So, What is the Truth About Sharks Attacks in Hawaii?

Oct 30, 2017 | General Information

If you are concerned about sharks in Hawaii, you have good precedent to be concerned. Over the past couple of centuries of history regarding shark attacks there has been plenty of evidence confirming attacks have taken place and people have lost their lives. Although the statistics regarding shark attacks show that you are more likely to be killed by a bee sting, by jay-walking or by falling from a high place, it seems to make no difference in the psyche of the visitor to Hawaii because the vision of such a brutal and debilitating attack seems to be so horrifying that it cannot be rationally usurped from the folds of the brain simply because the notion of the event is so terrifying.

To make matters worse, a case can be made that the number of shark attacks in Hawaii has actually increased in recent years. This undeniable fact may however be attributed to a number of criteria, leading among them that there are simply more people entering the water the sharks inhabit as their full time residence. If you have a belief that there is a natural order to things and that every species has a purpose than perhaps you might agree that the shark has a purpose in the ocean environment without which the balance of nature underwater would become unbalanced. These natural predators are essentially the scavengers of the oceans. If a whale dies in the depths it is the shark population that disposes of its remains. The same is true of any decaying body mass. The sharks clean the pool and in the process also take the lives of living organisms that inhabit the sea such a turtles and seals and occasionally they may take a bite of a human found within its ocean kingdom. Humans however aren’t a part of a sharks natural and continuous diet because if they were the sharks would die of starvation. Because people appear occasionally in the ocean ecosystem however sharks will ceremoniously take a bite in many cases probably just because they are unfamiliar with this curious life form and want to test it out. This is likely why there are so many occasions when a shark has bitten a human one time and then retreated in search of a better meal not continuing to finish its present one. The unfortunate thing about a shark bite is that it is often unforgiving in its magnitude and hence a nibble in this case can be overwhelmingly debilitating to the person being nibbled.

So what do you do? Not enter the water? That’s an understandable position. If you are a person who rationally deals with the odds you might also choose to take the position to enter the water but do so in a way that increases your odds tremendously in favor of not coming in contact with a shark. For those choosing that tact here are some reasonable guidelines: Don’t swim at dusk or at dawn and don’t swim in the hours of darkness. Don’t swim near river mouths where organic material could be flushing from the island into the sea. Don’t attract sharks by wearing colorful bathing attire or by wearing sparkling jewelry. Swim in groups and not alone. If God forbid you ever are attacked fight with every ounce of energy you have and don’t play dead. Punch their eyes, their gills and show aggression in any way you can.

You and I and everyone who enters the ocean shares the same fears and trepidation’s regarding sharks. It is up to each of us to deal with them in our own way. Be clear about your decision to enjoy the magnificent waters surrounding the islands of Hawaii, and be careful jay-walking.