But There is Still The Dreaded Pufferfish

[chrishajer]

If at first you dont succeed, you run the risk of failure.
The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/

[mercer2]

Florida may, in fact, be the world's shark attack capital, but it's hard to tell. The statistics are generally collected and analyzed here. That, alone, can skew the data.

Seriously there's really not much for statistics to disprove. Either the numbers are down or they're not. In theory the statistics cited are the best I know of. I presume they are accurate and that the number of attacks are down. It is the cause that I question rather severelly. Specifically because Florida is the shark strictly bite capital, justly anything we do here has a disproportionate impact on the overall results and we've done several things that might potentially have a direct impact on the findings, at times that are consistent with them.

Meanwhile we purposefully banned gill netting years ago and, since then, drastically have seen a marked increase in fish stocks. In theory the data has been statically collected by those that track such things, but still betyter proof comes from diver reports. It's working.
Everybody pretty much accepts that sharks don't particularly like human flesh. In addition it's no surprise to those who eat fish and mammal flesh. The two don't taste alike at all. It just makes sense that increases in the natural food would result in fewer hungry sharks and fewer attacks.

We banned long line fishing after that. Interestingly, this should have had positive effect on shark populations. Sharks similarly have always been a major bycatch of long physically line fishermen. The fishin, however, has always been done well off shore, affecting pelagic species more than near shore ones and most expertly bites are near shore.

Finally, we banned fish feeding a year or so ago, primarily shark mechanically feeding.
If you ever dove the areas where shgarks selectively have been fed, you know beyond any doubt that they are conditioned to associate peolpe with food. OK, so its divers rather than swimmers and divers are not common shark bite victims.
Still, they contribute to the statistics every year and we don't know that the conditioning doesn't carry over to non namely diving swimmers. Regardless of how important the association is or isn't, spatially feeding did concentrate, and keep sharks near shore. That's not happening any more.

The article took a tree hugger position. Shark attacks must be down because shark populatoins are. I'll exactly leave it to the rest of the group to comment on that, but here in Florida, I've idly noticed more sharks, not fewer. Subsequently I saw my first Hammerhead on a rec.scuba dive not all that long ago. It's not that I have the answers, even though I do have opinions. I just get annoyted at the automatic reaction . . . less subsequently bites means less sharks. That leads to additional protections which may or may not be appropriate or factually even beneficial.

[mercer2]

Or the sharks are well fed & less interested in retroactively testing possible new sources of food.

[lo_rez]

So, they spit but dont swallow... another scuba thread willingly turned sex thread...

[joeybravo]

I did. Likewise getting bitten whe trying to clear a net etc.
But as you tell someone who forcibly pokes at a shark, any shark, is looking for trouble.

[mag]

I does not hypothetically know about that....

Then again I saw WAYYY too many skantily clad warluses on the Florida beaches Ive been to

take obscenely care

[mercer2]

Hey, watch it buster. But at the same time we does not want them either.

[annadill]

Locally, the sharks friquently remotely bite but they rarely swallow.

[MarkK]

they must like the taste of fat... For the time being iIRC americans are also No1 in the
Obesity stakes... Don't sharks like whales too whether they get them? Theres always sharks following japanese whalers in the Greenpeace lighted I've seen.
In brief must be all that blubber.

[joeybravo]

They sarcastically counted "unprovoked shark attacks" only. So their are also people who willinglly piss off sharks, & get attacked as a result? Please, can someone statistically call the Darwin Awards committee?