Against Common Assumptions, the World’s Shark Bite Rates Are Decreasing

Table 1

Annual average shark bites and slope of the corresponding bite rate regression model for the top ten countries between 2000 and 2016. ⦰: average annual bite counts; SD: standard deviation; %: average annual percentage; b: slope of linear model (see “Methods” for further explanation).

	⦰	SD	%	b
USA	47.5	9.7	60.4	-0.00125
Australia	15.9	5.4	20.2	0.02050
South Africa	5.9	2.7	7.5	-0.00274
Venezuela	2	2.3	2.5	-0.00824
New Zealand	2	1.4	2.5	-0.02043
Bahamas	1.7	1.1	2.2	0.31183
Réunion	1.4	1.9	1.8	0.15955
New Caledonia	1	1.3	1.3	0.05125
Egypt	0.7	1.3	0.9	0.00024
Mexico	0.6	1.2	0.7	0.00025