Posted on 09/08/2001 10:29:02 AM PDT by Trailer Trash
Sept. 7, 2001, 11:33AM
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- More sharks? Or more people in the water?
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While worldwide shark attacks have increased slightly in recent years, some researchers say more swimmers and surfers at beaches may be the cause rather than shark numbers.
"There are just so darn many people in the water," said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida. "We are forcing the interactions by having people there even though there are less sharks."
Last weekend, a 10-year-old Richmond, Va., boy died after being attacked by a shark in Virginia Beach, Va. On Monday, a Virginia man was killed in Avon, N.C., by a shark. His girlfriend remains hospitalized after losing her left foot and suffering multiple bites. The fatal Labor Day weekend attacks came after publicity of earlier attacks this summer in Florida.
But Burgess calls this a "pretty average year" for worldwide shark attacks. This year's 52 attacks compare to a record high of 84 last year, he said.
Some commercial anglers in Florida say there are more attacks because there are more sharks -- the result of federal limits on shark fishing imposed in the early 1990s.
Some anglers have joked about adopting the slogan "Sharks -- eat them before they eat you," says Bob Jones, executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association.
Fishing boats are catching their daily shark limits faster and more often, said Steve Rash, president of Water Street Seafood in Apalachicola, Fla., a wholesale fish dealer.
Florida's inshore net ban, imposed by Florida voters as a state constitutional amendment in 1994, has resulted in an increase of baitfish near shores that attract sharks, Rash said.
"There are more sharks, and they are being drawn to the beach," he said.
But federal experts disagree. The National Marine Fisheries Service, during its last assessment in 1998, determined that shark populations continued to decline, though less dramatically than in the 1980s, said Enric Cortes, a research fisheries biologist who specializes in shark populations for the agency in Panama City.
Sand bar sharks had dropped to one-third of their population since the 1970s and black tip sharks had decreased to one-fourth of their previous populations, Cortes said.
Overfishing caused populations to decline and it may take decades for populations to rebound, he said.
Compared to other fish species, sharks must be older before they give birth and they produce fewer young, Cortes said.
The agency doesn't have enough data since the mid-1990s to say statistically whether the populations have increased or decreased since then, he said.
Even if sharks have increased, Cortes said it's impossible to connect shark populations with attacks on humans.
"The truth is we don't know enough about shark populations or sharks at the organism level -- their behavior, what makes them attack," he said.
Theories abound as to what is causing the attacks, said Jack Rudloe, a self-described naturalist who is president of the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Panacea, Fla.
He said there may be more juvenile sharks attacking people because there might be fewer large sharks to eat the younger creatures. Or there might be an imbalance in nature caused by pollution or overfishing that is causing sharks to seek new prey.
"How can there not be imbalances? And how can that not, at some point, affect what sharks do and don't do? They are part of the system," he said.
Meanwhile, a state commission Thursday moved to ban shark-feeding scuba dives in Florida following the lastest shark attacks.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted 7-1 to put an end to "interactive" dives, in which scuba-diving tourists watch as tour operators attract sharks and feed them fish.
Several commissioners expressed fear that sharks could be conditioned to associate humans with food.
Tour operators told the commission that the dives are safe and that no tourists have ever been bitten.
The ban will not take effect until after another public hearing in November, but there appeared to be little chance the vote would be changed.
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