How many people are killed by sharks each year? 100,000? 10,000? 1,000? 100? 10? As you can see above, it’s much lower. Only 7 people in the entire world were killed by sharks in 2014.
Yet, how many sharks were killed by people?
A mind-boggling large number it turns out – at least 63 million and possibly as high as 273 million – annually! That’s a between a little over the population of the UK to a little over the population of Indonesia.
Or put another way, even only going with the low estimate of 63 million, it would take sharks 9 million years to kill as many humans as humans kill sharks each year. And modern humans have been around for no more than 2 million years.
Here are 5 animals more likely to kill you than sharks:
- Cows kill 20 people per year just in the United States.
- Dogs kill around 30 people per year in the US.
- Ants kill up to 50 people each year in Africa.
- Hippos kill around 2,900 people in Africa.
- Mosquitoes kill up to 820,000 people per year (800,000 from Malaria and a further 20,000 from Dengue) around the world. This makes them about 117,000X more deadly than sharks. Think about the next time you get bitten.
Why are so many sharks killed each year?
Up to 73 million sharks are killed each year just for their fins to make shark fin soup, a delicacy in China.
However, Ex-NBA Star Yao Ming is leading a campaign in China to ban shark fin soup. So far it seems to be working with a reported 91% of people in China now favouring the ban.
Remaining sharks are mostly killed either as a by product of other commercial fishing activity or for tourism related reasons (jewellery, souvenirs and keeping beaches shark-free so people feel like swimming).
If you’re the unlikely victim of a shark attack you can report it on global Shark Attack File Incident Log. If you’re a shark and the likely victim of a human attack, I’m afraid there’s no website for you.
Want to learn more about sharks? The following books may be of interest:
- National Geographic Readers: Sharks!
- Hark! A Shark!: All About Sharks (Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library)
- Sharks of the World
- Discovery Channel Sharkopedia: The Complete Guide to Everything Shark
Want to help protect sharks? Then the following campaigns may be of interest:
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dcatela says
I’m a shark and a victim of a human contact…no website for me??
Amaury says
I’m a student that is making an assignment in which I have to make an add about any issue and I chose sharks.
very interesting.
Tony says
Try sharpening up your spelling and grammar, it might help your assignment marks…
David says
Let’s add some logic to this claim. 63 000 000 per year / 365 days = 172 602 sharks per day. Really? Please explain how it would be possible for humans to kill on average 120 sharks per minute? If you go for the 273 000 000 claim that’s 8 or 9 per second.