Bull shark the likeliest to attack people

Great whites and tigers are bigger, but the scariest shark people are likely to encounter in Florida is the bull shark.

A bull was blamed in the fatal attack June 25 on a 14-year-old girl, bitten in the leg as she swam off the beach in Walton County in the Panhandle. A bull is also suspected in an attack Monday, when a shark bit a teenager swimming in waist-deep water 80 miles from the site of the Saturday attack. Doctors amputated the boy's leg, but he is expected to recover.

A third attack, on Friday, injured an Austian who was swimming in ankle-deep water off Boca Grande, Fla. The type of shark involved is unknown.

Unlike their larger, more notorious cousins, bull sharks are common in Florida coastal waters. Divers see them among ships sunk as artificial reefs off Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, where the sharks feed on fish drawn to the wrecks. Unique among sharks for their ability to tolerate fresh water, bulls penetrate deep into the Florida peninsula through its rivers.

"They're a very large shark and they have a very large mouth," said John Carlson, a marine biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, who studies sharks in the Gulf of Mexico. "Unlike some other species, they're found fairly close to shore."

In southeast Florida, divers say nurse sharks are the most common sharks. But Caribbean reef sharks and bull sharks rank after that.

"Bull sharks have definitely charged at me," said Jim Mimms, owner of Ocean Diving in Pompano Beach. "I've had to push them off me, push them away. It's a very uncomfortable feeling when you're diving, being stalked by a shark."

Another diver, Jeff Torode, owner of South Florida Diving Headquarters, says he's found bull sharks to be reclusive.

they need to allow people to thin out the population a bit not kill them all.but kill enough to decrease the threat to humans

The International Shark Attack File, which contains data on shark attacks from around the world, reports fewer than 100 shark attacks per year, with about 10-15 deaths each year. In comparison, about 1,000 people die from attacks by crocodiles; 1,500 from tigers, lions, and leopards; and 60,000 from snakebites.

Add to this that deer kill about 100 people a year in the US, and even bees and ants have killed more people than sharks. The thing about sharks is the image of an apex predator rising from the dark depths with a gaping maw and serrated teeth.

Otherwise, realistically, squirrels, bats and raccoons are a far greater danger due to rabies! However there is no call for the extermination of squirrels, primarily because they do not fit the image of 'terror from the deep' and such stuff. This is also the reason why deer kill more people in the US than sharks, but you never hear the MSM coming up with terms like 'the summer of the Deer' or the 'autumn of the savage squirrel.'

Do a Google for bull sharks, also, Ganges, Zambezi sharks, etc.

Bull's have been found over 2,400 miles up the Amazon. They seem to be able to handle freshwater.

They have killed Indians way up the Ganges. Regular folks in knee deep water...taking a bath.

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