This Central Florida county has the most reported shark bites in the world
Volusia saw 8 bites in 2020 alone
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VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – It seems Volusia County won’t be giving up its title as the unofficial shark bite capital of the world any time soon.
The Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File recently published its summary of shark bites for 2020 and once again, Florida topped the list.
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There were 129 reported attacks worldwide last year, 33 of which occurred in the U.S., which has more bites than any other country. Australia comes in at second with 18. Other than those two, no other country had more than one incident.
| UPDATED: 11:23, Mon, Jan 25, 2021
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Duncan Craw, a father and husband, went missing off the South Australian coast last week. Search teams uncovered a damaged wetsuit and flippers on Friday morning, suggesting a shark was involved, according to reports.
Shark bites appear lower worldwide in 2020 compared to 2019, but researchers don t know whether COVID, climate change, coincidence or something else were factors.
They do know the coronavirus pandemic made it more difficult to get information from hospitals, so while they think their numbers are correct, they couldn t get enough background information to know all the circumstances around the incidents.
There were 129 shark interactions reported in 2020 compared to 140 in 2019. Of those, researchers classified 57 as unprovoked, compared to 64 in 2019, which was fewer than the five-year average of 80 from 2015-19.
Researchers investigations classified the rest as:
39: Provoked
3: Doubtful
1: During scavenging After the pandemic hit in March, people started speculating that since everyone will be on lockdown and not going into the water as much, that should lead to fewer shark bites, ISAF researcher Gavin Naylor told TCPalm Friday. The numbers were a little down by
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In the U.S., there were 3 deaths: one each in California, Hawaii and Maine, which was a first for the state.
While deaths were up last year, the number of non-fatal attacks around the world was low in 2020, at 57.
The odds of being killed by a shark in the U.S. are 3,748,067 to 1.
In what s called an unusually deadly year, sharks killed 10 people around the world in unprovoked attacks in 2020, the highest number since 2013, according to a report released Monday by the International Shark Attack File.
Six of the deaths were in Australian waters and three were in the USA: one each in California, Hawaii and Maine, which was a first for the state. The other death was in St. Martin s, a Caribbean island.
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