Shark attacks occur occasionally on surfers and beachgoers on many beaches around the world. This is a problem because even if they are rare, they can cause serious injury or death. The situation is particularly severe in La Réunion where attacks are much more frequent than elsewhere in the world the last few years (On Reunion Island, we've seen 15 to 20% of the world's fatal shark attacks). While in other regions affected by shark attacks, as in Australia, the majority of people want to focus on non-lethal methods to prevent shark attacks (75% of the population preferred cuddly tactics such as aerial patrols), in La Réunion, many people are calling for culling because of the exceptional situation. It is true that the parallels generally made to show that the risk of attack is tiny (comparison with the risk of attack by domestic animals, risk of car accident, to be struck by lightning or to receive a nut coconut on the head) are not applicable to the case of La Réunion where the number of shark attacks per year is abnormally high (if Reunion had the same risk in the US, we'd see 1 death every 400 years). In the same way, we can not explain this increase only by the growth of the population which frequents the beach, since even after a desertion following the rise of the attacks, these continued. However, and contrary to Jean François Nativel’s opinion, we think that there is indeed a psychosis around sharks generated especially by the film Jaws, which makes the scientists’ voice hard to get heard.

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