I suppose the author, Christopher Chin, watches DB forum. So I am sorry to express my negative opinion, although I agree with a good deal of what is claimed there, I do not really like the aggressive way this article is written.
Each time an article starts with a violent accusing of others of lying and of distorting the truth, I become very suspicious. It usually signals some kind of bias or hidden agenda. And often the author then skews the facts in the same way he so hates at others. I am afraid that exactly this may have happened here too.
Well, I let aside the fact how some tabloid press reported the attack. Most of the sources I studied (both English and German) were quite objective, and although they missed some details, or did not have them yet in the time of publishing, they did not distort any facts. I understand that it may upset to see some tabloids sensationalizing the story, but finally that's what tabloids are for and no one reasonable expects any reliable facts from them. I do not think it is necessary to lower to their level and starting own article with several paragraphs accusing them of manipulation with facts.
In fact it's worse: Chris, instead of showing how the real professional journalist should report, only went into the other extreme and served us a bunch of biased and manipulated facts. Yes, it is true that the
International Shark Attack File shows only a single fatality for 2007. The ISAF report may be good for the shark defense (which is needed), but it is very far from being a good source for the main big topic claim of this article - "SHARKS DO NOT EAT PEOPLE". That's simply the same way of facts distortion as what Chris so vehemently condemns at others.
Sharks DO eat people. Yes, we all know humans are not on the prey list of sharks, and they do not intentional search to kill us. But sharks are wild animals, humans are big packs of relatively good quality proteins, so given certain conditions (humans mixed with bait, provocation, injury,...), sharks will eat people, and indeed they do it much more often than what the ISAF report tries to suggest.
The ISAF report intentionally reports only
unprovoked shark attacks. That means any attacks on spearfishers, fishers, divers touching a shark, and many others are not included. It is quite likely this very accident won't be included in the ISAF 2008 report either. Also not included are fatalities where human body was bitten after drowning, although it cannot be distinguished whether the victim drowned during the shark attack or before. There are also very many victims of marine accidents and disasters missing in the statistics, although at many it is known that they were eaten by sharks, and at others it is quite likely.
Little bit more detailed shark attack stats are available at
Global Shark Attack File home page and although they show around 20 fatalities in 2007, the real numbers are likely way much higher (possibly up to several times higher). I already mentioned some of the reasons above, but you can see a more detailed explanation
here. The page may not work with some browsers (for example MSIE7), so I am copying and pasting it here:
- Unprovoked shark attacks related to disasters-at-sea are NOT included in the general unprovoked attack stats in many databases, including the International Shark Attack File (ISAF). Additionally, attacks on people on boats, canoes, kayaks and rafts are also left off of the lists of unprovoked attacks.
- People who disappear at sea are automatically considered drownings when no hard evidence is available.
- Latest stats show that the USA has about 50% of all worldwide shark attacks. This could indicate a lack of effective reporting in other countries, which means there are many more worldwide attacks than are currently known.
- The number of attacks does not always correlate to the numbers of people in the water.
- George Burgess, speaking at the 2002 Shark Attack News Conference, told the audience that he established relationships with Florida Lifeguard organizations in 1993 to open communications with them. Magically, in 1994, reports of attacks in the state started climbing. This could indicate that reporting of shark incidents in other states, who have not had the benefit of such relationship building, may not be entirely thorough.
- Statistic commonly quoted is that 150 people a year are killed worldwide by coconuts, while only 10 people killed by sharks. Problem is that the coconut figure is approximate - a guess, while the shark stat is only recorded, verified deaths. This is dishonest.
- When a city cites numbers for shark attacks at its beaches, those numbers only include attacks at "city beaches," which in many cases represents a small fraction of actual beaches within or near city boundaries. Often, the term "city beaches" refers only to beaches with at least one city lifeguard stand..
- It is likely that few, if any shark attacks are reported in many parts of the world, including, but not limited to: North Korea, several nations around the Persian Gulf, Somalia and other African nations, remote Pacific Islands, several of Indonesia’s 17,500 remote islands, Cuba, and many Chinese coastal areas.
- A recently released stat suggests that fatalities from sand hole collapses are more likely than fatalities from shark attacks in the U.S. If you add fatal shark attacks from “disasters-at-sea,” however, and also add a small percentage of deaths listed as “drownings,” the number of deaths falls more heavily on the shark attack side, thereby negating the misleading statistic.
That told, I agree with Chris that demonizing of sharks is deplorable, but on my mind, as much deplorable is the claim that sharks are creatures harmless to humans, or that sharks do not eat people. Sharks are simply wild animals, and under circumstances may and do attack and kill people. Let's keep aside the question of whether shark diving (especially when connected with baiting, chumming, or feeding) is unnecessary harassing of wild animals that should be banned, and whether it can have impact on their behavior toward humans, as suggested by several DB members. That's for another long discussion. 
