Juvenile white sharks are responsible for the majority of bites on swimmers. Former Green Beret and survival expert Terry Schappert shares tips on how to stay safe from sharks this summer. Swimmers beware: Hungry sharks do think you're food.
Baby sharks are totally harmless and will flee if you come too close. They are not dangerous nor a risk for any human. These sharks are simply learning to hunt on their own as their mother is totally devoid of maternal instinct and let them at birth.
The baby shark develops inside their mother's body, receiving nutrients and oxygen through an umbilical cord. This is the same method used by mammals. But, unlike mammals, when the pups are born they're immediately independent and have to fend for themselves.
While humans kill about 100 million sharks annually, sharks kill as few as five humans each year. You have a higher chance of being killed by a flying champagne cork, accidental poisoning, or lightning. So what are the chances of being attacked by a shark? In the United States, it's one in 5 million.
As soon as the baby shark is born, they are ready to swim and hunt.
Nurse sharks are bottom dwellers that are slow moving and won't typically harm humans, according to National Geographic. However, the sharks have been known to bite humans with their strong jaws filled with thousands of serrated teeth in acts of defense.
In the United States, even considering only people who go to beaches, a person's chance of getting attacked by a shark is 1 in 11.5 million, and a person's chance of getting killed by a shark is less than 1 in 264.1 million.
More than 700 unprovoked shark attacks have been recorded since 1900, resulting in more than 170 fatalities, with hundreds more severely injured.
The leopard shark is the first on our list of least dangerous shark species to be utterly harmless to humans. There has not been a single report of a human being bitten by a leopard shark. They live primarily in shallow waters, are rarely found more than twenty feet below the surface, and feed on crabs and small fish.
“I could feel the vibration of this entire shark gnawing into my skin,” he said. “You could feel the whole body shaking as it's digging into my torso.” The burning sensation of the bite is hard to forget. “The bite mark's like a jellyfish sting that just keeps penetrating deeper and deeper into the bone,” Robles said.
Great white sharks, along with bull sharks and tiger sharks, account for the most bites on humans, researchers said in a press release Wednesday. They are the world's largest predatory fish, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and are known to rip chunks out of their prey, which are swallowed whole.
Unlike humans, all sharks are born with teeth. They grow in conveyor-belt rows, with the biggest teeth facing outwards. Over time, the smaller teeth in the back move up, replacing the front ones. Most sharks have between 5-15 rows, and the whale shark has a whopping 3,000 teeth in its mouth!
Death will follow between four and six minutes after that. Without oxygen, most large shark species will suffer a very similar fate. Hypoxia will rapidly cause brain damage, so while an oxygen-deprived shark may appear to be still alive, it will likely rapidly suffer irreversible damage in just a few minutes.
Millions of sharks impacted by hook-and-line fisheries
Embedded hooks can restrict eating abilities and may cause internal damage to organs, poisoning or infection. According to the study, many tiger sharks are accidentally hooked by long line fisheries targeting tuna and swordfish.
Sharks and people
"Sharks don't target human beings, and they certainly don't hold grudges.”
So, while most sharks will be 100% fine if they stop swimming, a few iconic species such as great white sharks, whale sharks, hammerheads and mako sharks would suffocate without forward motion or a strong current flowing towards their mouths.
Pups are usually between 1.0-1.5m in length and are born with teeth already grown.
Make Eye Contact
Winram recommends keeping eye contact with the shark at all times. “Once we make eye contact, the shark knows we have seen them and therefore taken their advantage away. This generally gives us the advantage and keeps them from slipping into an instinctual mode.”
These types of attack usually involve divers or swimmers in somewhat deeper waters, but occur in nearshore shallows in some areas of the world. “Bump and bite” attacks are characterized by the shark initially circling and often bumping the victim prior to the actual attack.