Sunday, November 29, 2009

Sharks

Just watched Jaws, a cult film released in 1975, by Stevn spielberg. This movie
is about a Shark that terrorizes a fictional island by eating up people at its
shores and how it's killed by some brave men. A wonderful piece of cinema.

But reading about it I came across some interesting stuff. Number one, that
Sharks are not as aggressive towards humans as depicted in the movie or
the novel on which it's based. In fact the author of the novel was himself
quoted as saying, in year 2000 :

"considering the knowledge accumulated about sharks in the last 25 years, I couldn't possibly write Jaws today ... not in good conscience anyway. Back then, it was generally accepted that great whites were anthrophagous (they ate people) by choice. Now we know that almost every attack on a human is an accident: The shark mistakes the human for its normal prey."

Also, from wikipedia :

In 2006 the International Shark Attack File (ISAF) undertook an investigation into 96 alleged shark attacks, confirming 62 of them as unprovoked attacks and 16 as provoked attacks. The average number of fatalities worldwide per year between 2001 and 2006 from unprovoked shark attacks is 4.3.

Contrary to popular belief, only a few sharks are dangerous to humans. Out of more than 360 species, only four have been involved in a significant number of fatal, unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white, oceanic whitetip, tiger, and bull sharks. These sharks, are large, powerful predators, and may sometimes attack and kill people. Interestingly, they have all been filmed without using a protective cage.

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