Myths about Sharks
Myth: Sharks eat Humans
• Fact: Most sharks do like meat but fish,
squid, seal, porpoise, or whale make a
shark’s perfect meal. Some sharks, like
the giant whale and basking sharks, only
eat tiny plankton. Some sharks can go
days or weeks without eating at all.
Contrary to public perception, sharks
attack less than a hundred people a year
on average. Often the attacks are
accidental and are rarely fatal. In fact,
more people are killed each year by dogs,
lightning, and even falling soda machines
and coconuts than by shark attacks!
Myth: Shark Attacks are
Common
• Fact: In the Us there is only 1
fatal shark attack per year,
whereas humans kill over 100
million sharks per year.
• Fact: a person's chance of getting
attacked by a shark is 1 in 11.5
million, and a person's chance of
getting killed by a shark is 1 in
264.1 million.
Myth: All sharks species
attack humans
• Fact: Of the more then 350 shark
species, about 80 percent are
unable to hurt people or rarely
encounter people.
• the great white, tiger, bull and the
oceanic whitetip, are the only
Species that usually attack.
Shark Safety
• Avoid the water at dawn, dusk, or night,
when sharks tend to feed.
• Avoid areas where sharks generally
locate themselves, such as murky waters
and steep drop-offs.
• Don't swim alone, always be near a group
of people, and if possible, avoid being at
the edge of the group.
• Obey instructions from lifeguards and
other authority.
• It is known that when dolphins are seen,
sharks are usually nearby.
Shark Finning
• Sharks are being driven to the
brink of extinction due to a huge
increase in demand for their fins
over the last 20 years.
• The practice of Shark Finning is an
extremely cruel one, where the
animals are caught, their fins are
cut off and they are thrown back
to sea for a slow, painful death.
Ways to Help Sharks
• don't eat shark fin soup! Talk to your
friends about shark fin soup and remember:
Friends don't let friends eat shark fin soup!
• Don't patronize restaurants that serve the
dish. Very often people are unaware of the
effect that their eating habits have on the
environment.
• If you see any of the typical "man bitten by
shark" news items on TV, contact the TV
station and ask them to produce a news item
about shark finning. Remember - only about
10 people a year are killed by sharks, but 3
sharks are killed every second by humans.
Myth: Sharks are Plentiful
• Fact: Many shark species are
endangered because of pollution,
loss of habitat, and excessive
fishing in their environments.
Furthermore, the loss of sharks
imperils many ocean ecosystems
since sharks play a key role in
culling sick animals and keeping
other populations in check.
Myth: Sharks Need to Keep
moving to breathe
• Fact: All sharks do need water
moving over their gills to breathe,
but some species can pump water
over their gills by opening and
closing their mouths while resting.
Myth: All sharks can smell
Blood from Miles away
• Fact: Some sharks do have a highly
developed sense of smell, which
helps them hunt in the dark and
detect their prey. Other sharks
don’t depend on their sense of
smell for foraging. All Sharks
use the Ampullae of Lorenzini
nodes on their noses to detect the
electromagnetic fields that all
living things produce.
Myth: Sharks Have poor vision
• Fact: Sharks' eyes, which are
equipped to distinguish colors,
employ a lens up to seven times as
powerful as a human's, and some
shark species can detect a light
that is as much as ten times
dimmer than the dimmest light the
average person can see.
A diver with a huge, Docile Whale Shark
ampullae of lorenzini on a shark’s snout
Cut out images on two previous pages, and
display next to matching info sheets
Created and Designed by
Bonnie Sizer
Bonnie.sizer@gmail.com
Resident Assistant
Colorado State University
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