Sharm El Sheikh Shark Attack - rumour control

[scaldatore]

Crowley,

Thank you for your efforts to post accurate and objective information. Highly appreciate your professionalism. I left Sharm on Dec 2, it was the end of my vacation, was not caused by sharks , finishing my fifth vacation there. Looking for next one, next year. Strogly expect this wave of fear is short, and anyone will keep her/his jobs amd even more jobs will appear in the area!

Lot of compassion for victims and their families. Perhaps authorities might want to warn people about nothing is granted when you're in the sea.

I just looked on internet for fatal flight crashes statistics (ntsb.gov/aviation/Paxfatal.htm - Accidents Involving Passenger Fatalities - U.S. Airlines - this includes ONLY US Airlines!!! - and fatal shark attacks statistics (flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/statsw.htm ISAF Statistics for the Top Ten Worldwide Locations with the Highest Shark Attack Activity (1999-2009). The finding is EXACTELY as I expected: it's safer to swim in areas with sharks than to fly. The conclusion of this is even funnier, but not quite practical: it's safer to swim to your favorite vacation spot than to flight there. :blinking:

Taking the figures for 2009: 61 shark attacks = 5 fatal + 56 non fatal vs 45 fatalities in air crash (Remmeber this is ONLY US airlines).

 

[Daggad]

If I was to swim to Sharm then it would definatly be a fatality due to fatigue....

 

[Crowley]

Shark nets have been proposed but according to the latest CDWS statement they will only be practical in certain locations without either causing substantial environmental damage or killing sharks... it will take time to develop the plans...

Everything will recover - just the immediate few months are of some concern. Yes, we are thinking worst case scenario but then if that doesn't happen, we'll all feel a lot better!

As for cancellations - in the immediate aftermath I was told that all Danish tour operators had cancelled or re-routed their guests. Something to do with Danish insurance being entirely government backed or something. I don't know if this has been revoked or whether or not it was inaccurate... but for sure business is down for the time of year. As I say - it's going to take a few weeks to see the final outcome.

Cheers

C.

 

[Jai Bar]

Crowley,

I just looked on internet for fatal flight crashes statistics (ntsb.gov/aviation/Paxfatal.htm - Accidents Involving Passenger Fatalities - U.S. Airlines - this includes ONLY US Airlines!!! - and fatal shark attacks statistics (flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/statsw.htm ISAF Statistics for the Top Ten Worldwide Locations with the Highest Shark Attack Activity (1999-2009). The finding is EXACTELY as I expected: it's safer to swim in areas with sharks than to fly. The conclusion of this is even funnier, but not quite practical: it's safer to swim to your favorite vacation spot than to flight there. :blinking:

Taking the figures for 2009: 61 shark attacks = 5 fatal + 56 non fatal vs 45 fatalities in air crash (Remmeber this is ONLY US airlines).

I don't think a direct comparison of the number of fatalities is accurate, without normalizing the results (e.g. Airline fatalities divided by number of passengers).

With shark attacks it would be more difficult, since it looks more difficult to estimate the total number of "travelers", or people who were under risk of shark attack.

But just to make the point, let's assume that ONLY US airlines had something like 800,000,000 passengers in 2009, with 45 fatalities, and Sharm had 2 fatalities with, say, 1,000,000-2,000,000 visitors that actually entered the water and risked a potential shark attack?

Looks to me it is about 2 orders of magnitude safer to fly in an american airliner than swimming in Sharm

Shark nets are a disaster.I think in South Africa they've realized it is better to take them off. These nets catch anything without indiscrimination: sharks, dolphins, turtles, fish, humans etc. etc.

On the other hand, places like Sharm are paying an enormous ecological price for the increasing number of tourists bringing lots of $$$: building zillions of hotels, resorts, roads, restaurants, marine activities of all sorts etc etc take their toll on the environment- including the sea- so the ecological impact of an "Anti Shark" net is probably negligible when considering the incoming revenues from tourism :blinking:

 

[scaldatore]

I don't think a direct comparison of the number of fatalities is accurate, without normalizing the results (e.g. Airline fatalities divided by number of passengers).

With shark attacks it would be more difficult, since it looks more difficult to estimate the total number of "travelers", or people who were under risk of shark attack.

But just to make the point, let's assume that ONLY US airlines had something like 800,000,000 passengers in 2009, with 45 fatalities, and Sharm had 2 fatalities with, say, 1,000,000-2,000,000 visitors that actually entered the water and risked a potential shark attack?

Looks to me it is about 2 orders of magnitude safer to fly in an american airliner than swimming in Sharm

Shark nets are a disaster.I think in South Africa they've realized it is better to take them off. These nets catch anything without indiscrimination: sharks, dolphins, turtles, fish, humans etc. etc.

On the other hand, places like Sharm are paying an enormous ecological price for the increasing number of tourists bringing lots of $$$: building zillions of hotels, resorts, roads, restaurants, marine activities of all sorts etc etc take their toll on the environment- including the sea- so the ecological impact of an "Anti Shark" net is probably negligible when considering the incoming revenues from tourism :blinking:

Jai,

You're totally right it should be normalized somehow. This is not scientific - I just wanted show perpahs swimming in sea, wehre it might be sharks - probably is similarly as dangerous as taking a plane. Probably little less, may be little more. It really does not matter so much - important is the idea!

I got US crashes because it was first reliable info source I found. PLEASE, NO OFFENSE TO ANY US AIRLINE! Just got this data fast! Since I compared it with worldwide shark attack fatalities, I sould consider plane crashes fatalities worldwide, which probably are at least 3 or 4 times more than US ones. So there is much to say here, if we want be very accurate (which by the way, we can't since we do not know how the different sets of data are collected - they might have different error types...........).

Cheers!

 

[Crowley]

we probably could include normalised data sets for people who get squished by hippos, mauled by their own pet dog, or die on the toilet due to unnecessary straining....

Statistics are a good way of keeping statisticians employed but the reality is often different. I could tell you that there have been (these numbers are purely imaginary) 10 fatal shark attacks in Sharm over 40 years with approximately 15 million tourists. That makes Sharm sound safe really - but of those 15 million, 10 million visited in the last 7 years and 4 attacks happened in the last week. Now it doesn't sound quite so great. Even if you apply the real numbers, it is statistically as safe to swim in the Red Sea as it always has been - but with something like 600,000 dives happening in the last year (not including swimmers and snorkellers) it's probably actually slightly safer. Throw some dead sheep overboard and now it is statistically more likely you will get eaten by a shark 1 month after Eid al adhr (by the way, this is not the first time livestock have been dumped overboard).

Another example - in the month after the bombings in 2005, Sharm was empty of tourists yet it was statistically probably one of the safest places on the planet. If a British Airways aeroplane crashes, everybody will pick a different airline, yet the statistical likelihood of two planes from the same airline crashing in the next year are miniscule.

The point is, statistics are meaningless unless other influential factors are taken into account. Is there a defective part to the plane or a maintenance guy who is consistently lax in his important work? Statistically, there is unlikely to be a fatal shark attack in Sharm for the next n years, where n is a number greater than 2 - but that does not take into account the prescence of an angry female longimanus with an appetite for people - and she's still in the area. If the beaches are opened too soon, the statistical likelihood of another fatal attack in the next week is approximately 100%.

25% of what I write at any given time is only 75% of the 63% of what I really wanted to say.

Cheers

C.

 

[Christian]

Christian: I saw the OWT found dead in Sweden some years ago. They said it could have been brought there on a ship and dumped as a joke.. But of course. Sometimes tropical fish enter our waters. (The Mola Mola is quite frequent). But when they get here they are very slow and dies fast.

Actually, it wasn't found dead as it say on Wiki. It was spotted swimming around first, but in a rather bad state. It was later found dead. I have never heard about the "joke theory".

 

[MatD]

Just wondering if there is some kind of sightings board that is kept. If so has the pattern on sightings increased over the last weeks/months years etc..?

 

[alcoxe]

what about those who die from a mosquito bite!!!

the biggest killer in the world, is one of the smallest!!

 

[Christian]

Just wondering if there is some kind of sightings board that is kept. If so has the pattern on sightings increased over the last weeks/months years etc..?

Dr Elke Bojanowski runs a OWT research program, identifying individuals and sightings.

http://www.hepca.com/projects/Longimanus Project/feature-draft sharks.pdf

My guess would be that she has some sort of compilation of sightings through the years.