Australia, seven fatal shark attacks: Not much happened in 80 years

2020 will be remembered as a damned year in Australia: seven deaths from shark attacks. No such large number of people have been recorded since 1934. The body of the seventh victim has not been found. He was a lost surfer in early October in western Australian waters. They searched for him for days with drones and boats, but only his skateboard remained. The same tragedy that Ghattas suffered in January.

Australia, white shark kills a surfer: it hasn’t happened in 60 years. The footprint is on the table

New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia. There is no Australian coast that does not have a victim to register. Data displaces scientists. For the past fifty years and more, there has been an average of one fatal attack per year. 2019 did not record any casualties, the attacks yes, but they are not fatal. We have to go back to 1934 to count seven deaths, nine in 1929.

There are several explanations for this boom, likely pointing to climate change. Oceans are heating up and destroying entire ecosystems, so they are forced to adapt. Sharks follow their prey and get closer and closer to coasts. The southeast is the hardest hit, with temperatures four times higher than average. Half of the Great Barrier Reef died, as did many mangrove forests. “Only these two ecosystems – he says CNN Coulom Brown, Lecturer at Macquarie University, Sydney’s Department of Biological Sciences – responsible for the tremendous diversity of marine ecosystems. So you see huge ecosystems disappearing or moving. “

“I spend a lot of time on a boat off the coast – Brown continues – and this year I don’t remember seeing a lot of bait groups near the coast. There is no doubt that sharks are following them.” However, Brown is keen to stress that these are hypotheses under study, and he may have been an unlucky year as well.