Environmental and anthropogenic factors affecting the increasing occurrence of shark-human interactions around a fast-developing Indian Ocean island (vol 8, 2018)
3UMR PVBMT - Peuplements végétaux et bioagresseurs en milieu tropical (Faculté des Sciences et techniques - Université de La Réunion 15 avenue René Cassin CS92003 97744 Saint-Denis Cédex 9 pour le Cirad Station de Ligne-Paradis - 7 chemin de l'IRAT - 97410 Saint-Pierre - La Réunion)
7Rhodes University, Grahamstown (Rhodes University • Rhodes University, P.O. Box 94 Grahamstown 6140 South Africa - Afrique du Sud)
Abstract : Understanding the environmental drivers of interactions between predators and humans is critical for public safety and management purposes. In the marine environment, this issue is exemplified by shark-human interactions. The annual shark bite incidence rate (SBIR) in La Réunion (Indian Ocean) is among the highest in the world (up to 1 event per 24,000 hours of surfing) and has experienced a 23-fold increase over the 2005-2016 period. Since 1988, 86% of shark bite events on surfers involved ocean-users off the leeward coast, where 96% of surfing activities took place. We modeled the SBIR as a function of environmental variables, including benthic substrate, sea temperature and period of day. The SBIR peaked in winter, during the afternoon and dramatically increased on coral substrate since the mid-2000s. Seasonal patterns of increasing SBIR followed similar fluctuations of large coastal shark occurrences (particularly the bull shark Carcharhinus leucas), consistent with the hypothesis that higher shark presence may result in an increasing likelihood of shark bite events. Potential contributing factors and adaptation of ocean-users to the increasing shark bite hazard are discussed. This interdisciplinary research contributes to a better understanding of shark-human interactions. The modeling method is relevant for wildlife hazard management in general.
https://hal.umontpellier.fr/hal-02002383
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Soumis le : jeudi 14 février 2019 - 11:39:20 Dernière modification le : lundi 14 décembre 2020 - 09:20:04 Archivage à long terme le : : mercredi 15 mai 2019 - 20:20:58
Erwann Lagabrielle, Agathe Allibert, Jeremy J. Kiszka, Nicolas Loiseau, James P. Kilfoil, et al.. Environmental and anthropogenic factors affecting the increasing occurrence of shark-human interactions around a fast-developing Indian Ocean island (vol 8, 2018). Scientific Reports, Nature Publishing Group, 2018, 8, pp.3676. ⟨10.1038/s41598-018-21553-0⟩. ⟨hal-02002383⟩