Shark assaults returned to near-average ranges in 2025 after a dip the earlier yr, in accordance to the newest report from the Florida Museum of Pure Historical past’s Worldwide Shark Assault File, printed Wednesday.
Researchers recorded 65 unprovoked shark bites worldwide final yr, barely under the 10-year common of 72, however a rise from 2024. 9 of these bites had been deadly, greater than the 10-year common of six fatalities.
The US as soon as once more had the highest variety of reported incidents, accounting for 38% of world unprovoked bites when assessed on a nation by nation foundation. That mentioned, it’s truly a decline from current years, together with 2024, when greater than half of all reported bites worldwide occurred off the U.S. coast.
In 2025, Florida led all states with 11 recorded assaults. California, Hawaii, Texas and North Carolina accounted for the remaining U.S. incidents.
However California stood out in one other approach: It had the nation’s solely unprovoked deadly shark assault in 2025.
A 55-year-old triathlete was attacked by a white shark after coming into the water off the coast of Monterey Bay with members of the open-ocean swimming membership she co-founded. It was the sole U.S. fatality amongst 25 reported shark bites nationwide.
It’s not stunning that the sole U.S. shark-related dying occurred in California, mentioned Steve Halfway, an affiliate professor of fisheries at Louisiana State College. “In California, you have a tendency to have year-to-year fewer assaults than different locations in the U.S. and in the world,” Halfway mentioned. “However you have a tendency to have extra severe assaults, a greater proportion of deadly assaults.”
The distinction lies in species and geography, Halfway mentioned. Alongside the East Coast, significantly in Florida, many bites contain smaller coastal sharks in shallow water, that are extra seemingly to outcome in nonfatal accidents. California’s deeper and colder waters are residence to bigger species, akin to the nice white shark.
“Nice whites simply occur to be bigger,” Halfway mentioned. “You’re much less seemingly to be attacked, however in case you are, the outcomes have a tendency to be worse.”
Whether or not measured over 10, 20 or 30 years, common annual shark chew totals globally are literally very secure.
“The worldwide patterns change solely barely from one yr to the different,” mentioned Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Analysis.
These annual fluctuations are influenced by a mixture of shark biology, ocean situations and the variety of folks in the water at any given time in any given place, researchers say.
At the identical time, world shark populations stay far under historic ranges. Naylor categorizes about 30% of shark species as endangered, largely due to overfishing. In some international locations, together with the United States and Australia, stronger protections have allowed sure shark populations to get better.
Nonetheless, the threat of being bitten by a shark stays extraordinarily low. The report notes that drowning is a way more widespread explanation for dying worldwide — and, if it helps you sleep (or swim), the information present that you’re more likely to be killed by lightning than you’re by a shark.
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