Shark Problems (from a human’s viewpoint) 177
How likely are shark attacks?
Being attacked by a shark is highly unlikely. Unpleasant, but still un-
likely. When you consider the millions of people who swim, work, and play
in waters frequented by dangerous sharks, the number of attacks is minus-
cule. You are much more likely to win the lottery than be attacked, and
your chances of winning the lottery are one in several million. (Actually,
your chance of a $1 million payout in Powerball is 1 in more than 5 mil-
lion; see http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_prizes.asp.)) Your odds of being
attacked are 1 in 11 million, and of dying, less than 1 in 264 million. Put in
another context, half the U.S. population, about 167 million people, lives
in coastal counties. That’s about one-half death per year for the entire U.S.
coastline. Pretty good odds.
Many other activities are considerably more dangerous than swimming
around sharks. In the United States alone, three dozen or so people are at-
tacked by sharks annually, with maybe one death. In contrast, many more
people die from toaster accidents (17 in the United States in 2007); from
suffocating in collapsing sand holes while playing on the beach; or from
stabbing and trampling injuries from deer, jellyfish stings, roller coaster
accidents, and ant bites and stings. Alligator attacks are two to three times
more likely to be fatal. Almost four times as many people are killed by
falling vending machines as by sharks, but these may again be provoked
attacks: most such tip-over incidents involve people who are enraged by
jammed candy bars or who try to shake a freebie out of the machine. Rock-
ing a 500-pound vending machine back and forth to get a free bag of Chee-
tos may qualify you for a Darwin Award (see http://www.DarwinAwards.com)..)
Going for a swim at the beach is comparatively safe and sane.
A Pacific Electric Ray, an animal
suspected of causing drownings of
divers who bump into it accidentally
at night and receive a debilitating
shock. Photo by Daniel Gotshall, Wikime-
dia Commons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
File:Torpedoray_ 300 .jpg