer than 10 people are killed by sharks. Compare that to the astronomical figure of 100 million sharks killed by humans,” he added.
“We believe these interactive educational shark attack statistics will help people realize that shark attacks are incredibly rare. Based on the data, we should not fear sharks, but rather protect them,” it also stated.
When you are more likely to be attacked by a shark, how does that compare to other risks
There are sometimes trends in the attacks, such as being more frequent when the moon is brighter, during the morning or on Saturdays.
“For people living in the United States, they are about 50 times more likely to die from lightning and 10 times more likely to die from a fireworks accident than from a shark attack” , Angotta continued.
“While commercial air travel is generally considered among the safest modes of transportation, the chances of dying in a plane crash are exponentially greater than just being attacked by a shark.
To put these numbers into perspective, there were 3,416 commercial airline fatalities worldwide between 2011 and 2020. In the past 30 years, there have been fewer than 300 deaths from shark attacks,” it concluded.
