How dangerous are the waters of Brevard and Volusia?

Cameron Robbins fell from a sunset cruise in the Bahamas and met a horrific end.

He reportedly took the dare during a high school graduation trip. Classmates watched as the teenager from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, briefly tread water and then disappeared into the darkness. A video viewed by millions showed his tragic final seconds and what appeared to be the flash of a large shark moments before.

Such tragedies are inevitable, but the risk is extremely small: the odds of dying in a shark attack are 1 in 4.3 million. It is far more likely that you will die from a lightning strike, a falling vending machine, a car crash on the way to the beach, or simply drowning. Despite the annual shark hype that surrounds Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” and the infamous “Summer of the Shark” in 2001, the shark bites this year and last year are statistically not unusual.

Tell that to the three people injured in consecutive shark attacks off Florida’s Gulf Coast on Friday, June 7. Two of the victims – an adult woman and a minor girl – were taken to the hospital by helicopter. One of the victims lost half of her arm.

According to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office:

A 45-year-old woman lost her left forearm in the first attack shortly before 1:15 p.m. in Watersound, about 15 miles up the Gulf Coast from Panama City Beach.
Two people were injured in the second incident, on Inlet Beach between South Walton and Bay County. The victims, ages 15 to 17, were in waist-deep water about four miles from the first attack.
Fifteen-year-old Lulu Gribbin had to have her right leg amputated mid-thigh and is missing her hand after the shark bit her, her mother told media after the attack.
According to trackingsharks.com, these incidents are the first shark bites in Florida in 2024.

Just weeks after these attacks, on June 23, legendary professional surfer, Hollywood actor and Honolulu Ocean Safety lifeguard Tamayo Perry, 49, died from multiple shark bites while surfing during a break from his lifeguard duties. Perry’s on-camera appearances included the Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise, Blue Swarm and the CBS series Hawaii Five-0.

Five days after the attack in Honolulu, on June 28, Nassau County authorities reported that a man in his 40s was seriously injured in a shark incident while boating near Fernandina Beach. The victim, whose identity has not been released, was hospitalized in critical condition after his right arm was severely bitten, Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper told the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union. The man was flown by helicopter to a local hospital, where he is expected to recover.

Then on Independence Day, two people were bitten by a shark on South Padre Island, a popular tourist destination on the southeast coast of Texas. Two other people had encounters with sharks but were not seriously injured, Texas Parks and Wildlife said in a news release.

Volusia and Brevard are by far the riskiest places for shark bites in Florida

Despite attacks in other counties this year, Brevard and Volusia are by far the highest-risk counties for shark attacks or “encounters” in Florida, if not the world.

Brevard has not reported a single storm this year, while Volusia reportedly had four, including one on July 4 and one the following day in New Smyrna Beach.

Most shark bites in Florida are “nip-and-run” attacks by small sharks in the surf that mistake a foot for a fish. And east-central Florida is the perfect storm for more shark bites: More and more people and surfers are in the path of the migratory and resident sharks.

However, the likelihood of being bitten is still extremely low.

According to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File, there have only been 158 confirmed shark attacks in Brevard since 1882. Only one of these was presumed fatal and could never be 100% confirmed: an 8-year-old boy died in 1934 after being bitten by an animal off the coast in the Melbourne Beach area.

Only Volusia County had more shark attacks than Brevard during the same 142-year period – 351 attacks, none of them fatal.

The story continues below the graphic:

According to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File, a scientific database of shark attacks worldwide, there was an increase in unprovoked shark attacks and an increase in deaths in 2023 compared to the previous year.

Provoked attacks occur when people intentionally approach a shark or swim into an area where bait is used to attract fish.

The UF confirmed 69 unprovoked bites in 2023 and 22 provoked bites. There were 10 deaths, including two in the United States, four in Australia and one each in the Bahamas, Egypt, Mexico and New Caledonia. Although the number is higher than the past five-year average of 63 attacks, the data is consistent with long-term trends, UF researchers said.

“This is within the range of normal numbers of bites, although the deaths this year are a bit concerning,” Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s shark research program, said in February when the museum released its shark bite statistics for 2023, the most recent data.

According to the Shark Attack File, shark attacks worldwide are increasing every decade, largely because more people are in the water. However, there is no sign of a change in the per capita attack rate. Globally, 42% of bites have affected surfers, closely followed by swimmers and waders at 39%.

There were 36 unprovoked attacks in the United States, representing 52% of all incidents worldwide. Two of these attacks – one in California and one in Hawaii – resulted in deaths. As usual, Florida had more shark bites than any other state, with 16 attacks.

And the risk of dying in a shark attack is estimated by UF shark researchers to be only 1 in 4.3 million.

To put this into perspective, UF also lists the following risks of dying from other causes:

Lightning: 1 of 79,746
Drowning: 1 in 1,134
Car accident: 1 in 84
Flu: 1 in 63
Hospital infections: 1 in 38

Although the overall risk of being bitten by a shark is extremely low, the rate of shark bites in Florida is by far highest in Volusia, Brevard and Indian River counties. In a 2012 research paper, Raid Amin, a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of West Florida, found that the rate of shark attacks in east-central Florida is nine times higher than in the rest of the state.

Amin analyzed the shark bites using software commonly used to identify geographic cancer and other disease hotspots.

However, there are things you can do – or not do – to reduce a small risk even further, to almost zero. For example, swim in groups, not in the dark, not when there are tons of baitfish jumping around in the water, or near lots of surf anglers.

About one in three shark attacks in Florida occurs in August and September. During these two months, huge schools of mullet, anchovies, herring and sardines move along Brevard County and other beaches in east central Florida. Blacktip, blacknose, spinner and sandbar sharks follow in their hundreds to snatch their meal.

Some speculate that the murkier water near the mouths of the Indian River Lagoon may play a role: that is where the prey is and the murkier water can confuse sharks.

But scientists say sharks are far more afraid of us and at risk from us than we are from them.

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