It’s Shark Season in Australia… 2 Attacks in One Day!
It’s 2-for-1 shark attacks off eastern Australia today.
Linda Whitehurst, 52, was paddling her kayak near the eastern resort town of Byron Bay, when an 8 ft Great White shark lunged at her, knocking her into the water. She punched the shark with her paddle ’til it finally swam away, but not before leaving her with a small bite wound requiring some stitches.
They closed the beach for a few hours until they located the shark and chased it out to sea. (It’ll be back).
Meanwhile, earlier Monday, a 31-year-old man was attacked by a bronze whaler shark while spear-fishing near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in northeastern Queensland state.
The man, who was not identified, was treated onboard his charter boat for a deep cut to his calf muscle before being airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in the northern city of Cairns.
[source]
Killers of the sea.
Here’s a question for my favorite bearer of bad news and shark officinado (sp??): Everyone states these statistics that makes it sound like I might actually win the lottery before getting a shark bite, but what are the stats for number of people in the water vs number of people bitten??? Yes, the numbers of shark attacks might be slim when you consider all the landlubbers who never go near the ocean, but do the stats take into consideration number of bathers or just people in general?
What you are looking for Kathie is a “relative risk” assessment.
This is from a survey taken of California and Oregon Beaches in 2000, and only takes into account beach attendance…no landlubbers.
Here:
Drowning and other beach-related fatalites 1 in 2 million
Drowning fatalites 1 in 3.5 million
Shark attacks 1 in 11.5 million
Shark attack fatalites 0 in 264.1 million
sharky, thanks, that’s great information–exactly what I was looking for!
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