Environmental and anthropogenic factors affecting the increasing occurrence of shark-human interactions around a fast-developing Indian Ocean island.

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 ocean-users involved surfers 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

SUBMITTER: Lagabrielle E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5829236 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature