The Truth About Great Whites

In sunny California, Craig Rogers was sitting on his surfboard,1 scanning the distance for his next wave. Suddenly, his board stopped moving. He looked down and was terrified to see a great white shark biting the front of his board. “I could have touched its eye with my elbow,” says Rogers. The shark had surfaced so quietly that he didn’t hear a thing. In his horror and confusion, he waved his arms and accidentally cut two of his fingers on the shark’s teeth. He got off the opposite side of his surfboard, into the water. Then, despite Rogers being in the water with blood flowing from his fingers, the five-meter-long shark simply swam away.

Over a hundred shark attacks happen worldwide each year. Of these, one-third are said to be great white attacks. Great whites are often described as “man-eaters”— creatures that hunt and kill humans—but this is factually inaccurate. Great whites rarely kill their human victims. In fact, a person has a greater chance of being killed by lightning2 than by a great white. With frightening jaws that hold around 300 teeth in several rows, a great white can kill very easily. Surprisingly though, most great white victims live to tell the tale. Shark researchers are trying to understand the reasons great whites attack people, and why most of those people manage to escape a horrible death.

Great whites can be found in seas all over the world. In some places, such as Australia and South Africa, they are protected. One of the most common explanations for great white attacks is that great whites don’t see well. It is thought that they often mistake a person for a seal or sea lion— a very tempting snack. However, there is reason to doubt this. Some research now shows that great whites can actually see—and identify seals—very well. When attacking seals, great whites shoot up to the surface and bite with great force.

However, when they approach humans, they often move in slowly and bite with less force. “They take a bite, feel them over, then move on,” says Peter Klimley, author of The Secret Lives of Sharks. Shark experts like Klimley believe that great whites “attack” because they are actually curious animals that like to investigate things. They believe that it’s possible great whites use their bite not just to kill and eat, but also to gather information. According to this idea, once a great white identifies what it is biting, it simply lets go. Even though such experiences are unlucky for people like Craig Rogers, perhaps when sharks bite surfboards, other objects, or even people, they are just trying to learn what they are.