Basically, sharks are eaters of opportunity – whatever’s easily available is what’s on the menu. Sharks existed long before humans were even a glint in the primordial ooze’s eye, so we’re simply not a part of their diet and they just don’t find scuba divers, surfers or swimmers, all that appetizing.

Sharing is caring

I’m not sure I really thought about having to share the ocean with sharks when I learned to scuba dive.

Why, I don’t know. The first time I saw one underwater, I remember being shocked. Like, WTH?? 

We’d been setting up permanent marker buoy sites in the Turks and Caicos Islands. We’d drill a hole, pour a fast-setting concrete, add a steel ring, some rope and a buoy, and voila! Permanent mooring sites = much better for the coral reef! 

One morning, after a pretty bad storm, two of our marker buoys were gone. (Note to self: blog about knots…)

So in true diver fashion, we geared up and went into the extremely murky water to find our drilling sites and attach new marker buoys.

We had a good idea where to look, but it still involved some searching. About 15 minutes into the dive, and just as my buddy found the drill site, I looked up and found a shark.

I seized up. Couldn’t move, breathe, close my eyes, nada. Did I mention how crappy the viz was and how close the shark had to be for me to see it? CLEARLY?

While I was quietly freaking out – because paralyzed with fear – the shark looked over at me… then looked back and began to fin away.

WHOOSHH… I felt everything unclench as I released the breath I’d been holding (I know, breathe continuously and never, ever hold your breath, but… SHARK!).

And the shark stopped. So did I. It looked at me again… and swam away. Because – and this was a bit of a jaw dropper – it couldn’t have cared less about me. If it had been human, it would have yawned and dozed off, it was so not interested in me.

At that moment, my buddy looked up, saw the shark, wrongfully interpreted the wild look in my eyes as excitement and gestured for us to follow it. I made a hand gesture of my own, and we surfaced. Bite free. And feeling oddly let down…

It’s them, not us

True story. Apparently, us humans aren’t fishy or blubbery enough. And what with all that finning and flailing about and bubbles everywhere, we kind of let sharks know we’re not an easily digested meal. Hence the disinterest.

Sharks may get curious enough to check us out, especially at the surface – and unfortunately that curiosity can result in a fatal bite or a bionic foot – but they typically bugger off when they realize we’re not worth the hassle.

What am I more likely to be attacked/injured by than a shark?

There are some seriously weird things that are far more dangerous – and common – than a shark attack.

A 2015 article in the Washington Post looked at data from 2001-2013 to find out which animals are, on average, more likely to cause your demise than a shark.

Believe it or not, while sharks were responsible for one death per year, cows kicked their fins with a whopping 20 deaths per year.

Damn belligerent bovines! 🐮

Don’t get me started on coconuts, either. Apparently they’re quite dangerous as well…

And for your reading pleasure, here’s a chart from the National Safety Council that tells us our odds of kicking off by means other than a shark attack. Which, according to Surfer Today, is 1 in 3.7 million… ish.  

Lifetime odds of death for selected causes, United States, 2018
Cause of Death	Odds of Dying
Heart disease	1 in 6
Cancer	1 in 7
All preventable causes of death	1 in 25
Chronic lower respiratory disease	1 in 26
Suicide	1 in 86
Opioid overdose	1 in 98
Motor-vehicle crash	1 in 106
Fall	1 in 111
Gun assault	1 in 298
Pedestrian incident	1 in 541
Motorcyclist	1 in 890
Drowning	1 in 1,121
Fire or smoke	1 in 1,399
Choking on food	1 in 2,618
Bicyclist	1 in 4,060
Sunstroke	1 in 7,770
Accidental gun discharge	1 in 9,077
Electrocution, radiation, extreme temperatures, and pressure	1 in 12,484
Sharp objects	1 in 29,483
Hot surfaces and substances	1 in 45,186
Hornet, wasp, and bee stings	1 in 53,989
Cataclysmic storm	1 in 54,699
Dog attack	1 in 118,776
Lightning	1 in 180,746
Railway passenger	Too few deaths in 2018 to calculate odds
Passenger on an airplane	Too few deaths in 2018 to calculate odds

Source: National Safety Council estimates based on data from National Center for Health Statistics—Mortality Data for 2018, as compiled from data provided by the 57 vital statistics jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program.  Population and life expectancy data are from the U.S. Census Bureau. Deaths are classified on the basis of the 10th Revision of the World Health Organization’s “The International Classification of Diseases” (ICD). Numbers following titles refer to External Cause of Morbidity and Mortality classifications in ICD-10.

What DO sharks attack?

Not scuba divers. 😅🦈

Sharks attack and eat fishy, fatty things, like seals, sea lions, other sharks, rays, otters, etc. 

What does all this mean?

Apparently it’s safe to go in the water, but stay the hell off the farm! 🌊👩‍🌾