50 Shark Against Man 



Most (70.2 per cent) occurred within five feet of the surface; 24.9 

 per cent of the victims were in water more than knee-deep and no more 

 than shoulder-deep when attacked. 



Most persons (63.3 per cent) were swimming or floating on the 

 surface when attacked; 20.8 per cent had been wading; 19 per cent had 

 been spear-fishing or carrying fish; 10.3 per cent had been standing close 

 to where fish were being caught, or near swimming fish, just prior to the 

 attack. 



While 38.2 per cent of the attacks occurred while persons were alone 

 in the water, 24.8 per cent had companions less than 10 feet away; 15.8 per 

 cent were 10 feet or more from companions; 21.2 per cent were within 

 a few feet of one other person. 



Most attacks (94.3 per cent) occurred during daylight hours. 



The fact that 5.7 per cent of the attacks occurred at night does not 

 mean that a romantic moonlight swim is safer than a daylight dip. Ac- 

 tually, the statistics tend to show a quite opposite picture when they are 

 "interpreted. Most people swim during the daytime. Certainly, the number 

 of nighttime swimmers is far less than 5 per cent of the number of day- 

 light swimmers. Thus, proportionately, more nighttime swimmers are 

 attacked than daylight swimmers. Nighttime is feeding time for many 

 species of shark. In the tropics, knowledgeable natives usually will not 

 enter the water at night, though they may swim unconcernedly during 

 the day, even when sharks are present. In Cuba, fishermen catch Tiburon 

 de Noche, the Night shark (Hypoprion signatus), in relatively shallow- 

 depths, only after the sun has gone down. In the Caribbean, the Tiger 

 shark is said to appear rarely near the surface during the daytime. The 

 nocturnal feeding pattern begins when, in darkness, plankton rises. Small 

 fish rise to feed upon the plankton. Bigger fish follow the small fish up— 

 and last in the eat-and-be-eaten line comes the hungering shark. 



"Weather and other physical factors do not appear to be especially 

 significant in triggering shark attacks," says Dr. Schultz, author of the 

 SRP shark-attack report. "For example, the number of attacks when the 

 sky is clear and the number when the sky is cloudy are about equal. 



"We have no evidence that a peculiar color of clothes or shade of 

 skin is an important factor in stimulating sharks to attack. Bright, shiny 

 objects, or contrasting light and dark objects, do attract the attention 

 of sharks. However, our data are too scanty and unreliable at present 

 to suggest significant conclusions about physical factors." 



Consider the question of color preference, for instance. Given a choice 

 between a light-colored lure and a dark-colored one, a shark seems 

 more attracted to the light one. Captain Young has stated that sharks 

 apparently are lured more by the carcass of a white horse rather than 

 that of a dark one. Dark-skinned native divers in tropical waters cover up 



