But experts are urging the public to stay calm.

“It is absolutely horrible when you hear about these fatal interactions,” said James Sulikowski, a professor at Oregon State University and director of the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station. “But these are such rare events, and they’re so polarizing, that I think people need to take a step back and look at how rare they really are.”

Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Florida Program for Shark Research, agreed, calling shark bites “amazingly rare.”

“If sharks targeted people, I tell people there’d be 10,000 shark bites a day,” he said. “They’re doing their very best to avoid people.”

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Are shark bites on the rise?

“No,” said Naylor, who oversees the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, which documents shark bites. “We don’t see any statistical evidence for it.”

In 2022, there were 57 confirmed cases of unprovoked bites worldwide, which was lower than the most recent five-year average of 70 incidents annually, according to the database. The figures for 2023 aren’t officially public yet, but Naylor said the numbers will be slightly higher than last year.

Still, he said this year’s cases aren’t unusual when compared to long-term trends and noted that 2022 appeared to be a lull.

“This year is no different than average years,” he said.

As far as risks of severe injury or death go, shark bites have long been low on the list of things people should be worried about, Sulikowski said. By one count, you’re more likely to die falling into a hole at the beach, in a riptide or in an alligator attack than you are from a shark bite, The Washington Post’s Teddy Amenabar reported.

“If sharks wanted to put us on the menu, there would be a lot more of us disappearing,” Sulikowski said. “That’s just not happening.”

Shark bites, he added, often tend to be unfortunate mistakes.

“They get confused, and the person is in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.

Are sharks moving closer to shore?

Experts say much remains unknown about the movements of sharks and where they spend their time. But it’s not all that unusual for the marine animals to venture fairly close to shore, Naylor said.

“They have long been coming in intermittently, but people haven’t realized this,” he said. “The number of people that are really, really close to sharks when they’re swimming and don’t realize it is staggering.”

Awareness of these previously unknown close encounters may be growing due to an increase in the use of monitoring technology such as drones, which have produced viral footage of unsuspecting swimmers or surfers in the water near sharks.

“Electronics and drones have made people realize that they come closer,” Naylor said.

Is climate change influencing shark behavior?

Research into how shark populations are shifting as the ocean warms is still in its infancy, Sulikowski said.

“What we do know is that sharks look for certain environments, and if their food is in those environments, then they’re going to be there,” he said. “If the food is shifting because of climate change … the sharks are going to follow that.”

There have been anecdotal reports of some species of sharks moving to places where they typically haven’t been seen before. It’s possible, Naylor said, that these changes could lead to more interactions between sharks and people.

“Shark bites are just the consequence of people being in the water where sharks are in the water,” he said. “If that probability goes up, then the incidence of these very rare events will also go up.”

But fearing the animals isn’t the answer.

“When we enter an environment like this, which is the sharks’ home, and this is where they live, this is where they eat … we have to kind of expect that the unknown and unthinkable may happen,” Sulikowski said. “But it’s extremely, extremely rare, and there are other things to worry about.”

Teddy Amenabar contributed to this report.