Shark News

North America's top shark-attack beaches

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 17 May, 2009 : - - The year was 1916, and a hot July had delivered thousands of beachgoers to the Jersey Shore. Waves shrugged on the sand, and swimmers bobbed in their bloomers and caps, escaping the heat in the surf and swells of tepid Atlantic waters.

What happened next -- beginning with a death on Long Beach Island -- would forever alter America's collective consciousness toward swimming in the sea: In an unprecedented 11 days, five major shark attacks took place along the Jersey Shore, four of which were fatal.

Reports cited blood turning the water red and sharks following victims toward the beach. Dorsal fins spiked from placid water. Appropriately, a media frenzy ensued. Patrol boats were deployed to kill sharks offshore. Some beaches installed wire mesh to sequester swimmers from anything big and toothy out beyond the break.

America has never recovered. Indeed, the Jersey Shore attacks of 1916 -- though an anomaly never seen before or since -- branded an image of sharks as monsters that has trickled now through several generations.

"The common public perception today of a shark is that of a man-eater," said George Burgess, an ichthyologist at the University of Florida who maintains a database called the International Shark Attack File. "We have an innate fear for big predators and natural forces we can't control." But as Burgess and others point out, death by shark bite is extremely rare.

Shark experts cite statistics to show you can swim and surf with nary a worry at almost any beach on the planet. You are not a seal. Sharks do not want to eat you. Or do they?

Read the full article by Stephen Regenold at Forbestraveler.com

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