The concept of “provoked” (or unprovoked) in the context of a shark bite on humans
is totally inappropriate and misleading. It is the intimate motivation of the shark that
is important to understand, because in absolute terms, given that a bite will always
be “provoked” by something… For the International Shark Attack Files (ISAF), it is the
activity of the victim that is the determining factor: swimming, snorkeling, scuba
diving (without feeding), surfing, etc. result in bites that are meant to be
“unprovoked” (implying that “humans have nothing to do with it”). On the other
hand, spear-fishing, feeding sharks while diving, fishing them, etc. would result in
“provoked” bites (i.e. “it’s Man’s fault”). This approach is caricatured and sterile: a
swimmer can -involuntarily- enter a shark’s territory and be bitten: this remains the
responsibility of the intruder, not the shark. An underwater spearfisher can die from
an exploratory bite (pre-predation) by a large shark, even though he did not shoot
yet a fish (the shark would have bitten a simple swimmer as well): the victim did not
“cause” this bite in any way, other than by simply being in the wrong place at the
wrong time… Competition, territoriality, self-defense, clumpsiness, exploration or
predation: that is the question ! Visit www.thesharkprofiler.com if you want to learn
more!
