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    • Olympic surfers brave dangerous waves, but what about the sharks?
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    Olympic surfers brave dangerous waves, but what about the sharks?

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    The powerful waves and sharp coral reef at the Olympic surfing location in Teahupo’o, Tahiti are the most obvious dangers. But not the only fears.

    There are sharks lurking.

    Just like the stories of surfers.

    The film “Soul Surfer” tells the story of Bethany Hamilton, a professional surfer whose left arm was bitten off in a shark attack in 2003.

    In 2015, during the finals of a professional surfing event in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa, Australian Mick Fanning fought a shark. The confrontation was captured on video.

    And in June, former professional surfer Tamayo Perry was killed in a shark attack in Hawaii.

    Yet a 2022 study on surfer-shark interactions found that, after surveying nearly 400 surfers, 44% said seeing a shark would not deter them from getting in the water.

    “The fact is, those guys are going to be back in the water very soon,” George H. Burgess, former director of the International Shark Attack File, told ESPN after the 2015 attack on Fanning. Burgess added that he believed surfers would say, “‘My time wasn’t up. And damn, the next wave was awesome, man.'”

    There are no recorded shark attacks at the Olympic surfing location. But the same cannot be said for Tahiti.

    In 2019, a tourist was attacked by a whitetip shark off the coast of Tahiti, which ripped open the 35-year-old woman’s chest.

    Tahitian surfer Michel Bourez took to social media in 2020 to report that a hammerhead shark tried to bite him while he was foiling.

    Tiger sharks are among the most aggressive sharks toward humans. But in 75 years, there has only been one documented attack in Tahiti waters. That attack occurred last year.

    Wait a minute, sharks are afraid of surfers?

    According to Michael Heithaus, a marine ecologist at Florida International University (FIU) who specializes in predator-prey interactions, cows kill more people than sharks.

    He shares the fact that shark attacks are unusual, to put them in perspective. In Teahupo’o, he said, most reef sharks are gray or blacktip.

    “Those are usually species that are much more worried about us than we should ever be worried about them,” said Heithaus, who is also dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences & Education at FIU. “So there’s nothing about it that worries me.

    “And if you look at French Polynesia and even around Tahiti, there are a lot of places where people go looking for sharks to swim with. That’s an advantage for the country in terms of tourism.”

    According to the newspaper Mongabay.com, a shark sanctuary has existed in French Polynesian waters for 20 years.

    Still, there are reports like that of Bourez, the Tahitian surfer, who took to Instagram in 2020 to report an alleged hammerhead shark attack.

    Fifteen minutes after the incident, Bourez wrote, he was back in the water.

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