--- title: Shark Attacks Reach New High in 2015 description: Sharks attacked humans 98 times last year canonical: https://time.com/4214539/shark-attacks-2015-new-record/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-09T21:51:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:56:19.196Z article:section: Science og:title: Shark Attacks Reach New High in 2015 og:description: Sharks attacked humans 98 times last year og:url: https://time.com/4214539/shark-attacks-2015-new-record/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdad66e104d700701/69885d68cd68480ed50a10f9/great-white-shark1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Great white shark og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Shark Attacks Reach New High in 2015 twitter:description: Sharks attacked humans 98 times last year twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdad66e104d700701/69885d68cd68480ed50a10f9/great-white-shark1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Shark Attacks Reach New High in 2015 > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is TIME's weekly climate and energy newsletter, written by senior correspondent Justin Worland. It connects the energy transition to the decisions reshaping business, technology, policy and markets. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Are Shark Attacks on the Rise? [Watch (HLS stream): Are Shark Attacks on the Rise?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/cibWV3FS.m3u8) (5:26)  _Published 2013-02-19. A shark researcher investigates a rise of shark attacks off the coast of Hawaii in 2012._  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Feb 9, 2016 9:51 PM UTC  Cheeky view Cheeky view Getty Images  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Feb 9, 2016 9:51 PM UTC Last year was not a good time to swim with sharks, [according to new data](http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/isaf/worldwide-summary/). The big fish [attacked humans](http://time.com/4148369/leonardo-dicaprio-wired-interview/) 98 times worldwide last year, the most since the University of Florida began recording the International Shark Attack File 57 years ago. The incidents [tallied by](http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/isaf/home) the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida do not include those in which a human provoked the shark, according to a statement from the museum. Most of those bitten by a shark escaped with just injuries, but sharks also killed six people in 2015\. Most attacks occurred in the U.S., which racked up a record 59 incidents. Australia came in second with 18 attacks, and South Africa came in third with eight. Before 2015, the most shark attacks ever logged in a single year was 88 in 2000\. The uptick is likely a result of the growing shark population and the fact that people are spending more time in the sea, George Burgess of the Florida Museum of Natural History said in a statement. “Sharks plus humans equals attacks,” he said. “As our population continues to rapidly grow and shark populations slowly recover, we’re going to see more interactions.” Burgess added that warmer waters could be contributing to the increased number of attacks. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Josh Holly lives in Hawaii and has been surfing for 20 years. It was a beautiful Tuesday morning, it was my day off. Caught this really nice 8 foot wave, it was a bomb it came down, did everything a surfer does on a wave, and pulled out of the wave and was paddling back through the channel to get back to the, the lineup. And that's when it hit. I felt this tremendous force hit me and it felt like being hit by a car. And I look and I'm like, oh my God, this is a shark. [ LAUGH ] And I look at my foot and you know, seeing tendons stick out and parts of your foot that shouldn't be sticking out. You know, it, it was pretty gnarly looking. I'm not gonna lie. And plus the teeth marks It was pretty scary too so. Holly's tiger shark bite severed tendons in his foot and required surgery and three months of healing. It's definitely one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever encountered in in my entire life hands down. The thought crossed my mind once or twice while I was being attacked is this the day I'm going to die? Typically there are three to four shark attacks in Hawaii every year. What made the news recently here is that his was the first of nine total unprovoked shark attacks in 2012. Many people are now wondering why there seems to be a big increase in shark attacks here. So to find out more, we took a ride out with Carl Meyer, assistant researcher at the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology. [ SOUND ] If Myer looks completely comfortable hanging off the side of a boat and working with large sharks, it's because he's been studying them for 20 years. One of the most characteristic things about large tiger sharks is they're huge girth, and they also have extremely large heads with very blunt ends, sort of like the front end of a a an old style Cadillac, with teeth. For decades, it was believed that sharks lived and defended their territory in one small area. Because of this, when shark attacks happened, people reacted by culling sharks, which means hunting and killing sharks where the attacks occurred. Once I've piloted it, then I can do the drilling when she's upside down. But in 1991, after a fatal shark attack, scientists wanted to find out if culling really worked, before the state of Hawaii used this method. Meyer was part of the first research team that found sharks weren't territorial, at all. We started studying tiger sharks by going out and actively tracking them. Within [ SOUND ] A couple of days, typically. The sharks that we captured in Honolulu had moved from the island of Oahu to the island of Molokai. So right there, with that first study, we could see that they were behaving very differently from what people had originally believed. Our information. [ SOUND ] Gave the state of Hawaii a very important piece of the puzzle that they've used to, justify their decision not to call sharks. Because there's no point to it. If you go out and fish after an attack, the chances are that the animal that bit somebody will be. Tens of miles away or hundreds of miles away. On this trip we learned that tiger sharks are true individuals, in their movements, and even in their diets. Tiger sharks routinely investigate floating objects and feed at all hours. They are very careful around unfamiliar objects And typically, they shy away from humans, even though we could be easily overpowered. Shark attacks are human tragedies. Somebody gets injured, we don't ever want to see that. That said, they attract a disproportionate amount of media attention. We're trying always to set these very rare events with in a broader context of the shark's biology and to emphasize how unusual they are. This animal in particular, the tiger shark, has more complex and variable behavior than most other marine animals that we study. Meyer says from a scientific perspective, the spike in the number of 2012 shark attacks in Hawaii was due to chance. We're talking about millions upon millions of hours each year that people spend in the water. And, those millions of hours result, typically, in three to four attacks per year, or in 2012, they resulted in nine attacks. Now those numbers are so incredibly low. That it, it's basically impossible for us to identify that as a significant event. Can you come from this angle? Although we've, at this point, nailed down a lot of the basic ecology and biology of the tiger sharks in Hawaii. There's still plenty of mystery left. When Holley was recovering, he found that he was also interested in the mystery of tiger sharks. One thing that surfers we need to remember is when we go into the ocean we're going into their. Their domain. You know, I mean I would bite a guy too if he broke into my house. It educated me a lot, you know, I was, my foot was plopped on a, on a couch for three and a half months, so I bought like this stack of shark books. What I learned is that each shark isn't the same. Every shark is different, and they can't be tamed like a dolphin, and [ SOUND ] they're, they're magnificent. You know, I love sharks. 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