IS GLOBAL WARMING RESPONSIBLE FOR MORE SHARK ATTACKS?

The Australian AFP actually reports there is a correlation.  Even the Climate Information (Responding to User Needs) of the University of Maryland has hinted so.  But, then again, virtually anything anomalous gets associated with global warming.  

But what about Hawaii, with so many bites this summer?  Depends on the source, but the number this year is actually less than last year, so far.  In 2008 there were only two.  The last  local fatal shark attack was in 2004, but one of recent victims is on life support.

From the London Sealife Aquarium:

• Sharks kill around 20 humans per year.  But:
• toasters and chairs are each responsible for 600-770 deaths/year
• falling coconuts claim 150 lives yearly
• wasps kill 100 of us each year
• About a thousand of us drown/year.
• Sharks have been around for 400 million years.  Humans?  Perhaps 100,000 years.

The three most dangerous sharks are:

• Great White:  
• a grand total of 403 confirmed attacks from 1580-2010 (yes, more than four hundred years, or about one per year), with 65 being fatal
• usually 10-15 feet long and can weigh up to 4,200 pounds
• Tiger (to the right, the young have stripes):

• in that same timeframe, 157 attacks, with 63 deaths
• up to 18 feet long and 2,000 pounds
• Bull:  
• 59 attacks, 25 fatal
• can be 11.5 feet long and up to 500 pounds
• found in 100 feet depth or less

Click on the International Shark Attack File for all shark attacks from 1580 to 2012.  Thirty-five different types of sharks are listed.

But how many sharks do we kill each year?  First of all, commercial fishermen are not very honest about their catches.  The more and more banned shark fin soup remains a delicacy.  This HuffPo article says that sharks kill 12 of us/year.  The Marine Policy journal estimates 100 million sharks killed by us/year.  The actual number falls somewhere between 63 million and 272 million.  Not sure if Google will allow me this much space, and sorry, but here is a comparative graphic on humans killed by sharks PER YEAR and humans killing sharks PER HOUR:

Even if you try, you won't be able to read the details, for the first line of 12 humans compared to all the dead sharks is so miniscule.  To be more accurate, the shark deaths should be multiplied by 365 for a year to year comparison.

Egregiously, it does get worse.  In the USA we consume 7 billion chickens annually.  But we are only 5% of the world, so something closer to 50 billion (if divided by 5%, the total might well be 140 billion) worldwide could be accurate enough.  The number of chicken eggs produced could well approach a trillion.  Mexicans average close to an egg a day.  In April someone from Vietnam died from the bird flu, the first such death in a year.

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There is a cluster of ocean storms south and west of Hawaii.  The most powerful, Typhoon Pewa, is projected to attain Category 3 status, but all of them are moving away from this State.

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