A new study on sharks may be frightening to people who swim in the Pacific Ocean, but should really be assuring. Researchers studied 26 Southern California beaches with drone cameras to find out how often swimmers and juvenile white sharks shared the same areas of water. Two of those busy beaches, in Santa Barbara County and San Diego County, are shark nurseries, where sharks tend to give birth. At those beaches, sharks and human swimmers overlapped 97% of the time! In almost all incidences, the swimmers were not aware of nearby sharks.
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The reassuring part is that, during the two-year survey, only one swimmer was bitten in all of Southern California, and she wasn’t even sure if it was a shark. That means that sharks just don’t see humans as a food source, and tend to live and let live near the shore. That doesn’t mean sharks won’t ever bite, but those near land tend to limit attacks to defense, like when a surfer or a boat accidentally crashes into one. Read more about the study at Smithsonian. You’ll see some footage and images that may out you on edge.
(Image credit: Ed Garcia)
Source: neatorama