from another forum...
Watched an interesting doco this morning called Shark Attack Experiment where a team of 3 females free-dive with 5 of the world's most dangerous shark species to see what type of triggers attract the sharks to target people. The sharks they were diving with were Black Tips, Great Whites, Bull Sharks, 7 Gills, and the Ragged-Tooth.
They tested things like swimming in the usual colourful beach attire, splashing while swimming, rapid movements on a surfboard, colours, making noise, wearing bling, releasing urine, etc.
Their findings were:
Avoidable shark attracting triggers:
Splashing (eg. Swimming)
Rapid Movement (eg. Surfing)
Yellow (Greatest contrast with blue water)
Noise (One of the Shark's greatest senses is hearing)
Shiny objects (eg. Bling reflects like fish scales)
Dawn/dusk
Non-avoidable shark attracting triggers:
Shark's sixth sense
Busted myths:
Beach attire
Urine scent
The show also had some other interesting info/stats:
More than 375 shark species have been identified but only 12 are considered dangerous to humans.
The three most responsible for attacks on humans are the Great White, Tiger and Bull sharks.
A recent study suggests sharks are colour blind but see contrast very well.
You have a 1 in 63 chance of dying from the flu, a 1 in 218 chance of dying from a fall, and a 1 in 3.7 million chance of being killed by a shark.
For every human killed by a shark, humans kill two million sharks.
New Smyrna Beach, Florida is the shark attack capital of the world.
In 1996, Toilets injured 43,000 Americans, Room fresheners injured 2,600 Americans, Sharks injured 13.
Their summary of their own professional experiences: No matter how long you've been working with sharks, no matter what you know about sharks, no matter what you feel about sharks, they're unpredictable. Treat them with respect.
Great little doco.