Man-eating sharks are nine times more likely to eat men than women, a study has revealed.
Professor Daryl McPhee of Queensland’s Bond University who conducted a study of shark attacks over three decades said while he was not expecting it to show such a heavy bias toward male victims in shark attacks, but that the results could be explained by men being men.
“There’s probably more man hours in the water, so to speak, than women hours globally,” he said.
“Also it may be tied up to males being more risk-prone than females.”
The study revealed that men were the victims in 84 per cent of non-fatal shark attacks and 89 per cent of all fatal attacks.
Advertisement
It also suggested that Australia was the most dangerous place in the world for attacks on swimmers, with 32 killed in the 30 years to 2011.
South Africa was next with 28 fatalities, followed by the United States where 25 have died. However the United State has many more non-fatal shark attacks than Australia.
Because so many Americans survived shark attacks did not mean they were tougher, luckier or faster swimmers than Australians.
“The United States has a lot of sharks but a lot are small sharks. That’s probably the main reason,” said Professor McPhee.
He said more emphasis needed to be placed on educating people about shark attacks and the need for personal responsibility in regions where sharks could be expected in order to reduce shark attacks.