Tampa: However it may seem to nervous U.S. beach-goers, sharks are in far more danger from humans than humans are from them, experts at a conference on the marine predators said this week.
Tampa: However it may seem to nervous U.S. beach-goers, sharks are in far more danger from humans than humans are from them, experts at a conference on the marine predators said this week.
Marine scientists insist the danger was overblown.
"The rate of shark attacks has not risen," said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the university.
Burgess said 55 people, one fewer than the previous year, suffered unprovoked shark attacks in the United States last year. Florida, as usual, was the runaway leader with 37 attacks. Three people died in the United States.
"Unprovoked" attacks are those where the humans were not trying to catch or touch the sharks.
The shark attack file lists a total of 76 unprovoked shark attacks around the world in 2001, down from 85 such attacks the previous year. A total of five people were killed, down from 12 in 2000, the group says.
In contrast, as many as 100 million sharks are caught and killed around the world each year, feeding a demand for shark fin soup, said Merry Camhi, director of the Living Oceans Program of the National Audubon Society.

Some species of sharks have been reduced by 75 to 80 percent over the past three decades because of commercial and sport fishing, according to Jack Musick of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
The flap over shark attacks came amid a summer news lull in the United States and followed a particularly dramatic attack in early July, the start of the vacation season, on an eight-year-old boy who only just got away with his life. Bureau Report