Social networks have been shaken by the video of a tourist eaten by a shark in Egypt. It’s about a 23 year old Russian man who was on vacation with his father on the beach of hurghada, next to the Red Sea. In the images it can be seen that he was not very far from the shore, when the animal approached him and ended his life in a few moments. It is devastating and terrifying, now that summer arrives in the northern hemisphere. Because how common is it that they occur? shark attacks?
The truth is that they are not very frequent. According to Statista, between 2000 and 2022 there was all over the world 1,641 shark attacksof which 133 were fatal. It may seem like a high number. And obviously all deaths are important. But the amount does not seem so high if we compare it with the deaths caused by other apparently more harmless animals, such as mosquitoes. only in the Democratic Republic of Congo and only in 2019 13,000 people died from malaria. One of the many mosquito-borne diseases that can cause death in this country.
Either way, we can get the feeling that there have been more shark attacks lately. If we look at the distribution of this type of encounter per year, we will see that there has not been a significant rise. In fact, 2020 and 2022 were the two years with the fewest shark attacks since these began. records. What is happening is that they are beginning to be seen in places where before it was very strange come across sharks And if they are in new places, they can encounter humans in places where this has never happened before. For this there are many explanations, although climate change is one of the most striking.
In search of new waters
It is true that shark sightings and attacks have been recorded in unusual places in recent years. For example, in the summer of 2022 several of these cases were documented off the coast of long Islandin New York, where previously it was very rare to see sharks.
It should be noted that in Egypt, where the Russian tourist was attacked, these situations are not rare. In fact, although the cause of this terrible scene seems to have been a hammerhead sharkthis is just one of the many shark species that can be seen in the waters of the Red Sea.
That aside, the new shark sightings are mainly due to the general warming of the oceans which is producing the climate change. According to a study published in early 2023, during 2022, ocean waters with depths of 2,000 meters absorbed 10 zettajoules of heat, which are equivalent to 100 times the electricity consumed by the entire planet in a year. Fortunately, water has a very high heat capacity. This means that a lot of energy is needed to raise its temperature. So it’s been catastrophic, but not as catastrophic as it might have been with other substances. Still, 2022 has been the seventh consecutive year in which ocean waters have warmed, reaching new peaks.
All this is causing some marine animals to have to displace their habitat. And something similar happens with sharks.
new locations for day care centers of sharks
The truth is that sharks have a great capacity to adapt to water of different temperaturesThey can regulate their body temperature. That is why they can be found in many different places. Nevertheless, when they are young they do not yet have that sufficiently mature regulation system. That’s why, They need hotter water.
That’s what’s leading to younger sharks thriving in places they were rarely seen before. We could visualize these babies as tiny fish, but the hatchlings and young specimens that need hot water can measure between 1 and more than 2 meters. In addition, they are curious and have not perfected their hunting techniques, which is why they are behind many of the shark attacks.
Many Shark Attacks Are Accidents
Humans are not part of the shark diet. For this reason, they do not usually go looking for people to hunt. The problem is that in murky watersin which the water mixes with the sand, visibility is difficult.
For this reason, young sharks can confuse hands and feet of surfers and bathers with fish. His way of checking if they really are is to take a first bite. Normally, when they find out that it is not what they were looking for, they usually leave.
But it can happen that they are still confused, they are very hungry or the human tries to defend himself and turns against the animal. That is often the cause of shark attacks that end up being deadly. In short, they are not ruthless hunters, as Steven Spielberg made us believe They usually just want to feed. That does not make what has happened in Egypt any less terrible. It has been a sad misfortune that worries and scares us all. But, at least, we must remember that, despite their fangs and their fearsome appearance, they are much less dangerous and are a thousand times more demonized than mosquitoes and, of course, than many human beings.