In a recent surf contest in Jefferies Bay, South Africa, a shark attacked Mick Fanning, a professional surfer, in the final round of the contest. Fanning escaped without physical harm, but the contest was called off and everyone was evacuated from the water. Fanning was using a board that was bright yellow on the bottom, claiming that it drew positive attention when performing turns on a wave. Did this bright color have anything to do with the shark encounter? There was another surfer in the water whose board was the normal white color. Would Mick Fanning have been attacked if his board were not colored? Many studies have been performed to try and prevent shark attacks, and color has been one of the main focal points. Is there any way to completely prevent shark attacks?
On the show Mythbusters, they did an experimental study to test if sharks have any preference to color. They do this by setting up different colored bags of chum spaced out in a heavily shark populated area. The colors of the bags consisted of black, yellow, blue, red, silver, and white, and were placed about 30 feet from one another. They then tallied the number of times each bag was bitten and investigated (meaning the shark swam up to it and checked it out.) Once the first test was done, they then switched the positions of the bags to insure that the study was accurate. They found that the shark’s favorite color was yellow, having almost twice as many bites as most other colors, and the most investigations.
While yellow got the most action, all of the colors experienced some form of attack. This could mean that no color entirely fends off shark attacks. The gray area in this study is that all of the bags, no matter the color, held chum. This could prove that even though the color didn’t appeal to the shark, the food inside was too good of an opportunity to pass up. The blue bag showed the least amount of interest to the sharks in this study, suggesting that sharks do not like the color blue. The statistical chance of being attacked by a shark is so low that it doesn’t even cross the mind of most surfers(1 in 11million chance over your lifetime.)
2010 held the highest number of unprovoked attacks in the past decade with 79 attacks. I personally believe scientists should look more into gender affiliation with shark attacks. Out of every shark attack file ever recorded since 1580, 93% of them have been on males. This draws the question, do sharks have a taste for men? Does this have something to do with the testosterone men give off, or is it because men are just actively in the water more than women, or is it just chance? It could have something to do with the surfing population being predominantly men,(or the fact that men are just tastier than women…) For other facts about shark attacks, click here.
Very interesting topic, I never knew that 93% of the shark attack victims were males. It is very special that sharks may select people to attack, not just random attack. Sharks pretty much only bite men Here is a post about how sharks only attack males. I think it is worth study. It is also very interesting that sharks like to bit yellow color. If that is real, males better avoid wearing yellow in the sea!
Not too many years ago my sister was knee deep in the sea of Cape May, New Jersey when she yelled “SHARK!” and ran, resulting in the whole beach being cleared and investigated. A lifeguard later shared with my sister Caroline that the shark she had spotted was a type of shark that would never grow to be larger than a water bottle. Ever since that day I have developed a fascination with sharks, especially how I can scare my sister with them. After reading your blog I cannot wait to show her the research on sharks and the color yellow when she is in the sea this summer.
I love reading articles that differ from the main stream that we constantly scroll through. I felt that your blog was well constructed. You explain the situation the lead you to ask your thesis question, then explain a study design that you found in your research, then summarized and analyzed that information. Great flow. I do feel that you your blog would have been much stronger if you included either a second study that was done to support the work done by Mythbusters or found a study that contradicted your information to show that your thesis question was truly highly debated. I really like that you gave the reader a lot of possible options of 3rd variables that could effect why men have been attacked so much more than women. Although at the same time, you present so many possible 3rd variables for something that seems to have a simply answer… men have surfed much longer than women have. When you present all those variables you need to be careful of the Texas Sharpshooter problem, looking into so many possibilities that there is going to eventually be a random correlation.
Something that you could add to your blog that I would have found interesting as a reader and possibility helped to make the study that you put into your blog stronger would be to look into the year 2010 which had the most shark attacks and see if certain similar aspects of the certain surfers that were attacked. From looking at the 79 attacks you can look for a possible correlation in board color and attacks, race and attacks, or gender and attacks. This could help to lead scientist on where they can focus their research efforts.
Interesting post! I never considered a correlation between sharks and colors before. I’m also not a surfer. The Mythbuster experiment sounded quite accurate, but I wonder what kind of sharks were they targeting and where? Would different kind of sharks like different colors? Does their location in the world matter? It makes sense that yellow attracts sharks as it is the brightest, and it makes sense that blue wasn’t as popular because it could be the hardest to see, but I think more studies need to be done before anyone can come to a definite conclusion on the matter. I will say that this is definitely one of the most creative posts I’ve read all semester, so nice work!
I thought this was a really interesting post. I had no idea that a possible correlation between sharks and color existed. I like how you provide a bunch of perspective on the topic by asking if maybe it’s due to chance or is this correlation seriously credible. Also, sharks happen to be my biggest fear so the statistic that you provided calmed me down, which was nice. Overall I think that post was really cool and unique and I really enjoyed reading it.