Why are we so afraid of sharks?

Nothing seems to grab the Australian public’s attention like a close encounter with a shark. Our nightly news bulletins regularly feature reports of sharks at Australian beaches when little about the report actually seems all that newsworthy. Social media is peppered with GoPro videos of alarming close encounters of the ‘kitesurfer vs shark’ kind. So why are we so fascinated, or perhaps paranoid, about sharks?

Why are people so afraid of sharks?

Our fear of sharks is part psychology, part Hollywood.

Psychology has taught us a lot about fear and how we respond to it. Here are some contributing factors:

• Feelings vs thoughts – as humans, we respond more to feelings than to thoughts so when we imagine a shark, ‘feelings’ associated with being scared come to mind first and are more powerful than ‘thoughts’ which come later – like it being highly unlikely we’ll encounter one.
• Being out of our depth – sharks are hard to see especially from the shore or when we’re in the water. Hidden dangers are often more frightening than those we can see so the ‘feelings’ that come with the possibility of being attacked from the hidden depths below us can be especially scary even if we know the chances of it happening are very small.
• Gruesome way to go – though dying of a heart attack is far more likely to be our eventual demise, the ‘feelings’ associated with being taken by a shark creep us out in a way that heart disease doesn’t.
• The fear of the unknown – mysterious things can be scary. Unknown places and unexpected experiences are more likely to cause us stress and illicit the ‘fight or flight’ physiological response characteristic of many animals under stress – humans included. This important adaptation is how our bodies’ respond to stressful and potentially dangerous situations, fuelled by a surge in the adrenalin hormone, preparing us to either stay and combat the stressor or turn and run/hop/swim/fly away.

When gorillas were first encountered by European adventurers in Africa in the mid 1800s they were described as violent man-eating monsters. This was based on the explorers’ experience of the silverback male gorillas’ fearsome charge in protection of his family. It wasn’t until we learnt much more about gorillas from scientists like Dian Fossey in the late 20th century, that this image was debunked.

Our knowledge and understanding of sharks – for example why Great Whites in some places and on some occasions present no danger to humans in the water – is very limited. We still have a lot to learn – perhaps like a 19th century gorilla-phobic explorer?

• Fear breeds fear – media coverage in itself can heighten fear and result of an unrealistic perception of the likelihood of encountering a shark. Studies have shown that increased exposure to media coverage of crime, for example, can lead to an audience perception that crime is increasing even when evidence might demonstrate that the incidence of crime is falling.

Hollywood’s contribution to our fear of sharks

By his own admission and with considerable regret, Peter Benchley has a lot to do with our fear of sharks. The fiction author’s hugely successful book Jaws and the resulting 1975 blockbuster movie instilled a deep fear of sharks in people across the world.

The story of a rampaging shark hell bent on consuming beach goers day-after-day has no resemblance to reality. Unfortunately, it left a lasting impression on the public.  The realistic (for its time) looking shark accentuated our fear … and then along came Sharknado, 47 Meters Down and many, many others to exacerbate those fears.

So let’s sort a few facts from the fiction.

There are lots of sharks

As a large island nation with a 25,760 kilometre coastline, Australia has a high diversity of sharks. We have 170 species in total out of approximately 440 species globally. Only a very small number of species in Australia – predominantly the Great White Shark, Tiger Shark and Bull Shark – present a lethal threat to humans.

Some, like the Great White and Grey Nurse, are listed as threatened species (Vulnerable and Critically Endangered respectively) and need special protection. Just as we need to conserve other threatened apex predators like Tigers in Asia, Lions in Africa and India, and Polar Bears in the Arctic, it’s important to protect threatened sharks.