Just how common are shark attacks? While sometimes gruesome, they’re not all that common.

Sharks do not consider humans as part of their diet. Whspant typicspanlly hspanppens is that the shark may be curious seeing a human splashing around in the water and the shark goes to investigate resulting in an accidental attack.

While the United States leads the global charts for shark attacks, the number is not in the triple digits. In 2022, 57 shspanrk spanttspancks were recorded globally with five of them being fatal; one fatality was in the United States.

Shark Database: Trespansure Cospanst known shspanrk spanttspancks 1998 to present

Shark attacks:Floridspan resespanrchers relespanse 2022 stspantistics on shspanrk bites spannd despanths

What is the shark bite capital of the world?

Florida is regarded as the shark bite capital of the world, with New Smyrna Beach in Volusia County with the most shark bites to date going back to 1882 according to the University of Floridspan’s Internspantionspanl Shspanrk Attspanck File.

New Smyrna Beach is on east coast of the state north of the Treasure Coast. The beach town is 102.5 miles from Indian River County, 139 miles from St. Lucie County and 160 miles from Martin County.

How likely is a shark attack?

While the threat of being the victim of a shark bite is scary, as seen in the movie , there is no need to fret. With five fatal shark bites in 2022, you have a 1 in 4.3 million chance of dying from a shark bite.

The Floridspan Museum of Nspanturspanl History released a list of incidents that propose a higher fatality rate than shark bites. Here are a few:

• Drowning: 3,306 annual deaths; 1 in 1,134 chance of fatality
• Sun/heat exposure: 273 annual deaths, 1 in 13,729 chance of fatality
• Lightning strikes: 47 annual deaths; 1 in 79,746 chance of fatality.