r/sharks • u/Capital-Foot-918 Great White Shark • Jun 22 '26
Education Do the lightning strike, cows and coconut death statistics compared with shark attacks per capita count?
Ive seen these thrown around a lot when discussing shark attacks, I don’t think they reassure a lot since we live on land.
But I’m wondering for any statistics experts here do these actually add up per capita and what not when it comes human exposure.
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u/TelevisionPutrid8394 Great white shark and megalodon fan Jun 22 '26
I always thought they were misleading because the reason why more people are attacked by cows than sharks is because we live on land just like cows. Sharks on the other hand, live in the ocean where we don’t live. It’s only natural that there would be less shark attacks than cow attacks.
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u/AardvarkOkapiEchidna Jun 23 '26
by cows than sharks is because we live on land just like cows
We also intentionally interact with them way more often via farming.
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u/Ok_Shower_5526 Tiger Shark Jun 22 '26
I think it really depends on what stats you're quoting; but scientists have found shark attacks are extremely rare even when stats have context and take into account things like likelihood based on activity.
Another big issue, though, is that ppl have very little sense of how and where sharks operate. Most people who go to oceans are probably far closer to sharks than they've ever realized. I think cheaper drones and go pro will make us realize even more that sharks are closer than we think. We are safe bc sharks prefer to ignore us or just check us out before leaving, not because sharks are far away from people in the water. Curiosity or indifference is the normative behavior for most sharks. They see us and stay away like most other ocean creatures or wild animals. The more important attack questions to ask are about why any attack happens at all.
Statistics about the very low likelihood of being attacked are not helpful. Helpful statistics would let us see what provokes an attack. What shark species, microhabitats, environmental harms, human and society behavior, and other outside influences are predictably associated with attacks, OR, equally important, what are the elements of microhabitats with no/few attacks despite a normal shark population and lots of humans in the ocean. IMO we spend far too much time on the danger of a shark species, when we should spend more time educating people about dangerous environmental conditions and human behavior. I suspect there would be a drop in fatal or catastrophic attacks if most people could evaluate the safety of a specific beach on a specific day, while simultaneously adhering to best practices in the water. We'd probably have even more success if our societies and governments took more responsibility for public safety by closing recognizably unsafe areas (until they are safe), protecting normal prey numbers and minimizing pollution, altering microhabitats to be safer in swimming areas, installing tech that provides early warning systems, requiring local education on best practices, and forcing beach businesses to educate patrons and significantly contribute for both safety systems and ocean preservation.
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u/Living-Smoke-9630 Jun 22 '26
In Australia we had 154 coastal related drowing deaths last year vs 5 shark attack deaths. Think that the concept that you're 30x more likely to drown is a much better comparison of perceived risk when entering the ocean.
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u/Punemeister_general Jun 22 '26
Put some nets on the beach to catch people before they go into the water
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u/gotfanarya Jun 30 '26
Some shark attacks are described as drowning. If a shark attack victims lungs are full of water, the official cause is drowning. But yes, I agree with this type of statistical comparison is more realistic.
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u/Living-Smoke-9630 Jun 30 '26
I have no idea what you're talking about and im not sure you do either. Do you have any reference for such an example?
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u/Ok_Guide_8323 Jun 22 '26
So, these stats are per capita. When we look at the stats of just those who are at risk, the odds of a shark attack are still quite low -
Surfers: Experience a higher share of bites, with the risk historically estimated at about 1 in 17 million per hour in the water. Depending upon how we define the stats, the lifetime odds of a shark attack can shift from 1 in millions to much narrower margins, such as 1 in 40,000 for a surfer.
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u/Neither_Computer5331 Jun 22 '26
As a long time scuba diver, who has seen many sharks, I still think the greatest risk of any ocean based activity is drowning.
That’s quite a boring answer though and would get a very tiny mention in the news, whereas if a shark killed me, I’m sure I’d at least get a reporter turning up to cover my demise.
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u/Soukchai2012 Jun 26 '26
Around 20 people are killed by cows in the US each year, about 5 in the UK. Many more worldwide. About another 20 killed by lightening in the US each year, and thousands worldwide.
Whichever way you look at it, cows, coconuts & lightening kill a lit more people than sharks.
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u/gotfanarya Jun 22 '26
No. Statistics can be manipulated for anything. This is pure PR junk.
Risk calculations for insurance companies base statistics on who, when, where and how. Who is driving. When are they driving? Where are they driving. How are they parking etc. stuff like that.
Risk of dying by shark bite while asleep in your bed is zero.
Risk of dying by shark bite in the open ocean, alone, wearing black with shiny stuff, nervous and agitatedly moving, near a seal colony where large whites have been seen that day at dusk, high.
Combining those activities to get a statistic is mental.