When you buy through links on our site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
After the attack on an American diver by agreat white sharkoff the coast of Australia , the rumor mill is slop with talk of a " scallywag Isle of Man - eat shark " that grow a taste for man , killing three men over the last two month .
The most recent fire happened on Saturday when a great white shark attacked and killed American diver George Thomas Wainwright . Two previous attacks on humans by great whites have occurred in the last two months , one killing an Australian swimmer on Oct. 10 and the other a body boarder who was lethally assault on Sept. 4 .
Unlike Jaws, great white sharks in Australia probably haven’t become man eaters, they are just following whales along a slightly different migration path.Here a great white successfully lunges for and captures a juvenile fur seal in False Bay, South Africa.
Australian waters ordinarily see about one fatal shark attack per year ; but these amniotic fluid are the primary menage of the great white shark , a large species that can grow up to 20 feet ( 6 metre ) long . Last year,14 wanton shark attackson humans were reported in Australia , only one of which was fatal .
scientist say the late attacks probably came from three separate shark . “There ’s whales moving by that coastline at this time of the yr , and the white sharks follow , " George Burgess , a researcher at the University of Florida and conservator of the International Shark Attack File , which catalog shark blast around the world . " The luck of an individual shark being involved in all three of these incidences is astronomically low . They jaunt 40 to 50 miles a day . " [ Image Gallery : Great White Sharks ]
Sharks lead knave
Rogue sharks , represent bythe shark in " Jaws , " are mean to repeatedly assail humans , though such behavior is unnatural for sharks .
" The theory of a ' knave ' shark is unconvincing , sometimes a single shark may be responsible for subsequent fire done in the same area , in a clustered figure , " Fabio Hazin , a investigator at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco in Brazil , differentiate LiveScience in an email . “This , however , tends to be more a consequence of the shark and human being being secretive together than to a vicious nature of some shark specimen . "
One example of such a rogue , the only that Burgess has get word in his 40 years of catalogingshark attacks , happen in Egypt last twelvemonth . A ship of imported sheep from New Zealand maneuver to Egypt had been dropping their dead along the style . This entice a shark to the shore , where it attacked five mass , killing one .
" That was a very different coinage and unlike ecologic site , " Burgess told LiveScience . " It was a once in a lifetime experience for myself , after 40 years as a keeper of shark attacks . "
A rogue white ? Not so tight .
Australia ’s great whites are currently in the midst of their annual migration ( they come after the whale migration paths up the western Australia coast ) , which would get them into contact with humankind . Three different sharks , follow the same path up the seacoast and passing the same human being - infested washup and boating areas , are in all likelihood responsible for the recent approach Burgess said .
" This is a very unlikely campaigner for one to have stay around and gotten the taste for humans , particularly in the case of the white shark , which is so highly migratory , " Burgess said .
There were several potential reasonableness why shark attacks in the area might be in high spirits than normal , Burgess said . It ’s potential that changes in clime may be shifting migration pattern , bringing shark and humans closer together . Warmer temperatures would also bring more humans into the water . [ 10 Incredible Animal Migrations ]
I ’d rather succeed the lottery
Internationally , the numeral of shark fatalities is down , though the actual telephone number of attacks is come up ; shark attacks strike a globose 10 - twelvemonth high in 2010 with 115 human - shark incident that year , 79 of which were wanton . That gain is probably due to increasedhuman presence in shark territory . Only six of these incidents ended in a utter human , though .
" We should always be cautious when entering into the sea , since it is an environment different from the one we live in , " Hazin say . " We should not forget that drowning kills one thousand and M more hoi polloi every year than shark attacks . "
The shark attack in Australia have instigate calls to kill off any sharks in the area , which Premier Colin Barnett is said to be considering . Researchers are against such a shark William Holman Hunt , since there is no way to eff which shark or sharks are responsible for for the human death without kill them and cut capable their stomachs .
" The part will be good off if the resource being given to hunt the Orcinus orca shark would be used to study the state of affairs … and reduce the chances of it pass off again , " Burgess said . " The only answer we are going to find is if we scientifically contemplate the office carefully and understand better the motion patterns of the sharks . "
