Still ... having read that bull sharks are one of the four shark species responsible for nearly all unprovoked attacks on humans (the others being tiger, great white and oceanic white tip), and are #1 in attacks off the U.S. Southeast coast, methinks I shall avoid swimming off San Pedro at dusk!

Regardless of species present I think your advice to avoid swimming during the tiger times and Simon's comment about murky estuarine waters are good rules of thumb.

I may be wrong but I don't think that's correct. You have to understand what "unprovoked" means. I have known people involved in several bull shark maulings, all in the Bahamas, and in every case the people concerned had done things that with hindsight lead directly to the attacks. Typical was spear fishing in shallow water, where their (the humans') movements stirred up the silt and made the water locally opaque. In every case the shark concerned took a single bite and then backed off. One of these cases was in fact a film crew trying to recreate an earlier attack for the camera, and succeeding all too well.

Although it is true (I believe) that bull sharks are involved in more human maulings than any other species, that is because we and bull sharks share use of shallow coastal waters and not because of any inherent aggression by the sharks.

I have dived many times with all the shark species you mention except whites (and many others, such as silke, mako, hammerhead, oceanic black tip - all of which I have seen off AC), and friends have dived with those many times off the coast of Natal. The only one that I have dived with that I treat with great caution is the tiger, the only shark I have come across that really does attack unprovoked, especially at dusk. I recall a tense decompression stop at Pillar Corals (just outside Hol Chan) late one afternoon when I had two tigers cruising around for some 40 minutes.

That said, with one possible exception (and I'm not sure of that) I have never heard of a shark attack other than at the surface. Unfortunately that is somewhere every diver hopes to be at some point during the dive!

" The trouble with internet quotes is its difficult to determine if they are genuine." Abraham Lincoln....Honest!
Shark attack talk seems to always annoy me. I'm trying to analyze why, mostly untrue and designed to incite people, usually people that don't dive and don't understand what an unrealistic fear it is especially in a place like Ambergris Caye where we have so few sharks. I wouldn't post about Lion attacks in the mangroves,we don't have lions and like wise mentioning a Great White is irrelevant and you would think after 24 years and 8000 dives off the Ambergris Shores if we had a Shark problem of any kind I would have had at least one incident.

In the 30 years I have been here, sometimes in the dive industry, sometimes a recreational diver and often just as a resident I have never heard of a bull shark attack in Belizean waters.

The occasional story of any mild harm I have heard of has been a few abrasions when tussling with nurse sharks - and since I don't think people should touch or feed the sharks I don't have any sympathy for the people involved.

to Elbert and Amanda for keeping it real...