The word “attack” is usually a misnomer when it comes to sharks and people.
They are really just encounters. In most cases, the shark bites and lets go. And usually disappears. It is rare when they attempt another bite. The reason for this is the shark isn’t actually trying to eat the person. Usually it’s not even aggressive. It is investigating the person. Trying to figure out what the person is. Sharks investigate unusual objects by mouthing them. They get a sense of what an object is through taste. The shark tastes a person, the person doesn’t taste like food, so the shark moves on. Unfortunately, even a gentle shark bite can be catastrophic to a person but think about how the vast majority of people survive ‘attacks’.
If the shark really wanted to eat the person, the person would be eaten and there’s little the person could do to prevent it. The fact that so many people survive these encounters is proof in and of itself that sharks typically aren’t interested in eating them.
Calling these encounters “attacks” contributes to the false but widespread perception that sharks are simply savage killing machines. That perception is an obstacle in the race to protect them from extinction and they are being slaughtered at a rate of 75 – 100 million per year.
