Sydney (AFP) - A teenager who escaped a shark attack that killed his friend in western Australia has described how he fired his spear gun into the suspected great white as authorities searched for the animal Tuesday.

The victim, named by local media as 17-year-old Jay Muscat, died after he was bitten on the leg by a shark while spear-fishing off Cheynes Beach, near Albany in the southern tip  of Western Australia (WA) state, on Monday.

His friend Matt Pullella wrote on Facebook that "the shark hit me first then attacked Jay", The West Australian reported.

"The shark turned and came for me, I pushed the speargun down its throat and fired the gun!" he wrote, adding that he estimated the animal to measure four to five metres (13-16 feet) long.

"This is something no one should ever have to see."

WA's Department of Fisheries said Cheynes Beach would remained closed while equipment was deployed from boats to try and catch the shark, adding that it was most likely to be a great white.

"One of them (boats) will be setting (drum) lines, the other will be doing patrols in the nearby regions," Department of Fisheries spokesman Rick Fletcher told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"One of the people involved in the attack actually shot at the shark with a spear gun, so the shark may be injured so we are going to have a look to see if we can find the shark if that is the case."

The attack was the second fatal mauling in Australia since December 15, when a teenager was attacked while swimming near Rudder Reef off Port Douglas, northeast Australia.

A young surfer lost parts of both arms in an attack by two great white sharks off the south coast of Western Australia in October, prompting officials to catch and kill two of the animals in the area.

The state government had earlier this year abandoned a controversial catch-and-kill policy -- where sharks are caught on large hooks attached to floating drums placed off beaches -- after objections from the state's environmental agency.

Conservationists had also criticised the policy and called on authorities to instead use non-lethal methods to reduce risks, such as closing beaches and erecting warning signs.

Experts say attacks by sharks, which are common in Australian waters, are increasing as water sports become more popular.

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A teenage boy has described how he was hit by a four-to-five-metre shark before it turned and grabbed his friend on the leg.

The two were spearfishing around what’s known locally as Three Stripes, a rock outcrop at Cheynes Beach, 60km east of Albany, Western Australia, on Monday.

Matt Pullella told friends on Facebook about the final moments of the life of his friend 17-year-old Jay Muscat.

“The shark hit me first then attacked Jay,” Matt wrote, according to a report in the West Australian.

“The shark turned and came for me, I pushed the speargun down its throat and fired the gun.”

A passing boat picked up Jay and took him to the boat ramp, but there was little they could do. He was already dead.

The two, both from Albany, are part of an enthusiastic group who free dive to spear fish off Albany.

The state Department of Fisheries has deployed drum lines to try to catch the shark, which it says is most likely a white shark.

The beach is closed.

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Beaches on Australia's east coast will likely remain closed for a record sixth day after repeated sightings of a giant great white shark, The Telegraph reports.

The shark, which is estimated to be 5 meters (16 feet) in length and weigh 1.7 tons (3,750 pounds), is the largest ever seen around Newcastle beaches, the city council said in a statement.

Newcastle is a city about 100 miles north of Sydney.

A shark of this size could "bite a person in half," a beach inspector told Australian Associated Press (AAP). "You don't get a second chance with these things," he added.

The shark has been spotted in an area stretching more than 7 miles along the coast, according to AAP.

The animal was first seen on Saturday at Merewether Beach and last seen on Tuesday at Burwood Beach, the website writes.

Sharks don't generally like to eat people, but attacks do happen. 

"It is not safe for board riders to be out in the water, even close to shore, as sharks are known to move into the surf zone, hunting prey between where the surf breaks and the shoreline," the Newcastle City Council warned.

In an alert, the council said it was unusual for a shark to hang around the same coastal areas for so many days in a row, but did not give an indication as to why this might be happening.

The AAP suggests that "overcast and warm weather combined with increased marine activity could be responsible for the shark's prolonged presence."

The city council is continuing to patrol the waters throughout the day with jetskis, but said it needs at least a 24-hour period of no sightings before beaches can be reopened to swimmers.

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Sharks attacks are making Perth residents increasingly reluctant to go to the beach, research group Roy Morgan says.

In five summers the people of Perth have gone from most likely to go to the beach to the least likely.

In the summer of 2009-10, a peak of 56% of Perth residents reported having visited a beach, either locally or elsewhere, within the past three months. In terms of people most likely to hit the sand Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide each peaked at 49%, and Sydney at 45% that summer.

In the summer of 2010-11, residents hitting the beach fell in all capital cities except Sydney.

Since then beach-going rates have been declining in all capital cities except Adelaide. Although last year a 1% fall was recorded in the South Australian capital.

But its Perth which has recorded the biggest drop where its more likely people won’t visit the beach.

“The decline in the rate of beach-going among Perth residents over this time could be naturally attributed to a spate of shark attacks, many from great whites and many fatal, off the WA coast since mid-2010,” Roy Morgan said.

Nationally 8.7 million Australians went to the beach at least once in the summer of 2013-14. That translates to about 45% of people over 14 years old and is the highest proportion since 2009-10.

Here’s the chart.

SEE ALSO: 1.7-Ton Great White Shark Shuts Down Australian Beaches For 5 Straight Days

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A strange living fossil, a frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus), has been caught by a commercial fisherman off Victoria.

The fish gets its name from its six pairs of gills and is one of two remaining species dating back 80 million years.

The frilled shark, with 300 needle-shaped teeth in 25 rows, has a dark brown, eel-like body, grows to a length of two metres and can swallow prey whole with its flexible jaws.

It has been caught as deep as 1.5 km.

David Guillot, who brought this 1.5 metre specimen up last week, says he’s seen nothing like it in his 30 years as a commercial fisherman.

“The head on it was like something out of a horror movie,” he told radio station 3AW in Melbourne. “It was quite horrific looking.”

Simon Boag, CEO of the South East Trawl Fishing Association, says he hasn’t been able to find a fisherman who had seen one before.

This is how one of those beasts looks like in their prime:

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An amazing video has emerged in which a teenager catches a huge shark off the coast of South Australia. In the footage, captured at Tumby Bay earlier this month, a young fisherman reels in a 10-foot bronze whaler shark.

The fisherman wrote: "The shark was over ten feet long and weighed 440lbs plus. The bait was taken out on the back of a kayak and dropped in deep water and it was an epic fight taking almost two hours to reel in. The shark was tagged and released unharmed after measurements and photos were taken."

Produced by Jason Gaines. Video courtesy of Associated Press.

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Now this is an interesting-looking — and incredibly rare — creature. With a bulbous head and 50 rows of tiny teeth, the 66th megamouth shark ever seen in the world washed ashore on Wednesday morning in Pio Duran, Albay, the Philippines, according to Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines (some say this is only the 60th confirmed sighting).

The megamouth shark is so uncommon that until recently some still considered it a cryptid, a creature so rare that it couldn't be confirmed by science.

And while the megamouth was first confirmed to exist in 1976 after being accidentally dragged up by a US Navy vessel, it remains "one of the most rarely seen species of sharks," marine biologist David Shiffman previously told Business Insider in an email. (Shiffman confirmed to Business Insider that this latest specimen did indeed appear to be a megamouth.)

This one is a 15-foot-long (4.6 meters) male, larger than some estimates for the maximum size of the male members of the species, though megamouths are some of the biggest sharks known.

And despite the many tiny teeth possessed by Megachasma pelagios, a name that means "giant mouth of the deep," this shark is one of the three that feed on plankton, potentially attracted by its bioluminescent mouth. (The other two plankton feeders are the basking shark and whale shark.) 

The shark's strange appearance might look scary to some, but unless you're plankton, it's totally safe.

This is the 15th megamouth to be found in the Philippines, which as a country is second only to Japan in megamouth sightings, though megamouths have been spotted all over the world.

From what we know based on a shark that scientists were able to track off the California coast in 1990, megamouths seem to spend most of the day about 400 or 500 meters below the surface. At night they rise up along with many other creatures, most likely to feed.

Here's a video of a specimen found in Japan being dissected by scientists:

SEE ALSO: This Map Shows All The Mythical Creatures That Haunt The US

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If becoming dinner for a great white has you worried, then the NSW government’s new, free phone app, Sharksmart, is just what you need.

The app takes the information on the Department of Primary Industry’s SharkSmart website and crunches it into a mix of shark IDs, from man-eaters such as tiger and bull sharks to the relatively harmless wobbegong and grey nurse. It’s full of tips to help people reduce the danger, from not swimming in murky water, to not swimming with pets.

“Do not rely on dolphins to indicate the absence of sharks – they often feed together,” the app says, busting a common misconception.

The app also lists the beaches between Newcastle and Wollongong where shark meshing takes place, as well as saltwater swimming enclosures where you can be confident any dark shadows in the water aren’t what you fear.

To download the app, search iTunes for SharkSmart.

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A person has reportedly died following a shark attack at Shelly Beach, Ballina, on the New South Wales far north coast

NSW Ambulance media said paramedics are on the scene treating the person, who was described as in a critical condition, but has subsequently died.

The beach has been closed.

The latest attack comes just 24 hours after a surfer was bitten by a 2-metre shark at Seven Mile Beach, south of Byron Bay on Sunday morning

Chef Jabez Reitman, 35, had puncture wounds in his buttocks and injuries to his back after the attack, 60 metres offshore, around 6.45am.

He paddled to shore and went to Byron Bay hospital before being transferred to the Gold Coast University Hospital for surgery.

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ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - Shark attacks killed three people worldwide in 2014, a dramatic drop from 10 fatalities seen a year earlier, researchers found in an annual global tally released this week.

Two of the deaths occurred in New South Wales in eastern Australia, and the other in South Africa's Eastern Cape, according to the data, submitted by scientists around the world and cataloged at the University of Florida.

The United States recorded two-thirds of the 72 total attacks last year that were unprovoked by people, the data showed. It said about half took place off Florida's eastern coast, where smaller sharks mistake swimmers for prey in hit-and-run attacks, then quickly leave.

The number of overall attacks held relatively steady, dropping slightly from 75 incidents in 2013. What surprised researchers was the plunge in fatalities.

"It's pretty amazing," said researcher George Burgess, who oversees the database called the International Shark Attack File, based at the university. "But one reason is just pure luck."

The annual report, released on Wednesday, counts unprovoked attacks by sharks, which researchers define as attacks occurring in shark habitat that were not instigated by human aggression.

North American waters have long seen the most bites. In addition to Florida, shark attacks were recorded last year in Hawaii (7), South Carolina (5), North Carolina (4) and California (4).

Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas each saw one incident.

The 2014 figures followed trends seen in recent decades, with fatal shark attacks generally on the decline, Burgess said.

Overall, lower death rates reflect better access to medical care for traumatic injuries, as well as greater numbers of lifeguards on beaches and swimmers who know more about shark safety, Burgess said. Yet last year's decline may also reflect fewer chance encounters, he added.

Despite the flat numbers of attacks this year, the average rise in such incidents over the past decades paint a more accurate picture, Burgess said.

The generally increasing number of unprovoked attacks has kept pace with global population growth, he said. More people are hitting the beaches for fun, and spending more hours in the surf, creating more opportunities for shark encounters.

(Editing by Letitia Stein)

SEE ALSO: An Incredibly Rare Megamouth Shark Just Washed Up In The Philippines

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NOW WATCH: Incredible Video Of A Teenager Catching A 440-Pound Shark On A Beach

Andy Lark, cloud-accounting company Xero’s CMO, used this slide at the company’s convention in London this week to show why it’s important to adopt tech early.

In a blog post he explained that in the business-to-business tech market the late adopters can find themselves in a tight spot if they miss new developments.

“Having sat around harvesting revenue from their customer base the late majority one-day wake-up to face a revenue precipice. In short, the early adopters and majority reach a tipping point and start acquiring their customer base en-masse,” he said.

Xero considers itself an early adopter with its cloud-only accounting software. It claims it’s been eating away at incumbent’s market share.

“Entrepreneurs emerge from both sides presenting the late majority with an impossible force to counter – and their brand advantage and customer relationships are quickly weakened,” Lark said.

“Look at what happened to booksellers, record stores, and others. We are seeing the same in accounting where new disruptive value propositions are being built on cloud platforms like ours.

“The message is clear. Rather than wait for the late majority, fuel the high-growth early adopters and watch them grow. Who would you rather be backing – or be – the eater or the eaten.”

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A rare goblin shark, caught by a commercial fisher in January off Australia's southeast coast near Eden, was recently handed over to the Australian Museum. It's only the fourth specimen of this kind to ever be collected by the museum.

Mark McGrouther, the museum's fish collection manager, showed off the rare deep-water species in a video.

The specimen was chilling in an ice bath before being shown off.

Not much is known about the goblin shark, since they live near the sea floor at depths of up to 900 metres (2,952 feet) and are rarely caught.

The prehistoric-looking sharks have distinctive features, including a long head, flat snout, and a protruding jaw.

They are pinkish in colour and have blue fins.

This specimen, a juvenile male, measures 1.26 metres (4.13 feet) in length.

The lower-side of the shark's snout is covered with pores that allows it to detect electricity from its prey. As the shark swims along the bottom of the water, its snout picks up pulses from crabs, squids, shrimps, etc.

When the shark detects electricity, it thrusts its jaw forward to spear its prey.

The goblin shark has extremely sharp teeth, used to spear its prey and swallow it whole.

The sharks "don’t have any commercial value, other than their jaws,"marine biologist Charlott Stenberg told David Shiffman of Southern Fried Science. "But, I have a Japanese friend who ate some of it and thought the tongue was delicious."

The goblin shark has previously been reported in the western Pacific, off Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Last May, a Florida fisherman pulled up an 18-foot goblin shark, only the second-ever to be spotted in the Gulf of Mexico.

To learn more about the goblin shark, watch the the full video from the Australian Museum.

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They may not be as beautiful as the shimmering, iridescent blue shark or as mighty as the magnificent great white, but goblin sharks are truly awesome creatures, and the Australian Museum is understandably very excited to have the opportunity to showcase such a rare specimen.

This latest addition to the ichthyology collection was accidentally caught back in January by fishermen working in Green Cape, off the New South Wales coast, at a depth of around 200 meters (656 feet), AFP reports. It was then delivered to the Merimbula Aquarium where it remained in excellent condition until being donated to the museum in Sydney, according to ABC News.

"It's pretty impressive, it's not hideous it's beautiful," said the museum's fish collection manager Mark McGrouther. "They are not caught terribly often. They are not encountered terribly often at all." In fact, only four goblin sharks have ever been obtained by the museum since the first two arrived back in the '80s, according to AFP, and McGrouthe has only seen three throughout his entire fishy career.

The goblin shark, Mitsukurina owstoni, was first described over one hundred years ago, but so few specimens have been caught that we still know relatively little about these animals, which are easily one of the rarest shark species. Often referred to as "living fossils," M. owstoni is actually the only surviving representative of the Mitsukurinidae family, which dates back some 125 million years.

Goblin sharks are bottom-dwellers that are rarely seen at the surface or in shallow coastal waters, which is probably why so few have been obtained. They tend to live at depths of between 300 (980 ft) and 900 meters (2,950 ft), although they have been found as deep as 1,300 meters (4,260 ft) and as shallow as 95 meters (311 ft).

Perhaps the most interesting features of these animals are their elongated snouts and ragged jaws. Along their snout are a series of pores that contain a sense system known asampullae of Lorenzini, which detects weak electrical impulses in the water, for example from the heartbeats of prey. When they approach their victim, their jaws rapidly catapult forward and they use their sharp, nail-like teeth to spear prey, rather than cut them like many other shark species.

[Via AFP and ABC News]

IN DEPTH: Extremely detailed images of a rare goblin shark caught in Australia

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Professional wildlife videographer EunJae Im attached a fish head to an underwater camera before lowering it into shark-infested waters near the Bahamas. His stunning footage captures the sharks as they repeatedly lunge after the bait.

Produced by Jason Gaines. Video courtesy of Associated Press.

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A rare goblin shark, caught by a commercial fisher in January off Australia's southeast coast near Eden, was recently handed over to the Australian Museum. It's only the fourth specimen of this kind to ever be collected by the museum.

Mark McGrouther, the museum's fish collection manager, showed off the rare deep-water species in a video.

The specimen was chilling in an ice bath before being shown off.

Not much is known about the goblin shark, since they live near the sea floor at depths of up to 900 metres (2,952 feet) and are rarely caught.

The prehistoric-looking sharks have distinctive features, including a long head, flat snout, and a protruding jaw.

They are pinkish in colour and have blue fins.

This specimen, a juvenile male, measures 1.26 metres (4.13 feet) in length.

The lower-side of the shark's snout is covered with pores that allows it to detect electricity from its prey. As the shark swims along the bottom of the water, its snout picks up pulses from crabs, squids, shrimps, etc.

When the shark detects electricity, it thrusts its jaw forward to spear its prey.

The goblin shark has extremely sharp teeth, used to spear its prey and swallow it whole.

The sharks "don’t have any commercial value, other than their jaws,"marine biologist Charlott Stenberg told David Shiffman of Southern Fried Science. "But, I have a Japanese friend who ate some of it and thought the tongue was delicious."

The goblin shark has previously been reported in the western Pacific, off Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Last May, a Florida fisherman pulled up an 18-foot goblin shark, only the second-ever to be spotted in the Gulf of Mexico.

To learn more about the goblin shark, watch the the full video from the Australian Museum.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This is what happens to your brain and body when you check your phone before bed

This video of a guy doing all the hard work to pull in a fish is weirdly scary. It’s like watching Jaws. You know something bad is going to happen but you can’t look away.

Watching him reel in his catch, the camera focuses down into the sea below the boat. Anticipation builds and just as the fisherman sights what’s on the end of his line… BOOM.

Here is the full video:

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Marine protected areas — essentially nature preserves in the ocean — are meant to provide a safe harbor for sharks, rays and other ocean species being lost because of intense and often unregulated fishing.

In a study published in Conservation Biology last week, we and other collaborators set out to quantify how populations of sharks and rays have changed over time at Cocos Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the world's oldest marine protected areas.

Perched 550 kilometers (340 miles) off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, Cocos is an isolated paradise. Jacques Cousteau called it the most beautiful island in the world, and its lush rain forests were the inspiration for Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park.

Underwater, Cocos teems with life. It is renowned amongst scuba divers as the best place in the world to swim with large schools of hammerhead sharks. Giant manta rays, sea turtles, yellowfin tunas, and whales sharks are also regularly seen.

And yet, there is trouble in paradise. We analyzed data on fish sightings reported after divemasters' trips collected over the past two decades and found that all four of the most common shark and ray species at Cocos have declined significantly.

Ecosystem changes

Among the declines, we found the number of scalloped hammerhead sharks has dropped by almost half during that time. This tragedy is not altogether unexpected because hammerhead fins are highly prized in the international shark fin trade. These iconic sharks roam widely along coastlines in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, migrating between Cocos, Malpelo Island, and the Galapagos. Each of these islands is designated as a marine protected area, but hammerheads are still caught both within and outside of these areas.

More surprising, was the precipitous drop in Cocos's other common shark and ray species, which inhabit the protected area year round. The whitetip reef shark is still seen on most dives at Cocos, but the number of this small reef-restricted species has plummeted by three-quarters. Ditto for the marble ray, a large stingray. Numbers of eagle rays, a large majestic pelagic species, have dropped by a third. All three of these species are thought to be reef-restricted and thus should be protected within the waters surrounding Cocos. Not so.

The declines in the number of sharks and rays restricted to the waters surrounding Cocos are a clear indication that the protected area isn't working.

We also found that there have been increases in a few species. Not a single tiger shark was seen by divers at Cocos in our data until 2000. These large distinctive sharks are now seen on over 10% of dives. The abrupt increase suggests that some tiger sharks have simply set up shop at Cocos. Observations of the blacktip shark and the Galapagos shark also increased in frequency, so the Cocos marine protected area may be working for these two smaller reef-restricted shark species.

One can point to the increases in tiger, blacktip, and Galapagos sharks as signs the protected area is working. This is probably partially correct. But it also reflects a larger shift in which species inhabit the waters around Cocos Island.

In other words, increases in several species may be a sign of larger problems caused by changes in the ecosystem around Cocos Island. Higher numbers of some species, in particular large predatory species such as the tiger shark, may alter the relationships between species already present.

Paper park?

On land, parks with inadequate enforcement against hunting are often referred to as "paper parks"— existing merely as boundaries drawn on paper but with little on the ground protection. This conveys a false sense of conservation.

Perhaps understandably, illegal fishing is rampant within the Cocos Island marine protected area: the island is remote, enforcement has been limited, and shark fins are a hot commodity. Cocos is a 36 hour boat ride away from the mainland. This remoteness is part of what makes Cocos such a draw for divers from around the world, but it also makes the island a sitting duck for illicit fishing activities.

Funding for monitoring and enforcement has been minimal. MarViva, a regional environmental NGO, has patrolled the island along with the Costa Rican Coast Guard since 2003 and caught illegal fishing in the process. Costa Rican laws make it tough to prove [illegal fishing] has occurred, however, and most cases to date have been dismissed in court. As a result, the illegal fishing continues.

A labour of love

Many divers, however, recognize Cocos for the treasure that it is.

Over the past 21 years, a group of dedicated divemasters working at Undersea Hunter, a live-aboard dive company specializing in trips to Cocos Island, has meticulously recorded every shark and ray they saw while diving at the island.

Our study synthesized their observations of over 1.4 million sharks and rays.

Without these data, it would be impossible to know how underwater life at Cocos is changing. Like many parts of the developing world, Costa Rican waters are without dedicated marine research surveys or comprehensive fisheries data. The foresight of Undersea Hunter's owner Avi Klapfer to begin their monitoring program, and the dedication of the divemasters to continue it over two decades, is a testament to their love of Cocos.

In this remote area, with no official monitoring, the Undersea Hunter data provide a window to see how sharks and rays have changed over two decades in this isolated and globally unique marine reserve.

Watching sharks and rays at Cocos, it is hard to believe that there used to be even more of these beautiful animals. The reef still appears to be covered with them despite the declines recorded by the divemasters over the years.

So what can be done?

More effort needs to be directed towards enforcement and monitoring at Cocos. Recent efforts by environmental non-governmental organizations (eNGOs), including MarViva, Forever Costa Rica, and Conservation International are encouraging. The groups are now working together, with assistance from Oceans 5, to install a radar on the island to help control illegal fishing. The Costa Rican government also needs to get serious about prosecuting offenders.

If Costa Rica is to maintain its status as a leader for progressive environmental policies, it needs to double down on efforts to protect its most iconic species and the national treasure that is Cocos Island.

To read more on the marine protection areas, see:

• Pacific Remote Islands protection not just a drop in the ocean
• World's largest survey of marine parks shows conservation can be greatly improved

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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NOW WATCH: The remarkable story behind the first man without a beating heart

A mammoth tiger shark weighing more than 450kg (992 pounds) has been caught by hand off a beach in New South Wales.

Max Muggeridge, 19, who has been a shark fisherman for more than seven years, took three hours to hand reel in the beast.

“I knew I had hooked onto a very good fish but it wasn't until it got closer I could see it was massive... almost the size of a whale," he told Business Insider.

"Not wasting any time I instantly locked the drag down to full, and shoved my hands in the reel for extra pressure. My reel got so hot I couldn't touch it, we poured water over the reel and that left me with a big cloud of steam blow up in my face."

Muggeridge made the trip down the coast from Queensland, south of the border to Pottsville with his girlfriend. Little did he know that he would be later have to single-handedly reel in what would have been a world record-sized catch.

The current catch and release world record for a tiger shark is held by Joey Polk for a shark 3.25m in fork length and 3.88m overall.

Muggeridge's shark was estimated at 4.4m, but the teenager - who describes himself as a shark conservationist first and a fisherman second - didn't get the required measurements for the record, concerned that the shark needed to get back out to sea after the long reel in.

"I'd rather let it swim away than follow the protocol. It's [the record] just a piece of paper," he said.

"[On release] I swam out after her to make sure she swam off OK, but she quickly outswam me which was a great sign that she had recovered quickly."

Muggeridge said the catch was his childhood dream.

"I was in absolute astonishment (reeling it in); it was everything I ever dreamed about as kid. I started fishing as a child in the rivers and I guess I’ve always wanted bigger and better.

"I've been fascinated by these creatures but when I do catch them I always tag them and release. It's all for research.

"I wouldn't change the experience for anything in the world. It was true old school sharkin'."

Following a deadly summer in Australian waters, with many shark sightings and multiple attacks, we asked Muggeridge whether he has noticed a difference in his catches.

"In summer, sharks always come closer to the shore and that's also the season humans go to the beach," he said.

"This summer we did get two really good sharks but I would say that would be because I've improved myself."

Tiger sharks are considered the most dangerous shark in the world, only behind the great white.

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Sharks are incredibly unlikely to bite you. They're even less likely to kill you. However, we remain fascinated with their ability – and occasional proclivity – to do just that.

With so many things more likely to harm us, why do we pay such rapt attention when sharks make headlines?

As a shark researcher and curator of the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), it's a question I think about each spring when I prepare my annual report of shark-attack statistics.

This year we had some good news: In 2014 fatalities were down worldwide, as were attacks. In the US, attacks were up only slightly from 47 last year to 52, with most of those being minor incidents that are more like dog bites than something out of Jaws.

There wasn't a single fatality in the entire country last year and only three worldwide. In the past decade, the US has averaged less than one per year. To put that into perspective, more people die from drowning every day in this country than were killed by sharks in ten years. In 2013, more people in the U.S. died from encounters with nonvenomous insects, and a lot more – 62 – were killed by hornets, wasps and bees, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Underlying Cause of Death database.

We're in their aquatic territory more now

When you think of how much time we spend in the water, it's amazing how innocuous shark and human interaction is. When the ISAF began in the 1950s, scientists were concerned primarily with shark attacks after ships and aircraft went down at sea.

A lot has changed since then. There are a lot more of us on earth today than there were back then and there will be even more tomorrow. Aquatic recreation has never been more popular. More people are kayaking, surfing, diving and paddleboarding.

It's partly a generational change. When my parents took a young me to the beach, my mother would lie on the sand and work on her suntan, never going in the water. My dad might have gone in once a day to cool off. Nowadays, if I'm at the beach, I might be boogie boarding or skin diving. Most of us are spending a lot more hours in the water than did our parents and our activities are inadvertently provocative. That creates ample opportunities for sharks and humans to get together.

Numbers may go up, but we're learning

That's why, even though fatalities are rare, we can expect to see an increase in the number – but not rate – of attacks. There aren't a lot of things in science that I am willing to predict with certainty, but I am confident that in the second decade of this century we will see more attacks than in the first. That said, attacks are not rising as fast as we might suppose they would because we're doing a better job of heeding beach safety and people are more shark-savvy than they were a decade ago. We're starting to understand how to avoid sharks.

At the ISAF, we investigate every reported shark attack. Some are reported by hospitals, some by volunteers and scientists around the world. Others we find out about through traditional or social media.

In each case, through investigation we confirm that the guilty party was actually a shark. (You'd be surprised how many people who say they were bitten by a shark were bitten by something else, or not bitten at all.) We analyze the bite, which tells us the size of the shark, and sometimes the species. The ecological and behavioral circumstances surrounding the incident – from both the human and shark perspectives – give clues as to why the interaction occurred.

Tracking helps with prevention

There's practical benefit to tracking these attacks. By creating a rating system – the Shark-Induced Trauma Scale– we're helping physicians create treatment plans based on the severity of a bite. And we can advise officials in areas that are seeing a spike in shark attacks on how to reduce risk.

Education and outreach are a big part of what we do. We tell people not to swim at dusk and dawn, when sharks are most active, and definitely not at night. (That midnight swim might be romantic, but it could be your last.) We know that you should avoid swimming where people are fishing, or where you can see fish schooling or seabirds feeding, which could mean sharks are feeding, too. We also advise against wearing bright, shiny jewelry into the water, which sharks can confuse for the flashing of fish scales.

People need to understand more fully that when we enter the sea, it's a wilderness experience. We're eco-tourists and are not owed the right to be 100% safe. That's what fascinates us about sharks: There's an innate concern in our psyches about not wanting to get eaten. Almost every other animal on earth has to worry about getting eaten night and day. As humans, we rarely have that concern. People hold sharks in awe as one of the rare species that reminds us we're still potentially part of a food chain.

You're much more likely to be injured or die during your evening run than in a shark attack, but don't expect to turn on the Discovery Channel and see Sneaker Week. For better or worse, we're hard-wired to pay attention to creatures that can eat us – even if they rarely do.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Footage uploaded on YouTube earlier this week shows an 8- to 9-foot bull shark swimming alongside the seawall of a waterfront residence in Bonita Springs, Florida.

"It's really dangerous. I'm a parent and a grandparent and I don't let my kids or my grandkids to go in the water out here anymore," a resident told NBC 2.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened.

According to NBC 2, people are throwing bait into the water to lure in fish, which has also started attracting sharks.

The bull shark is one of the most dangerous sharks in the world, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History. They're found in "abundance" near some human populations in the tropics, and they've been known to attack humans unprovoked.

AccuWeather notes that Florida tops the list of locations with the highest shark activity.

Here's the video:

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