Taking the kids to Florida, whose waters lead the world in shark bites. Should we worry?
In the hope of cutting back the raging hysteria about sharks at the onset of beach season, allow me to express a bit of shark love. Sharks are apex predators. As barometers of our waters’ health, they’re among the most elegant and vulnerable species in the ocean’s grand lattice. The question is: Why Florida? In ecology, it’s care about Miami’s Biscayne Bay, because that shallow, warm lagoon serves as a nursery for bull sharks, which are both euryhaline (able to tolerate fresh and salt water) and aggressive. There’s also a fine hammerhead nursery there. Are we loving this now? I’m loving it! It gets better: Thousands of blacktip sharks migrate annually between the Chesapeake Bay and South Florida. Like bull sharks, blacktips seek warm water and chase the tons of bait sluiced in by the Gulf Stream. How cool is that? Sharks try to stay clear: Last year, Florida tallied only twenty-five shark bites for a resident-plus-visitor population of some 146 million. That’s one bite per 5.8 million people. If that microscopic probability freaks you out, get the kids some rubber shark-fin hats and stick to the motel pool.
