​We Asked an Expert if Shark Attacks Are Really Getting Worse Because of Climate Change

Are more of these guys going to be feeding on humans now that the world is getting hotter? Photo via YouTube

Every summer, our collective obsession with sharks fucking humans up rears its ugly head. Ever since Jaws dah-domped its way into our collective unconscious, society has gone into a mass freakout over "man-eating" sharks, which manifests in sensational reports of reports about vicious attacks, huge bite marks, and washed-up bodies in our televisions and news feeds. Recently, researchers suggested that climate change—with its ability to push people to cool off at the beach—is actually causing an increase in shark attacks in the United States, although the data can't say that definitively.

To get a better idea if this shark shit is still just media hype, we asked James Sulikowski, professor at University of New England and expert on sharks, if the ocean's top predator is really something we need to worry about.

VICE: I'll start off by asking the obvious: are sharks a real threat to humans?James Sulikowski: Sharks pose no immediate threat to human beings whatsoever. I could go on and on and on—there's tons of different statistics to point to that, but it's so relative. We see sharks as a threat because they're overreported on, not , there are some that are over-fished, but the fact of the matter is that they do play a very important role in the ecosystem. When you take away that top predator, things get out of balance. You get a lot of cute and cuddly seals, which are ferocious predators and can really screw up the ecosystem.

Sharks kind of sound like the spiders of the ocean—we hate them out of a phobia, but they're actually pretty useful.
Absolutely. Really, sharks are lazy—they eat dead and dying animals so that the ecosystem can get stronger. I don't think people really realize that, they just see them as these people-killers.

What's the best way to interact with a shark that swims up beside you?Realistically, just be aware of your surroundings. Stay out of the water at dawn and dusk, don't wear a lot of shiny things, don't hang around people who are fishing. If you cut those kind of things out, you're really going to limit your interactions with sharks. If one shows up, just calmly begin to head toward shore and get out of the water. Almost every time, nothing's going to happen. If you get bit by a shark, my advice to you is go buy a lottery ticket, because your chances are pretty much equal.

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