I have lived in Florida for over 30 years and I am familiar with its beaches from Key West to Jacksonville on the east coast, and from the Panama City down to Naples on the west coast. I am also familiar with which Florida beaches have produced the greatest amounts of unprovoked shark attacks. I have seen a shark come up to knee deep water at Cocoa Beach, and will tell you that if you rent a small single engine air plane and fly up and down the beaches of Volusia and Brevard counties on a summer’s day, you will probably see the silhouettes of about a dozen sharks fairly close to the shoreline.
Now don’t get me wrong, unprovoked shark attacks in Florida waters are not terribly common, and only 1 in 40 results in a fatality. Still, they happen, and in some beaches they happen more often than others. Out of all the counties in Florida, the beaches in Volusia and Brevard have had the most attacks. These beaches include Daytona Beach, Cocoa Beach and Melbourne. Over the last 100 years more than half of the shark attacks in Florida have taken place along this stretch of coast.
Most of the attacks in Florida waters come from Bull Sharks, Hammer Heads and Black Tip sharks. Though these sharks are not the size of the Great White sharks we have all seen in the movies, they are still fairly large and aggressive sharks. For example, the largest (by weight) Hammerhead ever caught was caught in Florida waters, and it weighed 1280 lbs! I’ve had smaller versions of this species rip a fish or two from my fishing line down near the beaches in Miami.
You might also be interested in knowing that shark attacks in Florida happen most often in the afternoon, though common sense might have told you that close to 90% of these attacks also happen in the spring and summer months. Though part of the reason that attacks happen more frequently during these months have less to do with people using the beaches than of sharks coming into shallow water to give birth. Add to that the fact that some sharks hang around to feed on the young shark pups that are born, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Okay, so what are some of the safer beaches in Florida? Well, the beaches along Panama City, which have taken over as a haven for Spring Breakers have had very few attacks. Add to them the beaches around Sarasota and those of Fort Myers and Sanibel Island. The beaches around Palm Beach on the other hand rate third in number of attacks when compiled by county.
If you do vacation at a beach that has had a high rate of attacks in recent years, use some basic safety practices. Some tips are fairly simple and easy to remember, like don’t swim with shinny jewelry, avoid jumping into murky water, and don’t go swimming with your dog, they tend to splash around and attract sharks. Then there are some more obvious ones, like don’t fish in waste high waters with the fish you caught attached to a line around your waste. You would be surprised as to how many people break that common sense rule. So whenever you are swimming in a Florida beach, don’t become one more shark attack statistic, exercise some common sense and keep safe.
