Shark Bites In 2025: Understanding The Real Risk Around The World

InnovationScienceShark Bites In 2025: Understanding The Real Risk Around The WorldByMelissa Cristina Márquez,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Márquez is a marine scientist and science communicatorFollow AuthorApr 25, 2026, 07:12am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.The museum’s International Shark Attack File was established in 1958 and includes records dating back to the 1500s. The annual reports are primarily focused on unprovoked bites, defined as incidents in which a person does not initiate contact with a shark, intentionally or otherwise.gettyThe surfer paddled out just after sunrise. The water was calm, the horizon quiet. It was the kind of morning that feels almost staged for a perfect session. With a deep breath it, their hands sliced through the mirror-like ocean surface, swimming out to where the waves are. Moments like this are part of the reason why people return to the ocean again and again. But it would be prudent of us as a species to remember that the sea is never empty, even when perfectly still where air and water meet. It never has been. And sometimes, very rarely, humans cross paths with sharks in ways that make headlines.Each year, the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History tracks those encounters carefully. “The International Shark Attack Files provide baseline data about shark attacks on people that are rigorously and scientifically investigated, evaluated and summarized on an annual basis. While a significant fraction of incidents likely go unreported, the temporal trends, and local and global patterns of incidents are used to evaluate the biology of the animals, their behavior and the risk they pose to humans,” said Dr. Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History, in a press release. Their newly released 2025 rep...